Stepping into the conference room at the Clubplanet Miami office, Greg Chin, a.k.a Stryke, walks in wearing a black v-neck and jeans. Just your normal run-of-the-mill-looking guy, other than the fact that he’s a world-recognized producer and DJ. The majority of the time, even fans of Stryke’s work may not recognize him, but it seems like he prefers it that way.
With the kind of shy and genuine demeanor you get out of a good friend from grade school, Stryke has none of the qualities that you’d expect out of an artist whose recent album, The Narrowest of Paths, holds the number one spot in the German tech house ranks. No attitude, no cocky behavior, no flashy threads with Gucci or Prada sprinkled across in glitter. Just a guy who loves what he does, and is damn good at it.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, music sparked a flame in Stryke's life at the age of three and continues to grow till this day. Not only a producer and DJ, Stryke’s resume includes vocalist, audio engineer and corporate consultant to audio companies. Not bad for a guy who tours in Europe, stops in Miami to record, then heads out again to hit the stage.
Stryke takes a seat and prepares for the barrage of questions that are about to come his way. He’s friendly, cool, calm and collected. It almost seems like it’s a break out of a hectic schedule for him. Instead of acting unenthused and tired from his traveling, he’s grateful. “It’s so nice to be able to do an interview in English,” he says.
Coming off of a promotional tour in Europe, Stryke sat down with Clubplanet for his first interview since he’s been back.
Clubplanet: What’s the concept behind your new album [The Narrowest of Paths]? You have a track on there titled ‘Spiral,’ that’s been getting an immense amount of praise. What’s the concept behind ‘Spiral’ in relation to the album?
Stryke: It’s funny to me because I thought that ‘Spiral’ was going to be the cut that didn’t make it on the album. But, it needed to be on album. The entire album is based on the concept of finding love and the newness of it and where you go from there. ‘Spiral’ is the one cut on the album that I would say has a little bit of, not a negative connotation, but it was written as a sort of spiral downward, trying to regain your dignity and yourself. It doesn’t sound like a dark song, but it is kind of dark in that your caught in this downward spiral where your not sure what’s going on in this relationship or what’s happening but you’d still like to maintain some kind of positive outlook.
CP: How did you discover music?
Stryke: Music has always been a part of my family. My dad was a big record collector, and would always import American and British records. We were always playing music at the house. But when I was three-years-old, we went to church one Sunday and the organist was playing this piano solo, and that was the major catalyst for me because that just hit me in this really emotional sense that I still remember the day, like it was yesterday. I remember after the service asking my mom if we could get piano lessons and she said ‘no.’ My mom finally gave in and I started taking piano lessons. So that’s how it started.
CP: When did you come over to the states?
Stryke: We ended up moving to the states in 1980. Music was much different here. I discovered Joy Division pretty early on as well as New Order and Depeche Mode, which is another huge catalyst for me. That’s how I started to discover the more electronic type of sound. At 12 I was already saving up money to buy my first synthesizer. I became interested in DJing watching my uncles do it. So, I started DJing at the age of 13 as well and doing parties for school, since I was getting any action anyway from the chicks. (laughs) I started making money from DJing and I would flip it and buy equipment. Equipment turned into demo writing, demo writing turned into booking time in the studio. So one thing turned into another. When I got to college, Hurricane Andrew hit and took everything I ever owned. My car, my clothing, my DJ equipment, my comic books, everything. I was attending FIU at the time and I was already DJing. But, after Hurricane Andrew is when I really got serious about DJing. It was really my only form of escapism at that time.
CP: What were some of your influences at the time?
Stryke: Starting from scratch, Beethoven and Chopin were my first two. Those were the first two composers that affected me on a cerebral and emotional level. Bob Marley is obviously a very big deal back home. Moving to the states, Depeche Mode was the first huge one. I was buying records a lot, 12” records specifically for remixes, and it was at about 85’ or 86’ that my cousin Wayne, who was actually DJing with Tom Terry and guys like that in New York, he sent me a tape of him DJing, and the stuff that he was DJing I never really heard before, and it was basically old house and old techno and he started sending me tapes all the time and I started looking for this music. Then I started pretty much switching from old school free style electronic and alternative stuff into house and techno.
CP: When did things start looking up for you, making you realize that you had a talent and that you could harness it into a career?
Stryke: I still don’t realize that. (laughs) But, I always knew that I had to do this. As I got older I focused it a little bit more. Here it was really difficult to make a correlation between being a recording artist and being a DJ. Those things really didn’t exist together until the 90s when that became the norm. So I had no idea, but I knew that I wanted to put those two things together, but at the time there was no formula for that. But I knew that I had these two things that I enjoyed doing equally together. But I would say that things started kicking up when I was at the Edge. Bruce Wilcox really took me under his wing. I was a really shy kid and Bruce knew that, but I guess that he saw something in me on both levels and took me under his wing and really pushed me into playing a lot of the bigger parties so people would see me. That time was really important in South Florida because there was no scene, but it was building.
CP: Why would you say you do what you do?
Stryke: Electronic music for me has a very specific hook to it, which is rhythmic, so there’s a very primal element to it that I can totally relate to when I’m DJing and seeing the crowd respond to that. But there’s also a very emotional element to it and I’ve always been a very emotional person.
CP: Which could stem from growing up on Joy Division and Depeche Mode.
Stryke: And I still have my wrists intact. (laughs) But specifically from a lot of the early Detroit stuff, that emotional context was there. For me, electronic music was always that perfect blend of stuff you can just get crazy and dance to, but also be very introspective and emotional, and that’s something that I strive to do on the dance floor and definitely in my production work.
CP: You’re very big on the concept of communication through music. Can you go into that for us?
Stryke: Music’s always communicated something to me. For me it’s the most basic form of communication before even speaking people were always using smoke signals or percussion o