New York City – Last time we checked in with Armand Van Helden life was uncommonly good for the Manhattan-based DJ/artist/producer.

It was springtime and he’d just been nominated for a Grammy Award in the new remixer category. He’d secured an artist deal with Sony-distributed Ruffhouse Records. His remixes for artists like Tori Amos and Sneaker Pimps had kicked off a cult of personality in England (called Speed Garage) that saw a cottage industry of rubberized basslines arise from clubland. To put a bow on this package of notoriety, a penthouse apartment overlooking Times Square afforded Van Helden a view of Manhattan’s most famous stretch of real estate. But most importantly for Van Helden, it also housed the project studio of mostly Roland and Akai gear that produces his work.

Fifteen months later it can still be said that life is good, although there have been some fairly drastic changes. For one, Van Helden is no longer a major label artist. With his Ruffhouse debut – the hip-hop track-oriented Sampleslaya: Enter the Meat Market – unable to plough new commercial terrain (though club and party jocks loved the snaky “Ultrafunkula” 12-inch), Van Helden soon became free of his Sony obligations.

Nonetheless, his follow-up effort 2Future4U – released on Armed Records, the new indie imprint co-owned by Van Helden and his manager Neil Petricone – put smiles back on the faces of househeads. From the gritty saw sample and brutal groove of “Necessary Evil” to the gorgeous deep moments of “Flowerz” (featuring Urban Soul’s Roland Clark) and the boinging big beats of “The Boogie Monster,” 2Future4U for the most part realizes Van Helden’s quest for inspired diversity. Of course, European pop hit “U Don’t Know Me” – featuring a memorable vocal performance by Duane Harden – became the kiss-off dancefloor anthem of the year. No doubt, it was a development that put a crooked grin on the face of the iconoclastic Van Helden.

His living/work environment even changed. Perhaps sharing the less ostentatious approach of his current musical pursuits, Van Helden’s new 21^st Street digs allow him much more room, but offer an almost industrial vibe. Thousands of records line one wall, a DJ setup inhabits a corner, a control booth sits at one end, various records – from old disco albums to Rappin’ Rodney (as in Dangerfield) – litter the floor. Van Helden’s three-room living quarters make up the other end of the apartment.

These days Van Helden devotes most of his time to his next album – another house-oriented effort featuring more collaborations and musical left turns – and his new label venture. In addition to releasing future Van Helden albums, Armed will also venture into the apparel market. Expect to see the moon-and-star Armed logo a lot. Additionally, Van Helden plays select DJ gigs, like the spinoff-as-boxing-match he recently did in England with Fatboy Slim.

In spending several hours at the House of Van Helden – we also conducted a photo shoot and an exclusive video interview for the DJ Times website – we got to sift through his thousands of records and inspect his studio and DJ setups. (They include the Pioneer DJM-500, Roland SP-808, Akai S3000XL, Mackie 32*8, Roland XP80, and, of course, Technics 1200s.) But mostly we got to kick it with perhaps the most-copied, most-admired producer in club music, an original at the peak of his powers. It went like this.

DJ Times: Last time we did this you were overlooking all the tourists in Times Square. Why the move?
Van Helden: The other place was comfortable, but cozy. If I had to expand, it would’ve been a problem. It was a great space, incredible view of Times Square, but I needed a bigger spot. Luckily, a friend of mine was moving and I was able to move in. This place is real self-sufficient like the other one, but if I ran into years worth of more records I wouldn’t have had any place to put it in there. I would’ve been engulfed in vinyl.

DJ Times: How did that “battle” gig with Fatboy Slim come off?
Van Helden: Great. It was really a DJ gig/mock battle. We had 5,000 people in [London’s] Brixton Academy and there was a warm-up DJ and then we came out in boxing gloves and robes. There’s a slowly rotating boxing ring in the middle of the floor.

DJ Times: Like a Yes concert.
Van Helden: Yeah, it was kind of funny like that. I came out to “The Rocky Theme” and he comes out to one of his tracks, “The Rockefeller Skank.” We come out like we’re serious, like we’re evil. We get in our corners and the announcer announces everything. It’s set up like a real fight. We face off and go eye to eye like we’re going to hurt each other. We flip a coin to see who goes on first. So, I go first.

