How was your summer?
“Summer 2006 was a blast! We had enormous fun and of course success in Ibiza, so many great moments on the island that I almost cannot count them. This was Wild Life at its best! But also the festivals I played were great, of course, my set after Kraftwerk at SonneMondSterne comes to my mind. The summer ended for me in the beginning of September with my own party Green & Blue in Obertshausen near Frankfurt. Once again Cocoon managed to create this certain vibe... you know what I mean!”
Cocoon celebrated its 10 year anniversary this year; are the plans you had in '96 all accomplished? How do you explain to an outsider what Cocoon is about? What are the best highlights you reached with this organisation?
“It is 10 years ago when I did my first three events under the name “cocoon” but after that I put this project on ice for 2 years. In the end of 1998 I started with the cocoon booking agency. We are actually working in this bigger team since 2000 or so only. However, some aims have been reached, but I still have many ideas I want to bring to reality. Cocoon is nothing more and nothing less than my platform for all kinds of interesting artists, may they be younger or older, musicians or visual artists.It also is in my interest to create the right surrounding to present electronic music at it´s best. The concept of metamorphosis describes our philosophy in the best way. It is an idea, a vision, which became reality first in Cocoon Booking, then Cocoon Recordings and Cocoon Clubbing followed, and finally it found its physical expression in the CocoonClub. So, the biggest highlight was for sure the opening of the CocoonClub in Frankfurt in 2004. All the other projects like Cocoon Recordings, Cocoon Ibiza or the Green & Blue Open Air are projects which took some time to develop and become what they are representing today: A spiritual and magical part of club culture.”
The German electro-techno-sound is momentarily extremely populair throughout Europe. How far do you and Cocoon had a share in this?
“With my label Cocoon Recordings, me and my team had many highly successful releases throughout the last years and we also brought many newcomers (for example acts like Guy Gerber, Oliver Koletzkior Extrawelt) to a larger public. So, you might say indeed that we had a certain influence on the current sound of electronic music, together with the style that the Cocoon acts play, and, of course, a lot of other German DJs and producers.”
In Holland Cocoon has been populair much longer, why does the organisation only now come to Amsterdam? And what's going to happen in the future, the party at ADE is only a 'opening party'...
“First of all, Cocoon is present since many years at the Mystery Land in Amsterdam with our own tent, which is every year a huge success. So you see, we are not new to Amsterdam. But, by making one off events you only get to see certain places once in a while. But when you really want to develop a brand like Cocoon, you have to be in a city you like on a regular basis.
That is why we started to set up residencies in Italy, UK, Spain and also in the Netherlands in 2006, with promoters we trust in, in this case Frenk Wiersma and Tjeerd Bijnsdorp. So we will return to Amsterdam quite more often in 2007! Also we are working on a residency in Rotterdam with Joachim from Sound Architecture. Cocoon will rock the Netherlands. Be prepared, we are looking forward to this!!!”
How will the music and nightlife develope the coming years? And are there any ambitions left for Sven Vaeth and Cocoon, if yes, which ones?
“Beats and styles will constantly morph and you will never know in which direction it will move. That's the nice thing about it, electronic music is always in progress, and especially right now, it's so diverse. From minimum to maximum, if you want... My aim in Nightlife is to draw people of my age back into the scene, and I think I made a huge statement with the CocoonClub in Frankfurt, which is one of the most modern clubs in the world in terms of concept. The Friday´s concept is called “Organic Electronics” and has a sound that is played by friends like Richie Hawtin, Miss Kitten, Loco Dice and Steve Bug. Every second Friday it is of course my pleasure to play in the CocoonClub. “Saturday Night Ride” is the concept of Saturdays, where it´s more time for uplifting party house music with acts like Mousse T., Shapeshifters, Tom Novy, George Morell or Davis Guetta.
Pretty new is our project “Live Concerts at Cocoon” where during the week we have concerts in the club, by the way not only electronic music, allthough last Thursday I had the honor of performing live together with Underworld!
We're running two restaurants in the club. There's Silk, a bed restaurant where you listen to chilly ambient sounds, lie down and eat on white leather sofas – you even take your shoes off and it's a non-smoking restaurant. We have a two-star, award-winning chef from New York. I brought him in to be my partner. The DJs at the other restaurant, Micro, play all kinds of sounds, House, TechHouse, Soul, R'n'B and even some Funk or Hip Hop. We want to make the whole experience of sound, food and lights perfect. We have a huge open bar and kitchen, serving sushi and pizza – really nice world cuisine. The nights at Micro, we play classic and deep house, ’80s. Saturdays are more R&B and soul. We're attracting a lot of new people who are interested in design, food and how we work the whole thing. We're getting the older crowd back in, but we're also listening. What everyone was concerned about in the beginning was how we'd mix all these scenes together. But that was the mission and, in a way, we've made it, to see people partying on our dance floor, from age 18 to 50.”
Dat wordt n heerlijk avondje 
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