They say that levels of madness are on the increase, well that looks like its about to be personified as Resonate, those hard, underground masters on the South Coast, present: The Insane Asylum part 1 @ The Old Fire station in Bournemouth on Friday the 4th April. This time, they’ve pulled together a line-up consisting of only the most hardest and energetic acts to deliver the tough and raw beats, as they produce another high quality party. Entertaining 1,200 mad up-for-it ravers, arriving like a hurricane in the main room, will be the man who many see as the worlds leading Hard Dance DJ…… Proteus!

It all began for him when nobody else was supporting his style of music in Finland, so he and his friends made the brave and innovative move of staging their own underground parties to get their sound out, building their careers from scratch. Since then, Harri has become Finland’s best known DJ, a regular on the international circuit, promoted several of his own nights and has carved out a successful production and remix career, plus of course, won the award for best DJ at the Hard Dance awards, twice.

So to find out how he’s going to get the crowd whipped up in to a frenzy at Resonate, and just how he managed to carry on playing with a broken arm at a previous gig, we sat down and had a chat with him……

Harri, Resonate presents: the Insane Asylum part 1 certainly looks like its living up to its name; what are you most looking forward to about playing there?

It’s my first gig at Resonate, so I’m definitely very much looking forward to see the party!! I have heard very good things about it! The line up is absolutely amazing and definitely for the ones who like it hard! Also, all the crazy artists are together and they all are very good friends of mine, so we will definitely get the “insane” party going!! He he!!!

The musical policy for this night looks to be very hard and underground; Resonate have also picked DJ’s whom, like your self, have a very strong stage presence such s Mark EG, Alex Kidd and the Organ Doners. Do you feel that they’ve picked a line-up which really gels together there?

Yep definitely;we are all crazy ones together there and I think it’s great! We all have our own styles and that makes the night perfect! All we djs are there to support each other and give people the blast they haven’t experience before! And have a “few” bee rs together he he!! Seriously, I think it’s a very good move from Resonate to book us all to the same party!

Resonate have been going for over five years now and 2008 looks to be their biggest year yet. Why do you feel it is that they’ve managed to flourish, despite it being quite a difficult time for Dance Music in the UK?

For me it’s little bit difficult to say because this is my first gig at Resonate and I live in Finland but by knowing their good reputation I think it must be because they have worked hard and they are a good brand and have fresh line ups. It’s very important to believe and work hard for the dance music scene even through difficult times.

The location that you’re playing in is a bit of an unusual one as it’s literally an old fire station. Do you think that venue will suit your raw and underground style more than say a purpose built club?

Yes I think so, and I‘m already very excited to see the venue! My roots are in the underground scene here in Finland and the sound I play is very industrial influenced so a raw place is perfect for me! I used to organise underground squat parties at old warehouses here in Helsinki in the mid nineties. 4th April will bring back good memories... he he!!

The UK has been virtually your second home for the past 8 years, so you must be quite used to playing to a South coast crowd by now. How do you normally find them to play for?

I love the South Coast crowd! I will never forget how friendly people were and took me as part of their “family” when I had my first gig outside of London in Portsmouth about 2002!! I’m really looking forward to see all my South coast friends and get crazy at the Resonate with them!

The Proteus style can be summed up as nosebleed hard, underground, hard, fast and raw; do you ever see that style mellowing with age, or diversifying in to anything else?

I think it’s very important to develop, but at the same time to be loyal to your own sound and style. I think it’s good for all artists that people recognise you from your own style even they would like it or hate it. It’s good to be open minded with different music styles and I always try to keep my dj set fresh by bringing new elements to it, but at the same time keeping it as the Proteus style. Hard, dark and raw music is in my blood and if I will stop playing that same time will Proteus die too…well it’s not as serious as it sounds he hee!!

Basically I love everything from mellow rock to hardcore, but I will keep playing hard.

We already know about your highly energetic stage presence which sees you leaping around, cracking a bull whip and wearing a mask. What is it that’s giving Proteus so much passion?

It’s definitely the love of the music and pure happiness to play out the music to people and party with them! It’s unbelievably great when you can share the music you love with other people and get crazy with them!

You fairly recently broke your arm whilst playing, but unbelievably you still carried on! Did you not realise what had happened at the time because you were so caught up in everything?

Yes, I broke my left elbow last December during my set at a party called Riff Raff. I fell down from some small steps at the stage and hit my elbow very badly on the floor. I realised what happened and I still had 45 minutes left from my set to play. Luckily I’m right handed, so I managed to play the set to the end, even though it hurt like shit! It wasn’t the best mixing during that last 45mins he he!! It was a great party and an unbelievably good atmosphere! My girlfriend said that I’m getting old and I need to start to be more careful in the future he he!!!

You took the Organ Doners with you to your home country of Finland; how did that trip work out?

I think I still have a hang over from drinking he he!!! I love the guys and they are crazy and the best at what they do! The party they played was the last event of our FINRG Tour and held at the same venue that I run my Sade Club in Helsinki. The guys rocked the floor and it was a great night! It will be so good to see them at Resonate again!

