Roger Shah finds his Magic Island – anywhere

Roger Shah’s pool of creativity seems to be endless. Despite his heavy tour-schedule, the German producer/DJ always finds time to inspirit the Balearic soul with new tracks, remixes and compilations. His latest audio post-card and ode to his one favourite place in the world, the Magic Island, has now touched down on sunny terra firma. The third Volume of his ‘Magic Island: Music For Balearic People’ series is knocked up with brand new tracks, completely exclusive to the album and Magic Island label. The 2 disk mix resounds what’s been going on in the past 12 months of the life of the popular musician; it’s been one big primetime set at festivals, clubs and the hottest venues around. But the true, scintillating and sun-kissed Balearic smoothness hasn’t left, it’s a mixture of both. Armada Music took a trip down Magic Island with Roger Shah himself and found out all about his ideas, thoughts and driving forces behind this must-have audio-experience.

Magic Island Vol. 3 has just been released! Completely satisfied with the end-result?
Roger: “More than that, I’m totally happy with each track I signed or did for myself in collaboration with some of my mates of this scene.”

We noticed the album is slightly different from the previous editions. What did you do different this time?
Roger: ”Hmm, I don’t know what is different. You know, I always just follow my intuition. It took me about 1 year to do it, always in search of suitable but outstanding tracks for this new Magic Island creation. I also don’t see this album as just a mix album, for me it’s more a regular album with the help of a lot of producers from all over the world. I think CD 1 still contains this summerish typical Magic Island sound, but also a lot of deeper or more clubby tracks. I think especially CD 2 reflects what I play at my shows right now . As an artist you always have some kind of development. When my manager had a listen to this album the first time, he told me that he can really see in the change of the sound of my new tracks. That I do a lot of headline/prime time shows and also a lot of big stages at the festivals, so my sound is still in the Roger trademark Balearic trance sound but at the same time a bit bigger and more prime time banging. I think this is the main difference for me, since I play somewhere else every week now, compared to my time when I was just sitting in my studio and worked on new songs without this live experience.”

How do you manage to keep all these tracks exclusively to the album?
Roger:”It’s the concept we created from day one when I signed my label deal with Armada for my Magic Island label. It’s funny and amazing to see that whenever I sit at the Armada Office with Maykel and we listen to my new music and brainstorm or talk about new ideas, we always come up with something great. We always release an album with 100% exclusive tracks and later on we release all those lovely tracks as single releases or on album samplers. Whenever I receive a Demo and wanna sign and include it for the album, I always explain our idea and concept to the artists and the most of them totally support this idea and are up to wait a while till they have the track released on the album and later on as a single.”

You always stay in touch with the producers whose tracks will be featured on the album. How do you make sure their tracks have their sound, but the Shah ‘Magic Island’ touch as well?
Roger:”This time it was very easy for me, I think that a lot of producers like what we do on Magic Island and try to create something special for our brand. So for a lot of tunes I had nothing to suggest or to change, for some tunes I had some ideas or could give some recommendations how to make it more interesting or what it needs to change to fit to the other tracks. I’m also happy that we could sign some new great talents who give their debut on Magic Island, but also got a lot of great follow up singles from already established Magic Island artists, so our island is still growing and growing.”

Do you actually still have time to visit your favourite island in the world, Ibiza, now that you’re so busy touring the globe? Or does the Magic Island now stand for any inspirational place you visit?
Roger:“This year is the first year since 1996 that I won’t be on the island. One reason is, like you said, my busy worldwide tour schedule but for some reason we also couldn’t manage to arrange the one or other show for Ibiza for the upcoming season. So to play there regularly is still tough, even for Mr. Magic Island, because I know that so many people expect me to play there. So then it’s more like you mentioned, Magic Island became more this global trademark for me and I try to turn every place into a Magic Island, no matter where I am.”

For the album, you’ve worked on productions with Leon Bolier, Signum, Tenishia, Ross Lara and several others. Why did you choose to work with these specific names?
Roger:”Most of them became close friends of the scene to me, which started with respect for their original work and ended up in working together. For example, I met Ron from Signum last year  at ASOT 400 and introduced myself as a huge Signum fan from his first hour till now. After he told me that he likes my work too, we came up with the idea that we should try to do something together. I think it was a good idea, because our first collab ended with one of the biggest tracks in 2009, ‘Healesville Sanctuary’. For a lot of people a strange name, but when Ron send me his first draft of chords and melody, I’ve been in Australia and came just back from this sanctuary for handicapped animals and since our melody has that kind of melancholic touch, I saved it under this name…we never changed the name.”