DJ Times: What kind of set did you play?
Van Helden: A house set, mixed. It’s mostly other people’s records and a couple tracks of my own. In my DJ sets I don’t really try to spin anything that’s on an upcoming project because that almost dates it. I’d rather keep it under wraps. Most DJs are like, “How could you do that? Why don’t you play it out to see the reaction?” I never do that. It’s a “no-wine-before-its-time” kind of thing [laughs]. So anyway, I did an hour and 15, he did an hour and 15 and then we went ambidextrous, which is record after record.

DJ Times: So you were mixing out of his records and he was mixing out of yours?
Van Helden: Exactly, back to back, record for record – and that’s really the fun part of the gig. It’s not necessarily the most crowd-pleasing part, even though you can flip them out and get serious reaction, but the whole point is to blow up the crowd. Mostly we were playing older records.

DJ Times: What were you playing?
Van Helden: I started it off with “Mama Said Knock You Out” and then he would play “Professional Widow” then I’d play Mighty Dub Katz. Then he’d go for some acid-y breakbeat like some old Prodigy record, then I’d play “Acid Crash.” We’d go back, forward, past, present, all over the road. But it was good, just fun. They had closeup screens.

DJ Times: So you’re coming out like Oscar De La Hoya?
Van Helden: Yeah, it’s crazy and the crowd was going apeshit. They’re givin’ it. The hype was…they were just mental. I mean, I’d done speech and drama classes in school, but nothing like in front of 5,000 people. We were acting like we hated each other, but by the end of the night the people could see that there was extreme admiration for each other.

DJ Times: How do you pull off an event like that and make it cool and not cheesy?  
Van Helden: The fine line is the actual content of the music. I play whatever I would play if I played anywhere. And that’s how I keep it real what I do. And the same goes for Norman. I mean, he rocked it. You know, he does what he does and my set is not as peak-ish as his – obviously. It’s two different things. It’s Big Beat vs. house, in a sense, but I think that’s good. I think a lot of people who might’ve come to see Norman Cook and not me heard me play and they might’ve heard one house track that they liked and maybe went out and bought. And for the househeads who came, maybe Norman played something that sparked them. He plays house in his set as well. It’s not just Big Beat; he mixes it up.

DJ Times: When he played at The Roseland in Manhattan this last time he opened with your track “Necessary Evil,” the song with the saw.
Van Helden: Yeah, actually, we didn’t get to that one this time.

DJ Times: When you do a gig like that does it kind of bring dance music back to the old days in the sense that it was cool to play different genres in one set? Now it’s so segmented.
Van Helden: It is. That’s why I did the gig. I’m not trying to DJ that much, but the caliber of the event was big, the media attention in the U.K. was big and that was swaying me. Plus with my album out, it helps. I don’t tour, you understand. I’m an artist that doesn’t tour. I barely make videos. I don’t make any commitments. I won’t do just anything that a normal artist will do. I’m not a true artist to form, so in a way this gig is like a tour. It was a performance. Whether it was me or Louie Vega up there playing records – and believe me, I’m not saying I had anything magical to give – but the main part of it was the back and forth of the ambidextrous set.

DJ Times: Do you find from your travels evidence that DJ culture and dance music is growing at the roots in America?
Van Helden: It is getting better. It’s definitely growing. It’s not going down. But I think the quality is. The general aspect of diversity that the States used to have has lost its presence. The States have gone very neighborhood-ish with the whole scene. In other worlds, it’s going area by area, which I think is very unhealthy. You have DJs that won’t play a record because it’s a New York record. Like, “We’re from Chicago, we won’t play a New York record” or “We’re techno DJs, we won’t play a house record.”

DJ Times: What about the clubs?
Van Helden: The best thing that’s out in the States is not the clubs. I mean, in New York, Body & Soul is fine, but, for example, they’re not playing any Detroit records in there. I’ve got a beef with them as well. I love deep house, I love classics, I love a lot of the Afro Soul, but is there anything else to life? They’ll never play any tough, tough records in there. It just won’t happen.

DJ Times: It’s like to progressive places often just play the progressive stuff…
Van Helden: That’s what I mean. But Body & Soul is just one drop in the water and the water is all that progressive stuff. All the big money-making clubs, if it don’t have a drumroll, it don’t play. If it’s not drug music, it doesn’t work. If it’s funky and happy, good; sexual, drinking environment, it’s no good. They don’t want it. I don’t know how it’s gotten to this level.

