Not too long ago, progressive house seemed to be bogged down by its own supposed self-importance. So much so, that in the process of trying to make an ‘intelligent’ sound, many DJs/producers managed to create what can only be described as plod prog. Somewhere along the line, the fun factor disappeared and was replaced by dull, monotonous beats. I’m sure that as a result of this, many who were once fans, turned their backs on the genre and looked towards other styles for something more interesting. In some ways, the calls for ‘progressive is dead’ were almost justified. Things needed to change otherwise the genre would have gone completely underground or eventually disappear and becoming a distant memory.

Over the last few years, a transformation has been taking place. A new generation of DJs and producers has been breathing new life into progressive. Slowly but surely, not only is the music fun to listen to again but a ‘wow’ factor has appeared. One DJ and producer who has been riding the crest of the new progressive sound is Canada’s Tony Papadopoulos aka Tone Depth. Making an instant impact with his first production, ‘Point 7’, which appeared on Paul Oakenfold’s ‘Travelling’ compilation from 2000. Tone Depth’s success has since continued with further releases on the Bedrock and Fade labels. He is just as recognised for his inherently beautiful collaborations with fellow Canadian Sultan as well as his productions for Yoshitoshi/Shinichi under his other moniker, The Greek.

Whether DJing around the world, collaborating with Sultan or releasing solo works, Tone Depth’s sound is instantly recognisable. While melody is abundant, each piece of work holds a deeper sense of maturity. They are worldly in feel and quite atmospheric in texture. When combined, they form the unique sound that can only be Tone Depth. It is a sound that has appeared on many compilations including Global Underground and Renaissance. RA had the pleasure of speaking to Tone Depth, one of progressive’s true innovators. Much respect!

When you were younger, you lived in various parts of the world. Is there one particular place that made an impact on you thereby influencing your music? I ask because I hear subtle Middle Eastern influences in some of your tracks?

I guess I would have to say that living in Bahrain had the biggest influence on me. I was there from the age of 8 to 17 (aside from the year and a half that I spent in Cyprus), and those years of your life are the ones that really shape you. The school I went to there had lots of different people there from almost every country you could think of. During the summer most people would go back to where they're from and at the beginning of the next school year everyone would come back from summer vacation and bring back things from their own country and share with everyone else. Usually it was things like music, movies, and clothes. In Bahrain at that time radio was very limited and there we're only 3 TV channels that ran from 4pm to midnight everyday. There really was no way for kids to experience new music or anything else through those mediums, so we all had what was given to us by our friends. When I came back to Bahrain from Cyprus in the spring of 91 no one except for maybe 2 British friends of mine had even heard of techno or house music. I came back with all these mix tapes from Djs in Europe that had been given to me by tourists I had met there. The closest thing I had heard to that before I moved to Cyprus was older electronic records like Afrika Bambata "planet rock" and Jean Michel Jarre "Oxygen". Everything I learnt was straight from my immediate surroundings and close friends. That atmosphere was very special and can never really be created again for me now. Nowadays in Bahrain that’s not the case as much, now there's satellite TV and the internet over there and the vibe is totally different from when I grew up there. Also hearing Arabic music and Indian music playing all over the place definitely had an impact on me. You couldn't escape it living there and after some time it just grows on you and leaves and imprint. Growing up in that culture definitely had a huge influence on me so it was no surprise that Middle Eastern influences come through in the music that I create.

The later part of your teens was spent in Cyprus where you were introduced to raves and house music. I never would have associated Cyprus with raves or house music. What was that like to experience? Do you still go back?

I went to Cyprus 2 months before Iraq invaded Kuwait when I was 13 years old. I was with my parents looking for a boarding school to go to and finish my studies off there. When the Gulf war started my parents went back to Bahrain and I was worried for their safety and I think that had a strong effect on me because I began to want to escape from my worries. I started sneaking out of my boarding school with my cousins and friends almost every night and going out to clubs and drinking a lot. I lived my life very recklessly back then but it was my 1st experience of going out to clubs and partying to a DJ instead of a boom box blasting Jane’s addiction. The 1st house track that really hit me was lil Louis "French kiss". I went to this club in Ayia Napa called "P'zazz" and as soon as I walked in, it had started to play. All I can remember is everyone locking into this one groove and thinking about nothing else. After that I was hooked on going out to clubs and doing what you do as teenager, partying and trying to pick up girls. I really got introduced to house and techno this way. Another track that really hit me was Adamski's"Killer" with the Seal vocals on top. The lyrics in that track really hit me hard and it still is one of my favorite tracks of all time. As for raves in Cyprus? Well raves in Cyprus at that time were in such an infantile stage that it would consist of just around 20-50 people and a sound system sat on a friends pickup truck! Usually it would be in banana plantation or on the beach. No flyers, no big name DJ's, just a bunch of kids being as free as possible. Also a lot of the tourists I met would give me mix tapes from all different parts of Europe and that opened my eyes up to a lot of different types of music going on in different parts of the world. When I left Cyprus I basically was avoiding being drafted in to do military service there because of my Cypriot heritage. I haven't been back to Cyprus because of this but if they eliminate the draft there then I'll definitely go back and visit.

