Interview w/ Kevin Yost

October 15, 2007 | Filed Under Interviews |

Again our friends at jacbri.com did a nice little interview, this time with US house maestro, Kevin Yost. Enjoy…

How is life in Waynesboro? Being away from bigger cities, in the country, its probably better for work?

Life is good here in Waynesboro. There’s is not much to do here so it is a perfect environment to work on my music.

Lot of artists usually move to places everyone is talking about, like Berlin, New York, London etc., but you decided to stay in the country. Why?

It is a perfect environment to create. All of my family is here and my family is very important to me. There are many place in the world I like but right now Waynesboro is working out just fine.

You do however spend some time of the year in Greece? Whats so special there? (I’m asking this although I know nothing can beat Mediterranean climate, food and women:)))

Greece is a very special place for me. I have been playing there very frequently for the last 8 years. The people really support my music there which is very important for an artist. I think the Mediterranean is the perfect setting for my music.

You have quite loyal audience here, which is really impatiently anticipating your gig at The Best club. People I’ve been talking to said those previous gigs of yours were remarkable experiences, I hope you felt some of those emotions too. Maybe there is some particular detail you remember about those days in croatian capitol?

Im very happy to be coming back to Croatia. Its been a few years and im looking forward to coming back. I remember the crowd at the clubs being very much into what I was playing. Most of them never heard me before so it was important for me to make a good impression and tell my story. I remember getting stuck an extra 2 days in Zagreb because of snow. I was very happy because it gave me time to explore the beautiful city.

You have a lot of gigs, yet there arent many of your sets floating around? Why is that?

Well like most dj’s I do not let my sets to be recorded. Mostly because I play all my own original music and most is unreleased so because of copyright reasons I don’t let my sets be recorded.

Lot of your sets start with Kenny Rogers’ “Lady”, is there some special reason for that?

That was back in the day I would do that. I did it once and people loved it so I started doing it at all my gigs. I do not do it anymore because I think if the opening dj is playing good and creating a good vibe I should start from right where they leave off.

I heard you were asked to provide soundtrack for “Duplex” movie, but something went wrong?

Yes I had a request for a song to be used in the film but it feel through. I think the scene they wanted to use my music for was cut from the movie.

What is currently going on with Kevin Yost Group?

Im still doing the KYG thing but has you can imagine to tour with 6 people and instruments is very hard these days. Im working on a smaller show the I hope to tour with next summer.

Do you have some new releases in the pipeline at the moment? Maybe you can reveal something fresh we will be able to hear in Zagreb?

I just released Big Sexy Sessions 2 and I am currently working on “The Jazz Influence 3” im also working on a few other projects I hope to release early next year

Since you love jazz, you must have heard for Compost label. What do you think of that sound? One of their renowned artists is Zagreb’s own Eddy Ramich, currently very sought after due to Eddy meets Yannah project, but also very known for Kontrapunkt festival.

Yes I am a fan of that sound. I think its great that jazz is developing in many different ways.

“One Starry Night” was sold in over 50 000 copies, not many CDs reach that number today. Who is to blame for that? There are hundreds thousands people out there playing and listening to electronic music, but the sales aren’t really high.

This is a good question with a long answer. There are many reasons why people do not buy music like they use to. Yes people are illegally downloading music and copying music but also music is very expensive to buy these days. It is good that people have the access to hear all different kinds of music but in the long run it hurts the artists who want to continue to make music but will find it hard if there is no money to be made. Also I truly think that when you get something for free ( besides a gift) its not worth as much to you as if you were to spend your hard earned money for it.

What do you think about all these new technologies (Ableton, Serato…), every tried some? Can you see yourself embracing some of them?

I use ableton live for the studio and I love it. It’s a good program for the amature artist as weel as the professional. Ive also been using seratoto dj. Since I play all my own music at my shows it makes it easier to have everything at my fingertips and use vinyl instead of cds which I don’t like to do much.

Can we say hats and pipe are your trademarks? Its not very often sight to see someone with a pipe behind the decks…

I guess you could say that. Ive been smoking a pipe for a long time now. For some reason people seem to like the pipe.

Silly question for the end: when was the last time you catched some big fish? :)

In early june of this year before I went o Greece for the summer I did a lot of fishing. I caught a good many fish but no very big ones : )

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