Markus plays in Calgary, Canada on December 26th at Tantra Nightclub, with 709's Wes Straub opening. Click here for more information on this event.

It’s a humid December evening in Miami when I track Markus Schulz down at his home in Miami, Florida, where he’s recuperating after a series of high-profile shows in South America – his first ever on the southern continent. “Last weekend I was in Brazil, and the weekend before that I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina,” he begins. “The people were simply amazing.” Over the years, Markus has shied away from taking South American gigs, preferring to focus on Europe and North America while he builds his reputation as a world-class DJ. “We’ve turned down a number of opportunities to play South America,” he explains, “waiting for the right time, and I think we got it right. The reception we got to these shows was just amazing, the people were amazing, and we had just so much fun.” For Markus’ South American fans, the wait was well worth it. “You could just feel the tension in the air as I took to the stage,” he recalls. “When I first popped my head up on stage, the fans just gave me such a wonderful welcome – I knew we were in for an amazing evening.”

As one of the most highly respected DJs on the global circuit, Markus is no stranger to international travel. “I feel really comfortable traveling,” Markus explains. “Over the years I’ve found that it’s when I’m sitting still that I start to feel uncomfortable. Traveling, meeting new people, seeing new places, it’s such a thrill – and it’s really inspiring.”

To Markus, immersing himself in global culture is an integral part of who he is as a musician. “Back in the day, I was living in Arizona, doing a lot of studio work for major artists and major labels. It was really just me and my studio – and while I’d refined my skills in the studio, I didn’t really know who I was, musically.”

As one half of the production duo Edge Factor, Markus Schulz saw considerable success in the 1990s. He was well known in commercial circles as a radio DJ and top-tier remixer, having been tapped for high-profile remix work for the likes of Madonna and the Backstreet Boys. His reputation in underground circles was similarly impressive, with one of his mixes featuring prominently on Sasha and Digweed’s Northern Exposure Expeditions compilation, and with his label-cum-record-shop, Plastik Records, carving out a respectable niche for itself. But while the Markus Schulz of the 1990s may have been marketable, he didn’t feel at peace with himself musically.

“It wasn’t until I moved to Brixton in the UK, and to be a part of that community, that I was able to really find my sound,” he explains. “But now, in traveling the world, and being constantly exposed to so many different, young producers, it’s helping my sound to continually evolve – and also helping the genre to evolve.” While Markus may have moved across the globe on a quest to find his musical identity, he came out the other side of the process as the champion of a genre all his own. “When I’m playing out, I’m really fortunate in that I’m able to give so many young producers a voice for their music to be heard,” Markus explains of his unique musical style.

As one who has turned his largely back on the world of mainstream corporate music, Markus is acutely aware of the importance of building a sound and nurturing up-and-coming talent. “We feed off of each other,” he says of his relationship with the producers whose work he showcases in his sets. “I feed off of the other producers when I play their tracks, and the other producers feed off of me and each other when I’m playing their songs in my sets – and the audience feeds off of us while giving us their own energy, too. It’s just a cycle of inspiration, really, and it’s something I’m proud to be a part of.”

Markus’ extensive international travel schedule means a heavy reliance on portable computing technology when it comes to producing and preparing his music for live performance. “My laptop seems to be my life right now,” he says with a chuckle. “I do a lot of rough sketches of tracks on it, and a lot of my radio show is done on it too.” Additionally, the first week of each month, Markus’ weekly radio show Global DJ Broadcast is broadcast as a liveset from one of his recent gigs – with the soundboard recording mixed down after the show alongside a recording taken from a mic pointed at the audience, in order to capture the energy of the event for radio listeners.

Having learned his craft in an era when laptops were little more than glorified word processors, Markus welcomes the freedom and creative flexibility that a high-powered laptop offers the professional musician. “If I come up with an idea, I’m able to just grab my headphones and sketch it out,” he says. “Whether it’s a sound, a melody, or a particular edit or bootleg, I can do it right there.” To Markus, this flexibility translates to greater creative freedom. “Any time you can do work in random places and random moments, it just makes the music so much more spontaneous,” he says. “I don’t make the finished product in the laptop, but I sketch the ideas out so they don’t get lost, and then when I get back to the studio, I can go back through my sketched out ideas and elaborate on them.”

But while Markus may use his laptop for sketching out ideas and for working with audio on the road, he still sees his home studio as the place from which his finished tracks should emerge. “It’s a little bit of everything,” he explains of the thinking behind his laptop/studio division of labour. “In the studio you have a little bit more elbow room. You can crank the volume up, and not be limited by headphones – you can dance around and actually feel the music. For me, a lot of the music I play is physical. People need to be able to dance to it, people need to be taken on a ride by it. If I’m creating a sketch of something on an airplane,” he says with a laugh, “I can’t exactly jump up and start trying to feel the moment in the aisles! You’re expecting a song to touch people a certain way both emotionally and physically – and you don’t really know until you crank the song up, and feel the bass, feel the momentum of the track on a proper sound system.”

But despite his reliance on his laptop as an editing and production tool, Markus admits he’s not yet sold on the idea of using his laptop as a performance tool in the DJ booth. “I feel that when you’ve got your head buried in your laptop, clicking around on the mouse, you lose that special connection with the audience,” he explains. “As hardware for these things develops better, I think things will change – but for right now, the technology just doesn’t have what I want it to have. For me, to have that connection with the audience, to have the audience be able to see me physically doing things, that’s part of the magic of performing.”

As a professional performer, Markus has some hard and fast rules about how he interacts with the audience when performing as a nightclub DJ. “One of my rules is always this – never turn your back on the audience. It’s almost like turning your back on the audience when you stick you head in your laptop screen and you start clicking around. Back in the day when DJ booths were darker and in the corner of the room, you could turn your back, go through your records and really study everything – but as DJs have evolved into performers, you have to keep that connection, and I think a lot of times that connection is lost when the audience sees the DJs back or the top of the DJ’s head as they’re flipping through things on their laptop.”

Part of the problem, as Markus sees it, is the dearth of standardized DJ hardware for software-based setups. “One thing that needs to evolve is a proper standard for MIDI hardware in the DJ booth,” he explains. “Somebody needs to come along and make a superior product before the nail is put in the coffin of CDs. Right now everyone has their own preference, but none of them are head and shoulders above the others. Many people swear by their choice, but when it comes down to it, every one of the pieces right now seems to have too many limitations. It’s just like it was with turntables and CDJs – once somebody comes up with a product that feels universally solid, and the clubs and event promoters start putting them in up on stage and we can just plug in and make it happen, then we’ll start to see a real change. Allen & Heath is on the right track with their Xone-3D. I do think they’re further along than most people, but I think there’s still something missing there.”

Markus plays in Calgary, Canada on December 26th at Tantra Nightclub, with 709's Wes Straub opening. Click here for more information on this event.