You work under the names of Tone Depth and The Greek with the later being a name you exclusively use for Yoshitoshi releases. Why the two pseudonyms? How is a Tone Depth track different from a track released under The Greek guise?

The name Tone Depth is the name I have used as a producer for about 5 years now. When I signed to Yoshitoshi they wanted a name exclusive for them and I wanted to retain the name Tone Depth to keep it more free and used the name “The Greek” exclusively for them. It came about one night in Greece. I was talking to Sharam from Deep dish about what name I could use for them and he just blurrbed out “Sultan & the Greek” and I thought it was pretty funny but also catchy at the same time. It ended up just sticking from there. Also I find the stuff that I put out as the Greek is a bit softer and house influenced than my output as Tone Depth.

I've noticed that there are similarities in background between you and Sultan. Your collaborative work with him is as well known as your individual efforts. You’re both obviously passionate about dance music and have a unique interpretation of the progressive sound. Do you think you two work well together because of those similarities?

I and Sultan grew up pretty much the same way. We both grew up in the Middle East, we've both gone to boarding school in Cyprus and we now live in Montreal. We work well together because we have our own interpretation of what we like to hear and it’s hard to find people to work with that feel like that. We also are both guitarists so we like to add a lot of that into our productions. It’s great though because we have a lot to learn from one another at the same time. Sultan has been in a rock band for a long time now so he brings a lot of ideas to the table that comes from his experience doing that. And I've been working in the studio for a long time so he learns from my experiences in that area. It’s a very good balanced working relationship and we get along very well. We have a really good time making music and I think if we didn't enjoy it so much then we wouldn't be doing it.

Tone Depth

One of my favorite tracks from 2003 was your track Alive featuring the stunning vocals of Stephanie Vezina. The first time I heard it, I felt like my heart had been ripped out and served back to me on a platter. What was the inspiration behind the track?

I wrote that track after having a really good summer vacation in Greece. I had just gotten back and I already missed the place. It’s really just all about being alive and just sitting back and enjoying life in a beautiful place that feels like paradise. It’s also about missing people and places. Before I finished that track I went down to New York to see some friends and ended up in the hospital getting my appendix taken out! When I got back to Montreal I finished the track the next day and my manager Alex heard it and thought that I should call it "Alive". It stuck from then on and I think the name really sums up the feelings of the track. I was also really happy with the Vocals that Stephanie Vezina put on the track. Stephanie really nailed it on the head with the lyrics that she wrote. I was sitting with her talking about my vacation in Greece and she just caught the vibe of the track straight away and wrote the most perfect lyrics for what I was feeling for the track and everything just fell together.

Speaking of Stephanie Vezina, she seems to be a favorite vocalist of yours. How did you discover her and did she need convincing to work on your tracks?

I met Stephanie at a restaurant/bar that she was working at back then. One night she just came to the table at the end of the night and just started belting out these vocals in Spanish and I immediately wanted to work with her. I found her voice very angelic and I really thought it would work well with the stuff I was doing. Stephanie is very open minded when it comes to music. As well as working with me and Sultan, she's also done vocals on some hip hop stuff down in New York as well as writing her own music. She's very versatile and can fit into any mood that we set for her with our music. She usually can pinpoint the feeling of the track and write something that sums it up perfectly and really help bring meaning to the track. She didn't need much convincing to work on our tracks, like I said before, she is very open minded and she was definitely very open to the experience of working with us.

I have to say that one of the best remixes from last year was the remix of Valentino Kanzyani’s Flying by you and Sultan. I've always known of Valentino through his techno work so I was surprised to find your remix of this particular track on Deep Dish's Global Underground #25 Toronto. Was your remix much of a variance from the original? How did you get the opportunity to remix this track? It’s not every day that progressive house producers remix work created by a techno producer.