You’ve always kept this compilation series open for lots of new talent. Which talents did you discover?
Roger:”For this album I discovered a lot of new talents, like Nando, Tucandeo, Dulac & Dubois ft Szen, Sectr 24 (Ross Lara and Johnny Yono), Serafim and finally also my brother Pedro Del Mar found the way to our island.”

Will there be any special album release parties this summer?
Roger:”Due to the busy schedule we have not really some special release parties planned, but sure the one or other club show will be under ‘Magic Island Vol. 3 Release Party’ and I start to do my first solo show including some singers this year, too.”

You’ve just released the follow-up to ‘Lost’, with Zara Taylor. Was it hard to come up with a successor?
Roger:”I never try to think about or put any pressure into it when I work on a follow-up single after having a huge track out there. When I work on new tracks I just do what I love to do and follow my feeling, heart or fresh impressions after a big show. I recorded 2 new tracks with Zara and I think both can do very well. We picked ‘Found’ as a follow-up single because music and lyric wise it’s like we continue with the story and after she was lost and then found, she will finally realize that it ‘Feels Like Heaven’ (which is the name of the other track we recorded).”

Over the past few years, you’ve worked under more than 15 guises, but it seems you’re focusing on just 4 of them right now?
Roger:”Yes, I worked under different aliases with different labels, but since my home became Armada and with my own imprint Magic Island, I just focused on some projects. Since I also play so much and also due to my ranking in the DJ Mag, my manager recommended to focus on the Roger Shah brand now. That’s why we also change my other big project into Roger Shah pres. Sunlounger from now.

The good thing about a mix album project like Magic Island Vol. 3 is that it gives me some space for the one or other side project. I will always continue with my friend Ralph Fritsch and create a new Black Pearl single for each album. ‘Discovery’ is the 5th Black Pearl single and I’m sure one day we put all tracks together, write some new and do a Black Pearl album, since the response is always amazing. I recently opened my ASOT 450 performance with the new Black Pearl and got so many ID-requests.”

Are you still working on an album with Chris Jones, or is that a future project?
Roger:”No, these plans have changed since Chris made the decision to concentrate and follow his original musical roots and focus on his solo rock music career. We are still good friends and do some shows together.  It’s always great to see him again and we will have 2 new songs together for the new Roger Shah album which is planned to be released in 2011.”

Any other new vocal stuff in the pipeline, with Audrina Thorpe perhaps?
Roger:”A new track with Adrina is also in the making for my Roger Shah album, along with some other nice collabs and some surprises with great names form other music genres. But it’s a bit too early to talk about it.”

Rumour has it that there’s a new Sunlounger album coming up! What can you tell us about it so far?
Roger:”This is not really a rumour anymore! I started to work on my first tracks for this album 2 years ago and have recently worked on the last 2 songs for it. Due to my busy schedule and projects like Magic Island, it takes much longer to finish a huge project like this, but the good thing about it is that for the fact that I worked on it during the last 2 years, there are so many different influences in it which makes a listening more interesting, I think. I’m very happy with the sound, I created a mixture of my typical Sunlounger trademark sound with those tribal beat elements, percussions and guitars. But I can say that this is the first Sunlounger album which will also rock the clubs, because next to the chill versions, the club mixes have  a very unique feel, very groovy and pumping but still melodic. So I think some tracks can also be played by some house DJ’s for sure. For this album I just did 5 vocal tracks and more instrumentals, but with the first single ‘Found’ ft Zara Taylor and the 2nd single ‘Breaking Waves’ ft Inger Hansen, we start with 2 catchy vocal tunes. I’m really excited about this big project, we will do a lot of videos for this album and also an album tour and I can’t wait to play all this new tunes.”

Download ‘Magic Island Vol. 3’ on iTunes or order the album on ArmadaShop.com.

Check out the previews of the album on the Armada Music YouTube channel.