We bring you another serious musician with some serious soul n funk. Great Dj with a wide range of styles from Lounge, House, Breaks all in the key of Jazz, soul and funk. Tristan Dee is one dude with some serious knowledge about music from the 60's to now. This can also be heard in his productions which you seriously need to hear. For some samples of his productions click www.myspace.com/tristandee. We definitely recomend you check this guy out, especially if you dig a lot of feel n good vibes in ya food. Also check out the fine mix we have received from the man right here
Where were you born?
I was born in Bad Saulgau - a small, South German town near the Lake Of Constance
Whats your real name and stage name?
My real name is Andreas Rimmele and I chose Tristan Dee as my stage name
Is there any meaning behind Tristan Dee?
Well, I could say Richard Wagner (Tristan & Isolde) was my inspiration - but it wasn't ;-) When I studied in England there was a radio show hosted by a certain
Tristan Bolitho and since I liked the show and the name very much I chose Tristan. Dee comes from dj ...
At what age did you get introduced to learning music?
My brothers (12 & 20 years older) had jazz bands and they would rehearse at our home, so I grew up listening to a lot of jazz and easy listening. In school I had recorder lessons at the age of eight, I had to learn reading notes then.
What instrument did you first learn to play?
At the age of nine I had to learn the clarinet, at 14 saxophone - but I never liked reed instruments ...
At 13 I had my first guitar lessons and a member of my brother's band would show me the jazz progressions on the guitar.
So how many instruments can you play now, and do you have a favourite?
I can play the guitar and bass guitar, I dropped the reed instruments a long time ago... I can hardly play the piano but I'm able to handle a digital audio workstation ;-)
Who were your influences locally and international as you were growing up?
firstly of course my brothers and their bands which ranged from Swing over Gipsy Jazz to Big Band music. My eldest brother also had a great record collection which influenced me a lot - Quincy Jones, Jimmie Smith, The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band and stuff like that. I also became a Beatles fan when I was 10 and collected all their albums.
Now you have a great knowledge in music from the past ranging from jazz, funk, soul to RnB, would you say these are your favourite genres in music?
absolutely! Basically "black music" and all the derivatives, the music's got to have soul!
Have you played in Bands and if so, what kind of bands were they?
When I was 13 I joined the school big band and I played with several big bands on clarinet & saxophone till I was 19. My friends and I formed an own band when I was 19 - I would play bass there and we did jazz & easy listening cover versions. I also played in a couple of rock bands then but it wasn't really my cup of tea.
Later I joined a big band as guitarrist and would play there for almost 10 years.
Now, you moved to the UK and discovered djing in the 90's, what kind music did you get into around that time?
Well, I studied in the UK (Bristol) for one year back in 1991 - it was a good time, on the one hand there was the rave scene with their breakbeat stuff and the other hand the acid jazz thing. I really got into house music then, djs like Farley & Heller and Joey Negro showed me the way.
Did you have any residencies while being in the UK?
No, I joined a couple of music societies at the university, there were jams with musicians - but since I only got into the scene then I bought proper dj equipment after my stay in England and then I had residencies in South Germany.
How was the music scene when you relocated back to Berlin.
I moved to Berlin in 1997, about 10 years ago - the music scene over here is quite different, people are much more into hard Techno and Electro stuff. Generally speaking one could say that Germans are not as educated as the English or Americans when it comes to music ...
So what made you decide to produce your own tracks?
One thing were the terrible format radio stations which have got worse and worse since the 80s - I thought if I can't listen to music I like anymore then I have to do it myself. The other thing was the bedroom dj thing - in the 90s everyone was able to produce music, the computers and samplers became cheaper and more accessible.
You have released an album called Beatz! Could you tell us about what kind of musical influences we can expect in this album.
Well, I did Beatz two years ago and it was more or less a collection of tracks I produced since 1998. At first I worked primarily with samples and with the years I started to actually program & play the stuff and not solely rely on samples.
The music is basically soulful stuff, be it downtempo or house tunes.
Beatz was more like a "sounding balloon", to see if there is someone out there who can relate to this kind of music - my production skills improved since and now I have tracks mastered properly at a studio.
Now you released your Beatz Cd back in 2004, you worked with other musicians from around the world on this album. How did you collaborate with them with such distance between you both?
I joined MP3.com in 1999 and got into touch with a lot of musicians from around the world - either they would ask me or I would ask them to do a collab. I would send them rough takes by email and then the guys like Josef Saddler or AB+ would send me cds or download links with the vocals or instrumental parts.
Well, its been 2 yrs now since your Beatz album, are you working on a new album?
Yes, first thing is to find a record label and proper distribution for the new stuff - I'm working on that and I hope that next year I can release an ep.
Aside from your own tracks, have you been collabing with other artists and doing any remix work?
The first remix was for Josef Saddler some seven years ago and since then I did a couple a collabs and also some remixes. Five years ago I won a remix competition run by Philips - the participants had to remix a Phats N Small track. I hardly used any of the original stuff but won ;-)
Right now I'm working with Me Raabenstein (a Berlin producer), I'm sure there will be tracks out in the near future.
Lastly, what can we expect from you in the future?
I will definitely keep on doing music and collaborating with other musicians. First thing will be to sort out the label stuff and release the ep next year. Then there's gonna be a remix of the 5 PM track by Cologne producer "Oblique", and hopefully a further collab with TC from Addvibe. I'm a open minded guy and still get to know a lot of musicians at mySpace, one thing's for sure, this thing won't stop.
Look forward to what you have commin up this year Andreas. Thanks for your time.
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