One year has passed since we met with Ferry Corsten and a lot has happened in the meantime. His “Blueprint” album continued its rise in the musical charts, while the energetic DJ toured the world high and low. And if for some that could be enough, that’s not the case for Ferry.
The international acclaimed DJ started a very bold and challenging project called “Unity”.
Based on collabs with various trance artists, legends, but also new kids on the block, the Dutchman has teamed up with VH1’ Save the Music Foundation in his personal quest to bring music closer to children.
VH1 Save the Music Foundation saw the light of day in 1997 its purpose being to help kids, schools, and communities realize their full potential through the power of making music.
Radio DEEA: Last time we talked we were at Neversea Festival and the amazing “Blueprint” album was on the market. Now you have another project underway called “Unity”. Can you share with the drive/reason behind it?
Ferry Corsten: Oh, it’s something that’s been on my mind for a while really, because I meet all these DJs, at all these festivals, sometimes in clubs, and we always say “Hey man! We should do this!” and the other one replays “Yeah, sure I’ll call you next week!” but it never happens! It’s always like that because everyone is busy. I know myself when I say I’ll call you next week and I don’t do it.
Also, I came out of a two-year run doing solo stuff: I did Gouryella, I did Blueprint. Some real time-consuming stuff. So right now, I felt like what if I’ll put another project together? Because I absolutely love my projects.
What if I take one year or whatever it takes, to do all these collabs that I talked about with my colleagues for years? That was the main drive.
On the other hand, I think that the trance scene could need a boost. Is not like is inexistent, or it does not have any fans at all, but if you look at the EDM scene, or techno those genres are very solid, and the thing with trance (and that’s also the beauty of it) is that its bpm varies from artist to artist.
So, for an outsider, what is trance? It’s very hard to identify it. I feel like trance is missing that united front that screams “This is trance!”. And this is what I am trying to do, work with different artists that create music at different bpm and establish a common front or a movement. One sound. That was another drive.
I’ve been working with artists like Paul Oakenfold and, Markus Schulz eventually, Gareth Emery, each one of these artists having an amazing reach on social media, so I thought to myself why not do something like a charity thing, something for a greater good.
So, we decided to team up with VH1’ Save the Music Foundation – an American project which brings music classes back to the schools. The lack of money pushes music classes out of the schools, and so we wanted to make a difference.
This is our livelihood, what we do, music is our foundation so let’s support that. That’s in a nutshell what unity is all about.
Radio DEEA: You mentioned before that your first track was a collab with Oakenfold, followed by Dim3nsion, then Jordan Suckley … who’s next?
Ferry Corsten: Probably Saad Ayub, which is a not so well-known artist; he’s from Canada and activates on my label, he’s a very intelligent kid. I got Markus Schulz, Gareth Emery … a lot, a lot of people. It’s very exciting.
Of course, I am very happy to have Paul being the first because he is the guy I’ve always looked up to. So, it set up a certain standard, the other artists getting the chance to see how this project is going to be.
I have all these guys lined up, I have other DJs calling me saying they want to be part of “Unity” … it’s really cool!
Radio DEEA: Do you plan on releasing a compilation with all these tracks?
Ferry Corsten: I don’t have anything planned in that direction, but who knows? We might be looking into doing shows under the name of “Unity shows”, a bit of b2b stuff like for example Markus and myself.
The Dutchman’s mind never rests, so if Unity is an underway project, we wanted to know what else in cooking in the house of Ferry Corsten. Better yet, his studio 😉
Radio DEEA: Any plans with Gouryella?
Ferry Corsten: Well, I brought it back to life back in 2015, then I had “Venera” and right now I have a few ideas standing for this year, but Gouryella is definitely a project that’s going to come back every year.
I am actually working at this year’s track!
Radio DEEA: We are kind of obsessed with your Bluprint album, which it’s just exceptional. You built it in such a unique way, each track having its own story, but put together side, by side, it creates the story of the entire album. Do you plan on doing something similar in the future?
Ferry Corsten: I’d love to do it again! I’ve worked really hard on it, but also at the same time, the satisfaction that came out of it was amazing, so it’s really hard to go back to a normal music album right now.
I don’t know yet, I can’t say. I do have two or three tracks in the form of an album, but I don’t know if there’s going to be just like Blueprint – with a music story and all that. We shall see …
