I got Steve’s manager’s number from Ajay in the office. It was a sunny Friday morning and I talked to him on the phone. We arranged a time for me to speak to Steve so I had enough time to go down the pub and I elected to then sit in the park and phone Sweden. My burger was average with the onion rings probably the best part of the meal and I quickly finished my pint.

My drinking companion went over to play the fruit machine so I took some time to read through my notes on Steve. Steve started in the dance scene at an early age. He quickly became noticed for his skills with the decks by an eclectic mix of beats and seventies classics. Unbelievably his first residency was at a club in Stockholm before he’d even had his seventeenth birthday. You quickly realise the Steve is not someone you need to punctuate with empty adjectives to demonstrate his calibre.

Photo by Gee - www.geespot.net

Steve met with Sebastian Ingrosso, who became his main creative foil, and the two of them produced some decent tracks such as the very well respected ‘Echo Vibes‘. Eventually he was to become one part of the so-called Swedish Mafia alongside Erik Prydz, Axwell and Seb. He has been successfully DJing all over Europe with residencies at many big clubs such as Ministry and Pacha in Ibiza. He owns Size Records, a label that has been gifted with acclaim from such greats as Danny Tenaglia and Erick Morillo. With remixes of such musical talents as Moby and Justin Timberlake as well as his own monster tracks in Bodycrash and Supermode Steve’s track record shows he is one of the most exciting DJs in the world right now.

I go to the park and take one last look at my questions. Then I hit an obstacle. I had decided to sit under a tree but it looks like most of them are being used like a territorial Facebook for the local canines in the area and I’ve only put these jeans on clean today. I compromise and find a patch of grass and sit up back against a fence and give it a few minutes before I make my call on time. Steve picks up and we say hello and go through the usual pleasantries. He sounds in good form like he’s enjoying himself of the afternoon.

Everyone’s heard your music; if you haven’t heard Bodycrash then you’ve probably been dead for the last 6 months… But what we really want to know about is you, so I’m going to ask you a really vague question to begin with, so what are you about as a person, what really makes you tick?

I’m a simple person, you know, I live what I do. Music is my life, every morning I wake up and think it’s great - my work time and free time is the same thing basically. Everything around you inspires you and it just makes you live the music.

How does it feel to “live the music”?

It’s the best feeling in the world, music can save your life, anytime. If you’re in a good mood, or bad mood music can change that instantly, it’s always there.

It’s an amazing feeling,... It’s like scoring the winning goal in the European Champion’s League.

Music has the power to unite people, with everyone feeling the same thing, on the same vibe. When you’re up the front of a massive crowd, like at Gatecrasher last weekend, what is that like?

It’s an amazing feeling, especially when you play a lot of your own tracks. When you stand there and you’ve been in the Studio for three weeks, and you’re done with that track - You finally get to perform it and you see thirty thousand people screaming their heads off there’s nothing that can beat that. To get all those people together, having a good time simply leaves me speechless. It’s like scoring the winning goal in the European Champion’s League.

The year is 2039, what are you doing in your day job now?

I’d just be working all the time, if not on the phone, then in the studio, if not in the studio then on my way to a gig. Even now, at the moment, we’ve always got a couple of people around us, twenty-four-seven, on e-mails and the phone. Hopefully I’ll never get tired of what I’m doing now and I’m going to be doing it till the day I drop dead.

Your new project is called “Buy Now” - is this a direct message to your fans, or is there more to it; what was the thinking behind this name?

Honestly, when we did the first one, called “For Sale” a few years back, we were in my studio, working and Seb and I just saw an advert on TV. We were like “Oh shit, Buy Now!” that’s a cool name, because everyone knows what it is, and it’s kinda like a joke against the piracy of music.

Oh, what are your thoughts on music piracy, many people dislike it, but other people seem to think it’s a great way to get your music spread, helping people get awareness for who you are?

Ultimately I think it sucks; OK, it can be a good promotional tool because you can get out there to people who don’t usually buy your records, so they can download a tune and then they know of you. It’s so easy to do today, you can just log onto a Website and you can buy a track now for as little as one dollar, so I think it’s really unfair to steal music. If people want to have DJ’s playing music and people producing music, then they should buy the music because if DJ’s and musicians stop making money then they can’t have their music jobs.