I first heard that track in Greece when Sharam(Deep Dish) was playing at a club called "Loca Club" in Aegion, Greece. As soon as I heard that track I fell in love with the guitar in it and straight away told Sharam that I would love to remix that track. I knew that Sultan would be interested in it as well seeing as we are both guitarists. A few months later we needed to find someone on Yoshitoshi to do a swap remix with for a b-side of one of me and Sultans records. I told Sharam again that both of us would love to work on that track and he said he would see what he could do. A couple of weeks later the pieces arrived in the mail and we went straight to work on it. Sultan got inspired to write some guitar to accompany the original riff and I got working on the beats. We finished it quite fast which is usual for us when we get to remix a track that really inspires us. We're very open minded with the music that we listen to so it wasn't really strange for us to remix a track by Valentino. We respect all forms of music and we feel like music should not have boundaries imposed on it.

You used to create scores for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and YTV, which I think would be quite lucrative for a musician. Do you use the same methods in creating your music today, which you did back then?

Working for television really helped me to expand my mind both with the writing aspect and the production aspect. I would be asked to do something very specific in a very short space of time. Usually it would be a musical style that I would never have worked with before and have to create something. It challenged my way of thinking and made me more versatile when it was time to go back and do my own music outside of television. Sometimes they would ask me to do music that was geared more towards what I do on my own so that was easier and not as hard to do. But I really enjoyed the work that challenged me more. I learnt a lot about sound effects creation as well which translate well into my own work these days so a lot of the methods that I have learnt from TV work have passed on to my own productions as well.

You've become a star on the progressive scene almost overnight. All your tracks have been picked up by the right people at the right time but in a relative short time. Your very first production work was championed by Paul Oakenfold, then Rumble fish was signed to John Digweed’s Bedrock label and now you're releasing material through Yoshitoshi. Your talent is quite obvious but would you say that you’ve been extremely lucky with what you’ve achieved so far? Were there any obstacles that you had to overcome to get where you are today?

Yes I definitely would say that I've been lucky. But then again I work very hard at what I do so I think it’s 50/50. If the opportunities came around and I hadn't put enough effort in my work then it would have been all a waste. There have been a lot of obstacles to it as well. You have to keep up with what you're doing and it’s not all of the time that you can be inspired to write music. Also it takes a while from the time that a producer makes a track until the time that the track hits the shops. By the time the track is new to the public it’s already old to the producer.

But I really cannot complain. It has been a very good ride for me so far and I've had some great opportunities that I’m very grateful for. I've achieved a lot of goals that I've set out for myself and continue to try and raise the bar to keep myself on my toes so I can keep on producing fresh tracks for a long time.

Montreal's Stereo is quickly becoming one of the world’s most famous clubs alongside London's Fabric and Buenos Aires Pacha. Many DJs and clubbers speak of its fabulous sound system and basic interior yet it doesn't have a license to sell alcohol. Is this a common thing with clubs in Canada? Is the vibe in the club significantly different because no one is drinking alcohol?

In Montreal you can't serve alcohol past 3am. Montreal is very cosmopolitan and has a very strong European influence so people here don't go out until after midnight. By 3am usually people still haven't totally had a full night yet so people love to go to after hours here and dance until very early in the morning. The usual time in Montreal for a headlining DJ to go on and play is at around 4am, which is pretty late but people still stay a while for the party. The vibe here is very underground and dark with the emphasis on the music. People here love to dance a lot, and the atmosphere of the nightlife here is very decadent. Most of the people who come to the club are there after drinking at the bars and nightclubs so there still is an alcohol vibe. Also our winters here are very long so people like to escape from that by partying a lot and trying to get through the winter. This is common across a lot of Canada, in Toronto the bars stop serving alcohol at 2am in the morning so their after hours start even earlier than us. It definitely is a big difference from clubs that I've been to in Greece that serve alcohol all night long, people tend to be more social in clubs like that than in clubs here. Here everyone in the after hours is just so lost in the music that all they want to do is dance until they drop. Both ways are fine by me, I like to experience different vibes because it keeps life from being boring.

Finally, I have to say that trying to find info on you on the internet was somewhat difficult. There were snippets here and there but I'm beginning to think you're the International Man of Mystery. Are you? Will there be a Tone Depth website in the near future?

Yes, I definitely will have a website coming soon. I've been really busy this past year and haven't had the chance to sit down and do one so it’s now starting to get into the works. I have to embarrassingly admit that I still don't have the internet at home! I use my computer for music and nothing else just to stay safe and now I'm getting another one for the internet. By the summer time I should have a site up and running and you'll be able to get all the information on me from there.