ASPromos.com

An Interview With

Dennis Sheperd

Trance / Progressive Producer

Dennis was born in September 1985 in Germany (Essen, Northrhine-Westfalia) where he still resides.

He discovered the sound of Electronical Dance Music in 1998 and his interest in this genre grew and finally transformed into the love that he feels today.

Because of his great ambition and volition he has rapidly risen the ranks and released with labels such as Euphonic, High Contrast and Baroque.

First of all what is it that you do under the name Dennis Sheperd?

What is it? Well, I would say music, haha.
Nah, I personally call it a mixture between progressive House and progressive Trance.
It's groovy as well as being melodic with this trancy feeling we all love.

Is this your actual name then?

No, my name is Dennis Schaefer. Schaefer is a German word and means Shepherd in English.
But as I saw a lot of people using Shepherd as an artist name I just thought of taking the 'H' away. That's how the name Dennis Sheperd was born.

Is this your only alias?

No, it isn't. I'm also doing Electro-House stuff under my alias Atrocite.

Ok tell us about Atrocite!

Atrocite is a project from me that is signed to one of the most successful German House labels called Scream & Shout Records. In 2007 I had a huge hit with it which was also released on Nervous Records (USA) and House Works (Spain).

How long have you been making music?

Ive been producing music for 4-5 years now. But the first year I've only produced with amateur programs.


How did you get into production in the first place?

Just tried some cheesy programs like eJay and so on. After a few months I knew I would need some more professional workflow, so I decided to buy Reason. After 2 years with that I bought Cubase. And that's the program I work with at the moment and for the future.

Which labels are you currently working with/signed to?

I'm working with 3 labels regarding Dennis Sheperd.

Euphonic is for my solo stuff, they are really great guys and it's lots of fun to work with them.

High Contrast is for my "Dennis Sheperd & Cold Blue" stuff which got great support recently and I'm sure they are open minded for collaborations with other people too.
I should also mention MPFS Records on which my most successful tune up to now called " A Tribute To Life" was released (including a Martin Roth Remix). I'm sure I will work with them lots of times again.

As for Atrocite I'm exclusively signed to Scream & Shout. It has a lot of benefits you are earning but it also has some disadvantages like someone can tell you what you should do.

Who has been on your inspiration list throughout your production journey?

There are a lot of people who inspire me. I'm very open minded regarding music and I'm looking into every electronical music corner.
But my main inspirations are/were Gareth Emery, Nic Chagall (+ Cosmic Gate), Axwell, D.O.N.S. & DBN, Kyau & Albert, Eric Prydz, Martin Roth, Deadmau5, John Dahlback, Sebastien Leger and many many more.

Do you try to concentrate conciously on striving to create a common sound within your music?

I wouldn't say so. I always try to sound different with every track. I don't like to sound always the same. I would get bored very soon I guess. I'm influenced by Trance (+sub-genres) and House (+sub-genres) so it is just natural that every track sounds different (as you couldn't combine those influences just into one style).

If we gave you £5000 to spend specifically on something to enhance your music career, what would you do with it?

Haha, can I please have it? I think I would spend it for volume insulation and acoustics optimization of my studio. I love to get the best mixing I can achieve. This would be another step into better mixing.

What are the current projects that you are working on then at the moment, any new interesting releases on the horizon?

There's a lot of stuff I'm working on at the moment. First of all I've finished and signed a new solo track called "Black Sun" with Euphonic and we're currently discussing remixes.
I'm also working on a new collaboration with Cold Blue on which we will let Chloe Langley sing again (she already did the vocals for our second tune called "Not Too Late").
As I'm speaking of "Not Too Late" there will be a remix release of that released in January 2009.
And I'm also working on several other collaborations which I can't speak of yet.

And the final task.....can you draw up a picture using a paint program of yourself at work in the studio with a coffee in one hand and the look to say, damn I really need to sleep as Ive been up for 36 hours solid working on this damn track?



Well I must admit, you have some paint skills as well as music skills. Have a well earned 8/10 for your excellent attempt at making yourself look like monk after a hard nights work at the desk. One question though, where are your speakers?

So there you have it, this concludes another of our classic artist features and expect to see more of these throughout 2009.

To have a listen to some of Dennis Sheperd's tracks, head over to his myspace page which is located here at
http://www.myspace.com/dennissheperd

Scott Dacey
Aftershock Promotions Team
Jan 2009