The little guys still have to do their job, pay their rent and put food on the table, and if they could dedicate all their time to production we’d have much better music out there and so much more of it. If you steal a track you steal somebody’s earnings, and it only takes one person because one copy becomes thousands and thousands become millions. You should buy a record, everyone’s got the Internet now and it’s so easy to buy tracks online.

This is obviously a subject quite close to your heart and something you feel very strongly about, so going off a tangent from the questions that I planned - do you have any ideas that could stop music piracy?

I’ve thought so much about this; I’m always trying to think of ways to stop piracy. I think people need to realise that it’s got something to do with them, when you go out and buy music you’re contributing to the musicians. When you download a tune from a site you get nothing with it, no designed sleeve, you can’t feel it, you can’t touch it, you can’t do anything with it except burn it on a blank CD and for me that’s really boring. I still like the vinyl thing, I still like the CD booklets and I love all the stuff that comes with music.

It’s a big process for us to make an album; it takes a year to produce it, then another half year to get everything done around it, you know, six months of marketing, and DJ’ing to promote the tracks. Then you get kids who just feel they can download your track - I mean, we put a lot of effort into production - and the costs. There are studios to pay and I feel some people just have no respect for what musicians and producers do these days.

If you look back five years ago, waiting for a track to come out there was a hype, there was a buzz, there were white labels, you were going to the record shop everyday to see if they had the track in, a tune could have a life of six to seven months, whereas these days you’re lucky if a tune has a lifespan of a week.

I guess production has become intense?

I know so many producers that I’ve signed to my label that simply can’t afford to produce music, so they have to have a job, because they don’t make any money. There’s a problem on the horizon, we’re going to have less musicians, less producers and less DJ’s. People should give producers a chance to make it, go and buy CD’s and compilations and all of that stuff.

(Steve pauses for a moment and then makes his final summation)

I just think it’s unfair. I run companies and I see the difference it makes to people’s lives.

Yeah I agree, ultimately I suppose there has to be money coming into an industry for it to survive and continue…

Do you know there are only three CD stores in the whole of Stockholm? That’s three CD stores for two and half million people…

That’s fairly crazy.

And they are only small!

Ok then, how many Off Licences do you have there?

(Steve blows my question off with a pfft in a who knows fashion)

You’re part of the so called Swedish mafia alongside Sebastian Ingrosso and Eric Prydz. How do you feel about having such successful friends?

It’s fantastic; it’s great to see. They work hard and they’ve worked for so many years, working really hard when they didn’t even have food on the table. I think it’s amazing to see such a success coming out of music.

You all had some hard times together?

When Sebastian and I were living together six years ago we sometimes couldn’t afford food. We did a gig for three hundred pounds and had to live of that for a month. It was rough; we ended up eating potatoes and onions everyday. That’s the problem; wherever we are we don’t have a bad life. I don’t want people to go through what I did, but then again maybe it’s good; maybe it made me stronger and more successful.

And I guess you realise where your success has come from?

Absolutely. That’s why I still work hard, I haven’t just jumped on a MP3 site and been successful, I’ve worked my ass off to get it.

If you were sent on a rocket to rebuild humanity in space, what would you take with you?

My music. I’d take music.

Any particular music?

I’d just take my laptop. It’s got loads of music on there. I’ve got everything from Lounge to Indie. I’ve got everything on my laptop, so I could educate people from the start.

Ok then, what role do you think music, and in particular House music plays in society?

Fashion, you know, you can see how clothes and music go hand in hand, when you see music scenes having success the clothes take over like with Rock or Punk. So then when the fashions become successful so do the producers, it goes hand in hand.

But what role do you think music plays in thinking, you know like in the way John Lennon said, “love is the answer”, do you think music is the answer, or part of that?

When you’re sad you want to listen to it, you want to hear it in your ears, the birds the noises, all around you, everything is music… I think music has this ability to make a terrific impact in people

I haven’t heard that sort of talk since the nineties!

(Steve laughs the most he’s laughed since the start of the interview)

Everything inspires me. I like sit by the water and I’m like woosh, that’s a good sound. Even when you hear someone speaking in a different language it’s like music.

