Entrevista parte II

What life events led you to form your label, Tiger Trax? Also, if you don’t mind, tell me the inspiration behind the name.

Tiger Trax — well, I love tigers and I like cats that are vicious [laughing]. The label was basically created so I could sign artists, like Nadia Oh, who I had already been working with on “My Egyptian Lover,” which is the record that got me noticed by Cherrytree Records. It was one of our first releases. And the rest is history. They brought me over to the U.S., introduced to me Lady GaGa, et cetera. So it's been a pretty wonderful experience. Tiger Trax remains, but I've been able to put a little bit less time into finding new artists or doing new projects directly with Tiger Trax. But as I find more time, we'll be doing more releases and stuff like this. But for the moment, we have Digital Rock Star, and I am excited about this new album.

You have a couple of tracks from Digital Rock that also appear on Digital Rock Star. From a creative standpoint, in what ways is Digital Rock Star an extension of Digital Rock?

The album basically shares my experiences of life on the road — nightlife, the truck life, and meeting new people and new experiences. I got to see a lot of places around the world that I thought I would never see. I went to Sweden. I went to Australia. I went to the United States. While I was on the road, I performed a lot of new songs. So it's partly different than Digital Rock, but the essence is the same because the principle behind Digital Rock was that the instruments were virtual – like the guitars. They're not real guitars. They're from the computer. The voices are computerized. And the whole stage is computerized. So it's digital. It's very digitized. I'm very used to that. I like AutoTune. I like things that make it sound like it came off a spaceship. And I’ll continue to like that. I think I always will.

“Talking in Your Sleep” and “My Egyptian Lover” appeared on both albums. What is it about those songs that mean so much to you?

Well, Nadia Oh is good people and her voice is a very beautiful voice. I enjoy working with her very much, and we work very well together. I wanted to try some new things, some new beats, because the project is very experimental. I always admired “My Egyptian Lover,” and it’s one of the earlier cuts from Digital Rock and it was done purely for the love of not doing typical music. So I'll always have a place for that. But “Talking in Your Sleep” – I like the song very much, and the newer version is very fresh. It has a new bridge and new lyrics. The harmony and the melodies remain the same, but the lyrics have changed a bit and are reflective a little bit of more experiences in the past year. “Talking in Your Sleep” is one of the biggest songs in Japan. And it’s one of the first songs that I sang on that I was really pleased with my vocal performance. Before, I used to sample a lot, so I'd only been working for the past three or four years. So this song is very dear to me and made me want to explore more.