Giuseppe Ottaviani opens up about main inspirations, his ‘Airwave’ remix and more: Interview

In this latest interview, we are more than happy to have caught up with Italian trance DJ/Producer Giuseppe Ottaviani, as he opens about his career and the impact that he has had thus far within the dance scene.

Leaving a lasting impact with each of his endeavours, Giuseppe Ottaviani is the epitome of an artist that has been mastering his craft to the utmost of perfection. Blessing us all only with the most feel-good and highly energetic of vibes, the Italian DJ/Producer leaves no doubt to the imagination, whilst his unique approach towards music production, most definitely helps him stand out from all the rest. Elevating his presence at any given chance, Ottaviani has become a synonym with trance music’s core values, and in turn, each of his releases showcase the undeniable musical prowess that he possesses, in a manner that can only be described as prodigious and prolific. Taking listeners on a musical journey like no other, this artist to watch ticks all the boxes in terms of leaving a lasting legacy within our community, and in saying so, we could not be any more thrilled to have caught up with the man of the moment, as he opens up about main inspirations and influences, impacting the trance scene in more ways than none, bringing the energy through both his music and live performances, the concept behind his critically acclaimed ‘Evolver‘ album, his most recent rendition of Rank 1’s classic, ‘Airwave,’ and so much more.

Hello and thank you for joining us! Could you give us an insight on the main inspirations/influences that led to your chosen career pathway in music?

I’m always been into music since a very early age, I grow up with a classical piano education and my passion for great and emotional melodies became bigger and bigger over time, even though, I wasn’t really into dance music back then. Suddenly I started listening to some techno and as a teenager I loved the energy in it but I was also missing the melodies. 1996 is when I discovered trance and that for me was the perfect blend between classical music and techno beats. I loved it and started producing it. A few years later, 2001 to be precise, I got signed to Paul van Dyk’s record label Vandit and that was the starting point of my career. Since then my sound has evolved a lot but I feel without loosing its unique identity that I had from the very start.

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Leaving your own mark on the trance scene and not only to this very day, we would like to know how your signature style of play came to be, as well as the significance of maintaining a versatile nature as time progresses?

People know me for being a live performer more than a DJ. I always played my music live with my keyboards and fancy gear but recently I started playing as a DJ and this is for two main reasons: my Live 3.0 shows became way more exclusive, considering that I’m only doing 5 or 6 shows per year and for a very few selected festivals. So now my DJ sets allow me to be way more flexible and I can play a wider range of music showing people all the different music I’m really into. On the production side I always keep moving around, looking for new sounds and getting influenced from all different types of music styles. There are always new elements that grab my attention and I love to bring those elements into my productions in order to always create something different that will eventually inspire other people. I think this is how you keep your music fresh and how music evolves in general.

Bringing a unique dynamic with each of your live performances, could you give us an insight on how a Giuseppe Ottaviani set is prepared, as well as the standout events that you have performed at over the years?

What people see and hear when they attend one of my live shows is the very final step of a long preparation process that takes place in my studio. I design every single show according to the country and the type of crowd I’ll be performing for. As I really want to make my shows as unique as possible I always create tons of new exclusive music specifically made for that show. If you think that every show usually has 90% of new music compared to the previous one, then you can also understand the effort and the time that goes into the production process. For this reason I normally don’t play longer than 1h and for the same reason I try to limit to 5 the number of shows I play in a year. I had the opportunity to bring my live show to the best festivals around the world like Tomorrowland, EDC, Beyond Wonderland, Creamfields, Dreamstate and so on but my favorite show lately has been A State Of Trance 1000 in Utrecht, NL. You can check out the video on my YouTube channel www.youtube.com/giuseppeottaviani

Breaking the producer/audience barrier with your critically acclaimed album, ‘Evolver,’ we would like to know how the whole concept came to be, as well as the overall message that you have set out to portray?

‘Evolver’ was such a standout album for me because of the way it’s was made. Normally you make music in your studio, then pack all the tracks into an album and then you play it out to your audience but Evolver was born just the other way around. With my previous live show I was literally creating new ideas and new tracks live on stage and I used to record every show so that I could listen again to all those ideas. After a couple of years of touring I went back into the studio, selected the best ideas I have recorded and turned them into full tracks. That’s how Evolver was made and of course it is a 100% instrumental album because of its nature. So in response to that my latest album ‘Horizons’ is a full vocal album and it marks a big change in my sound too. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I strongly recommend you do it, you guys will love it.

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Having released timeless classics over the years, there have also been times where you add your own touch on a variety of tracks. We would like to know your perspective on remixing productions from fellow artists, as well as the knowledge gained when doing so?

I love remixing other people’s music and injecting my sound into it. I always get many remix requests from other artists who want to get a touch of my sound in their tracks and in order to do so they send me the remix parts, midi files and audio stems of the original song. I can’t hide that I love to check those files and see what they have done with each single sound, there’s always something to learn from everyone and I believe that the learning process it’s something that should never end in your career. That said I also really enjoy making bootlegs and mashups for my shows. Whenever I fall in love with a track I always feel the need to give my personal touch to it and I tend to keep these tracks for myself only and not share them with others. This way my live shows are more unique as people can hear a certain track or edit only at my shows.

Talking about timeless classics and remixes, your latest endeavour consisted of your own version of Rank 1’s ‘Airwave.’ We would like to know the main thought process behind your rendition, as well as your outlook on taking on this legendary production?

Making Airwave remix wasn’t an easy task for me first of all because it’s such a huge classic that you don’t really want to touch it much. It’s super easy to ruin it and very hard to make a new version that actually works but apparently and luckily I did it J I knew exactly what people was expecting from me, it was so obvious that I decided to go for the complete opposite way. I played my surprise card and I was lucky with the result. 99% of people loved it, 1% not so much but you can’t make everybody happy when you remix a classic, can you? Moreover, since I used to love the vocal version of Airwave called ‘Breathing’ I asked the Rank 1 guys if I could also make a remix version with the vocals. They agreed and loved it so we decided to release both versions. What’s your favorite one?

Besides the whole process of remixing ‘Airwave,’ could you give us an insight on what the actual track means to you as a trance artist within our scene, as well as the level(s) of difficulty that you may have faced when producing your version?

Rank 1 live shows have always been a massive inspiration for me and most probably they are the reason why I started my career as a live act instead than a DJ. I still remember watching videos of them playing live at Sensation White or Trance Energy in the early 2000’s playing all those hits and when I’ve been asked to remix what I consider their biggest one I felt really honored but scared at the same time for all the reasons I mentioned above. Good news is, my remix is rocking all the places and it will definitely be one of my biggest tunes of this Summer.

With 2023 in full flow, we would like to know of what the future holds, in terms of new productions and/or live performances of Giuseppe Ottaviani?

After spending almost two years making my Horizons album it is now time for me to just go with the flow. I’m doing lots of collaborations and there’s a big list of releases already planned till this fall. My new single is another big one, it’s a collaboration with German superstars Scooter. Together we freshened up their 90s hit ‘Hyper Hyper’ and it’s just been released. Gotta love these 2023 reworks of 90’s Euro Dance, it’s great to show the new generation all the music I grew up with, hoping for them to enjoy the fresh new mixes and eventually go back in time to get to know the originals too. Thanks for the interview, see you soon on the dance floor, Giuseppe!

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