It was very important. It taught us a sense of timing, taught us how to be in key with other instruments. It disciplined us a lot as far as not rushing. A lot of the times people rush because they are too excited or because they want to make things climax too quickly. It gave us that firm, solid foundation which helped us into the techno vibe today.

My brothers Lenny and Lynell took me into the electronic arena. At that time we had a group called the Aristobrats and they were like a Front Line Assembly, Front 242 kinda vibe. We bought some drum machines from them and that kinda launched us into that arena. Plus we already had DJed for a long time so we had bought a lot of KMS, Transmat, Hotmix Five. We already had our ears tuned to that, but those first instruments we bought from the Aristobrats really dragged us into the electronic genre.

Funky! Funky deep vibes. In the early days we did the lights there because we had this lighting rig from our road work. The guys at the Institute didn't have any lights so we brought our lighting rig in. It was just deep. A lot of experimental stuff. A lot of the times Derrick would grab some reel-to-reel projects. So you would be jacking all night and all of a sudden here's this track you've never heard before. That gave you the opportunity to really experiment with peoples' vibes and their minds and it would carry them to a new experience and see if they were into it. It was a good place for solid vibes and experimentation.

Through Anthony 'Shake' Shakir. Shake was actually doing some work there and we were looking for a studio. It was a cool experience. We got the chance to play around with a lot of gear. Juan used to borrow a lot from Kevin [Saunderson] where they would toss equipment back and forth. Kevin had this brand new keyboard with which we ended up doing I Believe with. He was so upset because he had never used it before. So we did a new song with his brand new keyboard. He hit the roof because he had bought it for a new Inner City project. It was a really cool experience. It was fun and that was our first connection with Kevin Saunderson: 'Hey what, you've been using my new board?

We did the song in Juan's studio and we were paying for all the studio time. Shake was really close to Derrick and wanted to give him the track. Juan's brother Aaron wanted the track for Metroplex and Kev wanted it for KMS. It was funny because all three labels wanted it. It wasn't supposed to go on the album, but Shake sent it to England where Derrick was at the time. They actually liked the track better than another song that they had chosen for the album so they ended up bumping the song. That made a few enemies at the time, but we didn't try to do that. We just did the track because we liked to do that.

The track that got bumped was from a good friend of ours, so we always keep that nipped in the bud. To this day he is probably quite upset about it.

It just had that special vibe. When we started in the music bizz we really didn't have the facilities to do vocals properly. We are starting to experiment again because we have better means now. There will be more vocal projects in the future.

Just because we learned the music business rather quickly. We were working around a lot of big people who were not in the techno genre, but were into jazz, pop... our cousin was one of the Ohio Players. We had the chance to look at a lot of different areas of the music business so we learned rather quickly. We sought for the best way to keep control of what we wanted to do. The best way was to start our own label and start looking at other avenues in which to do non-exclusive licenses and things like that. We wanted to keep total control.

Kinda percussive, kinda progressive, moody at times, and we like to keep a lot of momentum in what is going on. The aim is to keep a lot of momentum, a lot of percussion, and we like a lot of deep vibes. It's like: 'Let me glide and ride with you and see where we end up.' That type of mood.

The Octave One is one where we feel a certain way. So we might be putting out tracks with Octave One for a while and then we might pull back if we don't feel there is anything to stimulate that kind of mood. When something affects us – it might be something on the world front, it might be a war or peace, who knows – it brings us into that mode where we want to do a track under Octave One, but it's not something we can put out like a production factory. We have to be motivated, we have to be moved to go into that direction.

We wanted to give people all around the world a taste of what was actually going on on the techno front in Detroit. Because a lot of times we heard in interviews, 'They don't play my music in Detroit, they don't play techno in Detroit'. For us that really wasn't the case. They do play techno and it was a certain type of techno that they played. Detroit changed from the 4/4 techno to more of a funky kinda electro vibe, techno-bass vibe or really, really funky 4/4 techno. So we wanted to expose the rest of the world to that music that was actually being played on the radio, or played in the parks where people are playing basketball with the soundsystems blasting. We wanted people to get in tune with what they were actually kicking – that's why we did Direct Beat.

Aux 88 first came to us and they were trying to do some 4/4 more house vibes on 430 West. We dropped some of their side projects. We always dug the guys, we liked them as people, but we really didn't get the sales out of their products. We were like: 'Man, we can't keep putting this house stuff out because we are loosing heavily.' One day they were playing some stuff, saying they always liked making this kind of music and I went : 'What ? You guys should have brought this to us much earlier !' Nobody was doing techno-bass. It was pretty much where Juan left off, but we decided to go ahead, jump in and try to do some new things and put it out.

Random Noise can be mental at times, aggressive, it can be dark... It's just us hammering out whatever we came up with in the studio. We just turn the gear on, whatever mood you are in, whatever attitude is in place, we just roll with it. Random Noise has an aggressive type of mentality behind it.

It's doing excellent. We've just signed a deal where we've set up a provision just for that one song for 430 West UK. It's probably going to do top 10 in the UK market. We just did a video for it. Me and my brother actually produced the video and it's in rotation right now on MTV in the UK. And the track is on Radio 1 as well.

It wasn't all that strange because we had done some underground videos before. We did two for Aux 88 and one for Octave One, but those were deep, deep underground. This one was the first time we did something that was a little bit more commercially viable. It isn't a commercial video, but it isn't as deep as the Octave One projects. It was pretty cool because before we were into music we were doing film and video and we have a firm background in that.