I always say don’t listen too much to people, just do what you think is right. Learn from your mistakes and do it again right the next time. Don’t be afraid to burn yourself. I think its the same with music because a lot of kids ask me “okay, what do you think of this and that”, of course my opinion is important to them because they look up to me but still at the end of the day you have to create your own sound. You have to create your own society of people around you.

Sometimes I can go off on an aside and create a different kind of track and people can say to me “Steve, this sucks”, or “this is really weird”. I’m not prepared to say that I’m into one taste in sound; I’m free to do whatever I want. I just made a track today, its called ‘Gypsy’ and its inspired by this minimal flute sound I liked. It’s kinda strange, but I love it. People say how can I do these things, but listen, I’m not a product, I’m a person and if I change my mood, my music is going to change.

Do you then find yourself doing different things to deliberately challenge yourself?

Of course, if you listen to all my records you won’t hear the same sounds. I’d really bore myself sitting in the studio just trying to be that guy who just wants to earn money. I don’t want to be that guy, but its funny; going back to what I said earlier about today about the kids. All they’ve known is the Internet; it’s so hard because now you can live off a record for week when it used to be for half a year.

Do you think the Dance music scene has become too fragmented over the past few years?

People will play for four or five hours and never cross over to a deep record and I mean, why not? There’s no rulebook, there’s no rules for music, so why should you stick to any rules? If you like a track, then play a track, what are the crowd going to do? Throw bottles at you? I don’t think so.

Do you think your attitude is one prevalent to all DJs now or just something you embody yourself?

I think it’s across everybody. I think it’s even the same across bands. I think Coldplay should do a phat electronic weird track, why should they stick to soft rock? I love Coldplay by the way. OK then, if I look at Buy Now then there is a huge variation in tracks, because I don’t like to have a hamburger everyday. Some people do like to have a hamburger everyday.

I like to have ten hamburgers a day for a month and then never have a hamburger again.

(Steve laughs a lot again)

Exactly, so why should I give the kids a track that they never get tired of like this. You have to be wide with music, make a Rocky track or a Punky track - good music is good music, I don’t think you should put it in folders.

I’ve met quite a few Swedish people and we were always going out and getting drunk.

(Steve interrupts me here)

Yeah, I have a hangover today! I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Are you in a bar at the minute?

No, no, no I’m in a restaurant.

Well everything in Sweden seems very restricted, especially alcohol sales. Do you think Sweden would benefit a more relaxed social environment like the Netherlands?

I think we’ve got it right in Sweden. I think if there was more alcohol available then people would just get drunk all the time here. Especially in winter when you hardly get any sunlight. I think it’s good to having opening and closing hours because if you can go and get alcohol anytime then people will just be drunk everywhere.

People love to drink here and there’s a reason why people place restrictions on things.

So you don’t think in a more relaxed environment people wouldn’t be so pressured to drink?

No, I think people would freak out. I get that kind of feeling anyway because people say “Last Round” and order as much as they can from the bar.

Finally I’d like to end on a more comedic question; so what would you say to a race of aliens landed on earth for the first time?

“Come to Ibiza with us.” Maybe go to Pacha or Space for a while. Take them around and show them what we do. I would party with them, I wouldn’t be afraid. There must be something out there; after all, it would be weird if there wasn’t other life in the Universe.

Is there anything at all you’d like to say?

Just keep on partying and keep on buying records.

There the interview ended. I got the impression that Steve had seen the harder side of the Dance music industry and it had left him very conscious of where the next pay check is coming from. Ultimately it’s how we all have to live but being a producer and artist is slightly different from getting a pay check from the nine to five. Steve obviously made it clear how much he cares about music piracy. He’s ultimately still a very young DJ and producer in the world of Dance music and you have to imagine that he’s very concerned to continue as an artist.

To me Steve had shown that at times music had been a difficult choice, away from the glamour, money and kudos we like to associate with big name DJs and a path he felt driven to take. You sensed from him a need to preserve what he does with music. Without question he does produce great tracks so let us hope that he long may continue, because for all his hard work and talent, he sure does deserve to.