Dave Aude takes trek to Denver, talks Democracy of Music

By Liam Greenwood

Grammy-nominated producer Dave Aude will be dropping a monstrous five-our set at Tracks June 16 during Pride weekend. The house DJ has done production work wiht some of today’s hottest artists, from Madonna and Rihanna, to La Roux and The Gorillaz. OFC recently caught up with Aude from his home in L.A., after he’d just returned from a gig at Las Vegas’s Krave, one of the biggest gay clubs in the nation.

Are you looking forward to returning to Denver?

I’m always looking forward to coming to Denver – it’s one of my favorite cities. My fan-base there is like no other. I’m looking forward to coming back to Tracks. I’d say the Denver kids are more in tune with the music than in any other city. There’s never really been a downtime for parties in Denver – they’ve been going on for years, it’s part of the culture.

How does it compare with parties in L.A.?

Well in L.A. it’s more of the Electric Daisy Carnival – it’s a huge, huge, completely different kind of thing. Wheras Denver is more five to ten thousand people. It’s more of a closer-knit group of kids. The Electric Daisy Carnival isn’t like going to a party, it’s more of a concert or a festival. When I go to a Denver party it’s more of a family vibe, everybody knows each other there.

How has the changes in technology effected your approach to music production.

Because of technology I’m able to do what I do. I’ve embraced technology since I was a kid: I got my first keyboard when I was 13; and no other kids had keyboards – it was the equivalent of a kid today getting a CD-J. And when the curtain opened on the stage, and I played Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds,” their mouths were open and they didn’t know what to think. And that gave me an edge to start my career way before other people at my age.

Do you feel that creativity has been cheapened since technology has been democratized through computer programs like GarageBand or Ableton?

It absolutely does. But you could make an argument for both sides. Sometimes it reduces people’s knowledge of know to play instruments, because you could just take samples now. But even though you may not know what chord it is or what key it is, you know what you like and are able to make music. I believe that even though the democratization of music making has left us with more music, the good stuff still rises to the top.

As a DJ, is there a big difference between playing a show at Pride, vs playing a straight, mainstream club?

Absolutely. There’s a big difference. I play a lot more vocals at the gay clubs, because I think there are less people trying to think they’re cool, less people with stigmas and walls up about what they like and what they don’t like [in a gay club]. In a straight club you want to be banged over the head, you want to hit them hard; at the gay club I do a little bit of both, but I tend to play more “songs” and vocals. And that’s really what I want to hear. I’m really a gay listener at heart.