DJ Times: So where do you find your musical diversity?
Van Helden: The raves of America are still real. They mix it up. They got Bad Boy Bill next to Roni Size next to anything. The rooms are connected. You’ve got your variations under one roof and I still play them on occasion. And I’ll go to keep abreast of things and keep up with the 15-year-olds to see where their head is at, see where their game is at. I think it’s important for the people who have been around for a little bit to hang out with them to an extent to teach and show them where we’ve been because I don’t think they know why there is rave. I don’t think they know where it comes from or that they even care. I think they just go because they can’t get into a club so they go to a rave and they’re free to be themselves. But the problem is that they don’t know the history of the music – and that kind of disturbs me.

DJ Times: Do you think by and large that’s the case or do you hear the DJs are seeking out some of the old records?
Van Helden: Sometimes they’re pulling them out. I notice a lot of the rave DJs will bring out some of the older stuff. But if you go back to some of the earlier raves here in the States or Lenny Dee and Frankie Bones, I mean, those guys know music! I’m sure they’ve got 3,000 or 4,000 early, deep house records. I’m sure they do. Even though they play hardcore techno today, I bet they do. But I’m saying rave kids don’t know this now. They just know that when they go into Satellite Records in New York or wherever they just look at one section and break. To me, that’s a negative development for America. It’s important to know your history. It’s key.

DJ Times: Last time we talked you stated that you were “at war” with house music.
Van Helden: Yeah. It’s still the same. I’m generally the same. But as I move forward, I notice small things – tremors, I call them – there are always tremors in my game. Maybe I feel real militant for awhile and then I realize that it’s not necessary because there’s a lot of love out there. But at the same time, there’s shit that bothers me in the whole circuit. At the end of the day, there’s a lot of ignorance out there. If I can’t contribute to shit, at least I can contribute in some small amount in opening up somebody’s head. The frustrations stem from that. It’s like, “open up your mind.” Everyone’s entitled to his opinions, but I’m saying realize that there’s a wonderful world of music – all music. My record collection is a definite showing of my personality. I got all types of music. There ain’t any kind of music that I don’t have. 

DJ Times: Yeah, I saw that Rappin’ Rodney Dangerfield record lying around.
Van Helden: There you go! [Laughs.] I got all types of vinyl. I don’t exclude anything. A lot of hip-hop producers are very much in that same bracket. Yeah, they’re hip-hop producers, but if you go to their house and you see what records they got – they got everything.

DJ Times: Well, that comes with the territory looking for sound sources.
Van Helden: Exactly. A lot of it is from digging in the crates and from sampling because they find sounds from anything, but they got Pat Metheny albums next to honky tonk piano next to Lawrence Welk next to The Smurfs. They just got records and appreciate it. Like the Beatnuts, that record “Off the Books” that’s a sample off the “Electric Company” album – a little kid’s song. Busta Rhymes’ “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See,” that’s Seals & Crofts’ “Sweet Green Fields” – a hippie record. I mean, who would grab a bassline from a Seals & Crofts record? That goes to show you that they’re appreciating music, the full spectrum of it – not color, not scene, not trend.

DJ Times: You’re much bigger commercially overseas than in the States. What’s
it like when you do DJ gigs in Europe?
Van Helden: It’s great. Overseas is, obviously, great. Everybody bigs up Europe, every American DJ, but it is what it is. Not that sales matter, but it just goes to show you that you can do an underground record and it’ll go pop over there. The Bucketheads can sell a million copies and in the States it can’t break 20,000. That’s the level of what they go for over there. It’s an extremely high difference. House music is king in Europe. It’s bigger than hip hop. Hip hop’s gotten bigger and it’s grown extensively along with R&B, big time in England, Germany and France. But still if I go to, like, Italy or Greece it’s all house. They’ve got their local pop artists and I’ll be on the charts right next to them –believe it or not. It’s crazy. Out here, I barely grace Billboard. I mean, Billboard’s so…you know, they politic it bigtime.

DJ Times: So why do you think that’s the case? Why doesn’t America embrace all the good underground dance music that’s being made here in the States?
Van Helden: In America, the biggest issue – and I’m not afraid to say it, either – the biggest block, the biggest thing that stops what I do and what people like me do is radio. Radio works on some old caveman tactics of music. They have a set way of their game. It’s totally non-public support. It’s strictly business, strictly business. There is no love for the underdog in radio – fuck him. It’s sad. Radio is really the problem, the biggest enemy to dance music in general. The whole thing is a fucking joke. It’s the biggest joke I’ve ever seen.

