Juan MacLean has taken his live act on the road the past two months with a whirlwind schedule in support of the upcoming album, “The Future Will Come,” that is slated to be released in early 2009. “Happy House” was a MONSTER jam this summer and the other leaked material, “Simple Life” (a nice spacey disco track) and “Find a Way” also have caught my ear. To say the least, I was extremely pumped to have a chance to interview the artist himself.

Unfortunately, the stars were not aligned for pulling off a solid means of communication with Mr. MacLean. Interviewing him while the band did sound check in the background garbled my recording and our cell phone connection was piss poor. Add to the fact that my recorder took on a mind of it’s own, I was only able to salvage a few pieces of wisdom from the longtime DFA act. Nonetheless, I am pretty excited to catch them tonight at the Cat…

How’s it going? Everything cool?

Yea, we are in Atlanta and we were in New Orleans last night, which was a surprisingly good turnout. We were really worried about was going on in the city.

Was that the first time you had been down since Katrina?

We were on tour with LCD Soundsystem and were scheduled to play there right before Katrina hit and then it got cancelled.

How was your stop in Juarez?

Juarez was tight. I DJ there alot, so I am pretty used to going down there, but there wasn’t as good of a turnout as there usually would be. People are afraid to go out down there because there were 300 murders the month before we were there and the club where we played is blocked in by the streets where the killings tend to take place. There was actually one that evening when we were leaving and someone had been shot outside the club. So it put a damper on things and it prevented people from going out.

Have you had any good positive highlights from this tour?

Nothing particularly interesting that sticks out. All of the shows have been really good.

What kind of stuff have you been playing? New stuff from the upcoming album? Old releases?

This is a warm-up tour for the new album. So we are pretty much playing half new stuff and half old stuff, split right down the middle.

Have you had any time to do any record shopping on the road or have you been too busy barnstorming?

We always do.

Any good finds?

I know I am always looking for old disco records and am swayed by labels or interesting album covers. So I have been picking up a few hundred records from certain labels in the 70s or early 80s. Generally when we get anywhere, everyone usually runs away to get to the record stores as fast as possible.

So you guys are fighting it out in the 12″ bins?

Oh yea all the time. We are always tricking each other where the record store in order to throw the other people off. YOu know you run down there and try to be the first one in order to get the best finds.

You have alot of experience playing live and DJing. How do you approach both differently?

Djing to me is mainly about reading an audience, which is a lost art in DJing these days. Alot of people go out to hear a DJ on the road and its usually preprogrammed and they aren’t paying attention to whats going on the dancefloor or what people want to hear. Its a big gripe of mine. In that sense, I believe DJing is interactive. In the band you are communicating through music on stage. With DJing, your interacting much more with the audience and getting your cues from the audience: what’s working, where things should. Both of them, I see as being interactive.

Are you still mostly playing vinyl or have you expanded into other digital things like Ableton or Serato?

I mostly still play vinyl with the odd CD here and there.

The whole 90s house thing has come back in a big way, with a resurgence in interest in tracks from that era and the popularity of releases such as “Happy House” or Runaway’s “Brooklyn Club Jam.” What do you think the motivation is behind the comeback of that sound.

For me, it’s something I have been influenced by for years. It’s the same thing as the disco revival, where everybody loves disco now and has been picking up the old records and using those sounds and whatnot. I think that in the same way people are getting into housier things and its a natural, logical progression since house grew out of disco. It feels like history repeating itself again.

What are some of the older tracks that never leave your own bag?

“Energy Flash” by Joey Beltram, “French Kiss” by Lil Louis, “Your Love” by Frankie Knuckles, “No UFOs” by Model 500, “Big Fun” by Inner City, those are real staples that haven’t left my bag for years.

What’s going to distinguish the new album “The Future Will Come” from “Less than Human”

“The Future Will Come” is pretty different in that sense that its mostly shorter, vocal oriented songs and Nancy Whang she did the whole album like a cross between Human League with disco audience. It’s got songs that are more traditionally structured.

We are going through a volatile political and economic situation right now in the U.S., are you trying to convey any kind of message in your performances or new album concerning what’s going on?

I never really get into any of that stuff at all. I much more into personal politics on a bigger level, social commentary.

Good luck tonight, sorry about that problem with the phone and I’ll see you in DC..

Thanks…

p.s. Juan is at the Cat tonight
p.p.s. Check out our old ass interview with Juan Maclean

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