It's a risk and a gamble. One we hope that will pay off.

What we wanted to do is give people a taste of what goes on in a particular section of Detroit which is where Rolando grew up, which is south-west Detroit. Everybody always says Detroit, Detroit, but there are certain sections which have a different cultural feel to them. South-west Detroit is Hispanic. We wanted to give people a true taste of what goes on in this community. From the restaurants to where Ro hangs out, etc. He has his cousins in there with the low rider bicycles with all this gold and chrome. It's different than our lowrider cars, but it's a genuine look into his everyday life. We didn't want to give an overall view of Detroit. Just because the song was so special, we wanted to give people a taste of what Ro sees when he goes home, when he goes to a party in his neighbourhood, whatever.

The 'Mad one' has led to this decission. Mike is very unpredictable. He has a certain way of doing things, that's his vibe. It has caught us by surprise so we just rode with it. We have been working with eachother since about 93, so we know eachothers rhythms and stuff. We kinda expected something twisted. That's Banks, he's my man. That's cool.

In the beginning of next year we should be looking at going into the new building. Submerge will be on one floor. I think Carl Craig and Richie Hawtin might also be coming in. I know Jeff Mills is, because me and Jeff are sharing a floor in the building. There's going to be an Axis office and a 430 West office, so we are going to share some offices together and share a conference room. It's going to be cool, being on a floor with Jeff shooting some ideas.

I think the highlights have always been being the captain of your own ship, of your own destiny. It's troubling at times. If things go well it's great, but when things go bad it still falls upon you. You carry the burden of everything. There are also a lot of highlights in Random Noise Generation and Octave One. The biggest highlight now is my little brother who came aboard to make tracks. He's been doing his thing on the Kaotic Spatial Rhythms on 430 West. He started doing his own tracks when he was sixteen, but he had done tracks with us here and there when he was 12. We just didn't tell people. He just turned seventeen and people are getting in tune with him. Everytime I see Jeff (Mills) he goes: 'Man, what's that KSR? Who is KSR?' and I always have to tell him it's my little brother. And he goes: 'You're sure it's not ya'll?' No, that's my baby brother kicking out tracks. It's cool, plus he DJs too. I've been thinking about sneaking him out at some festival in the summer where they have me booked. Just bring him on stage and let him do some spins and then I'll throw him back and finish it off. He's a fat DJ. Next year we're going to let him spin for a couple of hours at our party.

It was cool. It was a solid project that came together in a very short amount of time. If people knew how short… Our party as pulled in before the DEMF was actually confirmed. And our party was already arranged at a short amount of time. I think Carl really did an excellent job and I look forward to see what happens next year. Hopefully it will stay true techno and won't verge into the commercial end of techno. With Carl having the artistic vision behind it – it was true, true techno. It wasn't the kind of stuff you get jammed down your throat that you don't like the first ten times you hear it play, but by the eleventh time you're in love with it because it has a marketing budget that's out of control behind it. It was a true vibe and that's what we want to see next year again.

It actually shocked a lot of politicians in the city — a lot of club owners too because they had no idea… Afterwards all the clubs were declaring their techno nights. It was virtually ignored because they had no idea it had such a hold in the city.

We are going into the studio to do a new Octave One project which is kinda different. It's going to be a different project with some new things as well as some vocals. On top of that we are doing some new Random Noise Generation, but the Octave One will be the first. We are looking at a spring release for the Octave One and in the summer the Random Noise Generation projects. We have a new VocoderVocoder – that will be out soon, plus the remixes of Jaguar from Wild Planet; he did some remixes for done by Derrick May.

Well, Derrick would probably tell the story better. We had talked to Derrick about doing the remixes, but at that time he was driving through the US. He had decided to do this crazy trip from coast to coast across the US. I called him in three different cities and I finally got him to commit to do the remix. He said: 'Listen man, I'm going to be in Seattle on this day. If you send me the tapes and get me some studio time I'll do a remix.' We've known Derrick for years and we knew he wouldn't do this remix because he's just like that. He's a good guy, but it's hard to get him in a studio. So me and my brother Lenny told him 'Yeah, we'll send the tapes to your hotel, so give us your hotel information.' Instead we actually flew to Seattle. It was great because when I called Derrick he was like 'Hey, I haven't got the tapes yet, where are you guys at?', and I said 'Listen man, we are in the same hotel, let's go — in an hour we have got to be in the studio.' He was so upset because nobody ever did that to Derrick May. We've known Derrick for years so we knew what to do to make it work. So we just popped in on him, grabbed him and said 'Let's go to the studio.'

It was cool — we had a great time. When we got there it was a little rough because he hadn't been in a studio for about eight years. It has been a while since there has been any Derrick May anything. It was a little rocky at first, but then we just got in tune with each other and started cracking jokes, throwing stuff through the studio, talking about each other's looks. It was cool after that. We started vibing and jamming… It's gonna be on 430 West with some label designs from Abdul Haqq and Alan Oldham. So we've got some surprises for people. They are solid tracks and we are going to give people a peep at what was going on a couple of years ago. We actually got Derrick to do three remixes. A lot of people think it's only one, but we had him do three. It's only for 430 West US that the three are coming out. The UK version has a different mix as well.