DJ Times: I’ve had this conversation with people from a lot of indie dance labels that had incredible vocal records, but they couldn’t get them heard beyond the club crowd. They all have the same story: “We can’t compete with legalized payola; we can’t afford to get our records played. It’s impossible.”
Van Helden: It is. They’re right on the money. Anybody that’s really in the game and in the know can tell you that radio is the ugliest thing in the way. I may be like one soldier against…against…

DJ Times: The big radio death star?
Van Helden: Yeah, I like that – an unnecessary evil.

DJ Times: So what is the difference between DJing here and in Europe?
Van Helden: First thing, they know the records in Europe. You play tracks, I mean, underground tracks and not too many people are going to know it, but you play it and they’re like, “Yeahhh!” There’s reaction. You’re like, “How did they fuckin’ know that record?” They know it. They know exactly what you’re doing. They come to hear you. They know what you’re about. They just know what’s going on. So when you play, you feel like [Funkmaster] Flex up there. That’s the kind of reaction you get, like the material has been on Hot-97 rotating every hour. It’s just crazy love in the room. You’re working them, but it’s pretty easy. You just play what you like, play who you are. Play 100-percent who you are as a DJ, even take ’em left and they’ll go there with you.

DJ Times: And here?
Van Helden: Here I'll play a set and it's like I could be playing to an empty room – not all the time. If I'm playing at a rave they're a little more in tuned. But generally, if I play a nightclub anywhere they don't care. I could be DJ Anybody. Maybe there are 25 people who come out to see me – you know, fans – but that's it.

DJ Times: Why aren’t U.S. clubs down with what you’re playing?
Van Helden: Where I’ve progressed to I’ve left them in the fuckin’ dust. I move way too fast, I think, for Americans’ speed. When Americans attach themselves to something new, they don’t want to let go. Look at freestyle. I was Mr. Freestyle in ’87, ’88. Around ’89, I let it go for house music. I was like, “It’s tired, it’s tacky, it’s tired.” But I left it behind for a reason. But I love it! You play me a Stevie B record right now and I’ll cry. I have intense memories of freestyle, but I let it go because it was time to more forward.

DJ Times: What are a couple favorite cities and clubs to play?
Van Helden: There really is no favorite, man…well, I’ll tell you. In Paris, the party called Respect. It’s extremely underground. They get all types of DJs. It’s a little too mellow for me; I like a little more energy in my nightclub. But the phattest thing is the idea of what they’re doing. It’s free. The liquor ain’t free, but it’s free. They don’t care how you dress, if you’re a thug or not a thug…It’s a respect for the music, which is great.

DJ Times: How about England?
Van Helden: Bugged Out is a good spot in Liverpool. It’s surprising everybody right now because it’s extreme underground in a huge, super club. I mean, Ministry of Sound can’t pull it off. London can’t pull it off. There are crazy clubs in Greece. Germany’s really good. The Germans always have had a little sterile-ness to their vibe. They’re a little sterile to their game, but they can give it up in huge numbers. They’re going for it, but they’re on and off. The Dutch are like that, too – on and off. Like the Dutch will have a really tacky scene and then they’ll go back to the new underground stuff. Consistently, England and France are right on their game right now.

DJ Times: Anything in the United States?
Van Helden: I’ll be honest – I live in New York and I can’t speak for the rest of America. I love South Beach in Miami, though. That’s one place I go and I just love it. Believe me. That’s my second favorite place in the States. I can’t say it’s better than New York, but I love it there. I have an extremely good time when I go. There’s something about the energy of that city. I’m very lucky there overall. If I go down there with three or four guys just to get wild, I’m just very good there. My game is on! [Laughs.]

DJ Times: What do you make of the club environment in New York now? The clubs keep getting leaned on and closed.
Van Helden: In the New World Order, that’s eliminating the chaos of New York. I loved New York when graffiti was on the trains and I loved it for its urban decay. I love chaos and adventure and all that’s being wiped off the face of Manhattan. It’s a slow process, but it’s happening. At the end of the day, it’s about money. It’s capitalism at its finest.

