With 20 pseudonyms and counting, Danny Wolfers is impossibly hard to pigeonhole. Born and raised in The Hague, the man most commonly known as Legowelt is steeped in the electronic traditions of Detroit and Chicago; a passion propped up by his fiendish synthesizer habit. In an era when staring at a laptop constitutes a live set, the feverish energy expended by Legowelt is a refreshing blast. Drawing massive inspiration from old horror flicks and sci-fi scores, the closest thing to a constant in his extensive discography is the expert maintenance of an eerie, raw atmosphere; however, jacking house, techno, disco, and electro funk all get a thorough seeing to. His Irish visits are a dead cert on our calendar, and he was more than happy to field a few of our questions ahead of his visit to the Twisted Pepper on October 16th.
You’ve got so many aliases; Macho Cat Garage, Nacho Patrol, Smackos just to name a few. Do you approach the production of a track with the style of one these alter egos in mind, or is it something that is decided based on the end product?
Yeah most of the time it’s preconceived what is going to be made. I’ll Work for a few days on a certain project and be pretty much immersed in it.
Are your production techniques different for each Alias? Equipment wise or other?
Yes different synthesizers are used, like a different pallet of colours or something. Also different playing styles like not using a sequencer or computer. Or using a different computer, like a Commodore Amiga instead of a PC or MAC. Sometimes I do weird stuff like playing the synthesizer backwards (facing the back of the synth) then you sort of invert everything you’re doing and it gives a fresh result.
You have a weekly show on Intergalactic FM, How does that experience compare to playing live in a nightclub? Obviously you don’t get the visual gratification of someone enjoying your music
Hmmm well its a completely different thing then playing in a club, the show is more like just playing a few tunes and a having a chitchat about stuff, useless facts and stuff like Alan Partridge on Radio Norwich.
Why do you think the Hague punches way above its weight musically? I guess in the grand scheme of things it’s a fairly specific style of music but it’s a fairly small city that is otherwise known for politics.
Hmmm well I think its just coincidence, just a bunch of people being at the right place in the right time or something. But for some reason there always have been a lot of music people here indeed, like also rock stuff in the old days…I really don’t know why that is.
Your turnover of records is very impressive, are you constantly tinkering with projects or do you go through barren patches where you’re not focused on music?
Well I don’t have a high “this is not good enough”-feel about stuff, or how do you call that in English. I don’t have stuff like writers block or anything…something will always come out, its just the simple rule of keep trying…if you try 10 times to make a track there is bound to be at least one good one, and if you keep doing that for 20 years…well you can always shake something out of your sleeve.
Your Squadro Blanco releases seem to be the clearest homage to Sci-fi/
Horror soundtracks. If you could pick one film to redo the score for, what would it be? Why?
Hercule Poirot…because with Poirot I would make him a bit darker because the general mood is a bit humorous or cheerful, if you would change the sound with darker stuff it would become more sinister and maybe the character would become more tragic, a little deeper. He is pretty awesome as he is, but it’s just a thought. and a real movie, maybe one of those really bad Stephen King straight to video/DVD movies cause it would be on my level. I scored a short Irish movie once a few years ago btw
You’ve often stated that a huge chunk of your inspiration stems from old Chicago and Detroit records. What, if any, modern artists or Djs inspire you now?
There is a lot of stuff, Actress is really good and inspiring, stuff on the Mathematics label from Chicago, People’s Potential Unlimited from Washington DC some Rephlex stuff like Ceephax Acid Crew, there is always something interesting to be found.
Concepts seem to be at the heart of everything you do. How important for you is the artwork for tying everything together?
Well if I release it on my own label it is quite important, its like the coat the music gets, the visual presentation to the outward world, it can deceive people to listen to it and think its good even if they normally wouldn’t listen to it or something.
Words: Paddy O’Mahoney