You are going to be releasing an artist album later on this year; can you tell us what we can expect there and give us an insight in to what was involved in putting that project together?

The album will be released at the end of April and it’s a full length artist album. It contains many new tracks and some rare tracks that have only be released and distributed in Finland before. The album will be distributed pretty much world wide so now people who have been trying to find some of my Finnish releases can get them through that album. I’m very excited about the album and it’s very important to me to release it. I have worked very hard on it and it sounds dark and very rock like.

The album is not the “basic” dance music album and it contains a lot of industrial and metal influences, because my roots are in the industrial scene. Most of the tracks are still of course pure hard dance mayhem but just spiced a little bit with some raw industrial elements.
I bought my first guitar last year so you will hear me playing some bad guitar on the album he he!!!

You’ve been commissioned to remix a track for one of the biggest bands in Finland – Apocalyptica. That track being called ‘Grace’ which is due to be released this spring. What changed did you look to give that track?

It was a great honour for me to do the remix for them and very luckily the band liked my version a lot. I wanted the remix to be loyal to the original one and give it a harder and rawer sound by making it as a fusion of metal and very heavy hard dance. My remix is not very fast, but it’s heavy as shit he he! The plan is to have the remix as one of the tracks in my album. Sony Bmg who releases Apocalyptica’s records don’t know yet whether will they put it to on a single EP or an Apocalyptica compilation. I really hope I will get the license from Sony to put it to my album.

You’ve played at a lot of big gigs in your time, but do you find it in some ways easier to play to a smaller crowd, as any changes occurring in the dance floor dynamics will be easier to spot?

I think big and smaller gigs have both different good sides. With smaller ones you can really be with the crowd and get crazy with them, and with big ones you can’t feel the crowd so well but it is an unbelievable feeling to play out and be part of the whole army of people. I think in some way it’s easier to play at smaller gigs because you can really feel the atmosphere and see what’s going on. I don’t change my sets at bigger gigs compared to smaller ones.

Have you ever played a set where you turn up at a venue and the crowd look quite jaded for what ever reason, so you’ve had to work twice as hard at getting them livened up again and building a great atmosphere?

Yes, and I think it has happened to all djs and you just have to trust yourself and try your best. I don’t usually play very late after parties because my style is very hard and I think it doesn’t fit very well with breakfast/lunch time he he! It just depends on so many things how the party goes and develops during the night.

You’ve played all over the world of course; can you see anywhere that seems to have a really exciting emerging music scene at the moment?

There are a lot of new great producers in Japan like artists called Dj Guld, Betwixt & Between and Hase who have done some very exciting hard nrg tunes. They have their own great nrg scene there in Tokyo. Also in Australia and Canada are artists like Config/Sys Project and Twisted Frequency who do really fresh and raw hard dance sound and I have played their tunes a lot lately.

Music always needs to evolve, otherwise it will become stale. What would you like to see added to the UK Hard Dance scene so it can do just that?

I think the UK has the biggest Hard Dance scene in the world and you have so many good producers and djs that you don’t basically need anything to “add” to your scene. Of course it would be great to see and hear more new talents to play at parties and I think it’s always a great thing when promoters take a risk to book new artists to line ups. It’s now 8 years on from when the great people from Logic gave me the chance to show myself to the UK crowd and I will always be grateful for that.

The last time we spoke, you’d cooled down your club night promoting activities in Finland, due to other commitments, but you said you might start Inferno again. Is there any chance of that still happening?

I’m still a bit in that same situation because it seems like there isn’t enough time to do all the things that I would love to get going, but I will definitely start Inferno again. I did Inferno parties in 2000 – 2002 here in Finland and unfortunately somebody started to run restaurants in the same name a couple of years ago, so I might have to change the name now.

We can catch your regular Finnish radio show ‘Darkside’ radio between 22.00 – 00.00 (LT) where you have special guests such as Galrav from Finnish party outfit ‘Fury’. What type of shows have you got lined up for this coming month?

I just had the “old school” show the first week of this month and played only nineties hard dance and industrial songs. It was great. Between the songs, I told about the history and other details of the songs and some stuff that you don’t hear from Finnish major radio channel normally. On the forthcoming shows, I will introduce and interview some new Finnish Industrial, metal and hard dance bands like Black Light Discipline who are the upcoming stars in the industrial metal scene here in Scandinavia.

And finally, come April the 4th, have you got any new tunes to showcase, that are really going to get everyone’s adrenalin glands pumping @ Resonate?

I will play a few “monsters” from my upcoming album which I haven’t played yet in the UK and some new seriously heavy tunes from our FINRG label! I’m really looking forward to Resonate and I think it will definitely be a night that we haven’t experienced before! See you soon!!!!

Remember to catch the best thing to come out of Finland since Laptin Kulta beer! Proteus @ Resonate presents: the Insane Asylum Part 1 @ The Old Fire station, Bournemouth on Friday 4th April!

©Greg Lynn 2008
Feature by Greg Lynn