DJ Times: Or at its worst.
Van Helden: Or at its worst, whatever the case may be. If I was to be mayor, you can be Koch or you can be Dinkins or you can be like, “Yo! I’m gonna make mad dollars on the side.” I think really what’s happened is that there’s tons of money to be made from this town. If they clean it up and they take away the ma-and-pa aspect of the way New York used to be and they just make it the big money machine, there’ll be plenty of money for the corporations. It’s a big sellout, like Malcolm X said. Something’s gonna change. Something’s gotta happen. I could be wrong to say, but the youth generation ain’t gonna take it. They’re taking a lot as it is. They’re gonna explode, just like the ’60s. There’s a lot of tension between the youth culture and the control culture. It’s scaring me because it’s becoming everything that I’m not. As a culture, DJ culture is in the extreme against that.

DJ Times: Is there any political power in DJ culture?
Van Helden: The DJs are powerful. Whether they want it or not, DJs have the power to change people. It’s speaking without speaking. Don’t know when, don’t know how, but there’s gonna be a clash. It might be racial, it might not, but it’ll be youth. I think the racial shit is over, thank god. Most of the kids go to mixed schools. You can be a white Herbie from Connecticut and step into a black club anywhere, nobody cares anymore. They’ll think you’re a record executive [laughs].

DJ Times: Why have tensions cooled in that respect?
Van Helden: I think hip hop is the force that’s bringing down racism, believe it or not. There’s still a lot of ignorance. But suburban kids love that hip hop. It’s wonderful. I think it’s great hip hop can cross into that realm. At the same time, I’m a soldier in house music trying to get that same vibe that hip hop has. There’s always going to be ignorance, but the beauty of hip hop is that it’s killed a lot of racism. Every day we progress forward.

DJ Times: So you’re saying that music ultimately brings people together?
Van Helden: Yeah, and that’s my point about DJs having the power to bring races, classes – rich and poor – together.

DJ Times: What kinds of DJs impress you?
Van Helden: It’s funny. I’ll be in a club and meet the local DJ and he might know who I am and he’ll be playing real corny, middle-ground mainstream shit, mixing it up playing house, hip hop, reggae, classics, soul, funk. He’ll think, “Oh no, Armand just caught me out there,” but I’m totally into it. That’s exactly what I want to hear. I’m like, “Yo! Much love, much respect” because he’s playing everything. Man, just play who you are. Don’t think you gotta always play a serious house set; you might lose the floor. Don’t do that. Play fuckin’ Will Smith “Wild, Wild West.” I don’t give a shit. It’s a party crowd. It’s a good vibe. Go into “Hot Music” or something. Play what you play and play what the crowd wants to hear. Teach if you want, but I enjoy a DJ set that crosses all of those. I like that DJ who has the three cases of three different types of music.

DJ Times: In regard to the 2Future4U album, has your production approach changed at all?
Van Helden: What I’m doing now is going back to minimal studio style. I never went crazy with gear, never, ever, whether I have a track that does a lot – like the India “Runaway” remix – or one that doesn’t. Now I’m going back to the raw house essence. Like the Basement Jaxx album is the opposite of what I’m trying to do. That album [Remedy (Astralwerks)] is extremely tripped out, tons of little quirky programs flowing. It’s almost like Basement Jaxx is abstract jazz and all I’m doing is going back to Africa with drums. That’s how I can describe it. If you listen to Steve Miller or Steely Dan, it’s simple. You’ve got a groove and it can go left for a minute and then it comes back, but it’s nothing too intricate.

DJ Times: What was different about doing this album?
Van Helden: I played around with distortion, which is an aspect I never had done a lot. I distorted the tracks. It’s amazing when you finish a song and crank the gains on it and then put it back to DAT again or run it through a DJ mixer. It sounds fucked up. It gives it its own compression. It gives it a grittiness, a street feel that it didn’t have before. It works. It’s a simple effect. Throw it up with the gains maxed, peaking with the red. A lot of techno guys do it. It’s nothing new in terms of what they do, but it was different for me. When I was doing speed garage, I was distorting my basslines, but the rest of the track was clean.

DJ Times: In your mind, what song is an example of your stripped-down approach?
Van Helden: “U Don’t Know Me” was a perfect example of putting two simple things together – the beats from Jaydee “Plastic Dreams” and a disco loop from Carrie Lucas. Wow, that’s really difficult. It wasn’t. But it’s about how the song feels and that’s what I was going to. It wasn’t about me saying, “How can I trick ’em out? How can I amaze them with this new studio technique?”  It was more about how simple and effective I can be.

DJ Times: How do you work with vocalists, like a Duane Harden?
Van Helden: A lot of times I come up with the groove on my own. I play it for them and they like it or they don’t. Sometimes in a day, I’ll make three or four grooves. There’s nothing to them, just the feel and basic element of the track. The vocalist will hear a few and pick a track. I want them to like it, too, because they’re going to have to hear it [laughs]. I record them very ghetto – like I do everything – in my studio. I never go to a big studio. It’s all done here, home-cooking style. After I record the vocals, then I attempt to develop the whole song. That’s the work. Making the groove and doing the lyrics and singing the song is not that hard. Putting it all together and knowing what parts are going to go where, that’s the mission.

DJ Times: What I like about 2Future4U is that you’ve taken on a lot of different directions of dance music and done them well. For example, “Boogie Monster” is real big beat; “Flowerz” is more like a deep, Body & Soul vibe. Where does that come from? 
Van Helden: I’d been going to Body & Soul and before that I went to Shelter. I was deep house for ages. To do a record like “Flowerz” might be avant-garde for me, but I got about any deep house record you can think of. “Flowerz” was something I wanted to reach out to for awhile. Initially, my first records were deep house and then I started experimenting with tribal and progressive and it expanded from there.

DJ Times: Which DJs or producers are you feeling right now?
Van Helden: Right now anything on Roulé is just my favorite. Anything from them I get excited. I can’t find a better label. In terms of artists, I’d say Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk, Junior Sanchez. Chicago is on for me now.

DJ Times: Why didn’t this record come out on Sony? And how was the last major label experience like for you?
Van Helden: The Ruffhouse thing? They actually did a pretty good job for the Sampleslaya record, for what it was. You gotta understand: I don’t tour; I don’t do radio promotions; I don’t do shit. I’m the worst artist a label could possibly sign because I won’t make any commitments. I won’t do anything to support my own record. To them,  they’re like, “Well, if he won’t work to support his own record, why should we work for him?” Any major label is like that. Ruffhouse was a little large for what I was trying to do. We overstepped our game, the dance game. If you pull up a SoundScan chart, the only people who have made any kind of impact within the past two years are Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and Prodigy.

DJ Times: How did you overstep your bounds?
Van Helden: They understood where dance was and Ruffhouse was ready to take it to the next level. They were like, “We got Josh Wink, King Britt, we’re going to the next level.” It didn’t happen, just didn’t happen. Again, in the States it’s all because of radio. But, I got off the label, got them to drop me – no bad blood. So then we started Armed Records instantly.

DJ Times: What’s the vision for Armed?
Van Helden: Basically, the vision for Armed is to stay grassroots. The label is basically me, in terms of imaging and material. It’s just a way to own the music again. It’s a way to own my masters. In the future, anyone who wants a record from me they’ll license it so we always own it. It’s a way to own my music, which is the right way to do it.

DJ Times: Are you going to entertain the notion of bringing in other artists or producers?
Van Helden: Here and there, but we’re not going to go too crazy with that because every person you bring into a label turns it more into “General Hospital” – drama after drama. So it’s me and my manager Neil Petricone in the game and that’s the best way to keep it. 

DJ Times: You’ll be doing a clothing
Van Helden: We’re going to blow up the Armed gear and take it to the next level. I’m good friends with Mark Ecko, who runs Ecko Unlimited. He’s a young guy and he’s amazing. The fashion end is also a creative thing. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for awhile. I’m going to make an attempt. I’ll be doing full design. As far as the imaging and sound, that’s my department. Everything else – collecting money, dealing with anything on the business side – that’s Neil.

DJ Times: How many remixes will you be doing this year?
Van Helden: I’ve done a couple already that haven’t come out. I’m trying to stay away from them, but sometimes they pop up and if the timing’s right I’ll do them.

DJ Times: Is it more about finding the time, getting the right project or getting the right money?
Van Helden: All of the above [laughs].

DJ Times: Tell me about the next album.
Van Helden: By the time this story comes out, it’ll be done. It’s untitled. We’re looking for a release date in October. It’ll be like 2Future4U. The BPMs will be pretty close. It’s going to be an Armand Van Helden house album, but it’ll be like the last album in terms of the scheme of what it is. There will be a variation. This one reaches out to some left field type shit. I did a song with Common that’s a very good-feeling house record, really a hip-house record. There’s another track called “Little Black Spiders” that has a very rock feel, like if Prodigy did house. It’s bizarre. I’m reaching out to different areas, but that’s how I like it.

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