DJ Purple Disco Machine: Success through genrelessness

For Dresden-based DJ Purple Disco Machine, thinking outside the box is the key to success. "I don't care about genres at all by now," the artist, whose real name is Tino Piontek, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in an interview. In Saxony's capital, the "valley of the clueless - as we Dresdeners say ourselves," he said, people tend to be cut off from the world, unlike other big cities. This allowed him to try out new things without being influenced and to find his very own way. With songs like "Hypnotized" and "Substitution," the 43-year-old stands in front of party-goers on the podium worldwide.

He says his music doesn't really fit in anywhere - which makes it special. "We Germans quite often have the problem that we always have drawers for things, including music. We need genres and then it happens that we don't even give a chance to music that we might feel, because it doesn't correspond to the genre we want to hear or should hear."

Before Piontek celebrated success in Germany, he had long been known and successful on other continents of the world, the Dresden native recalls. "Every country, every continent celebrates differently - people react very differently to my music." He feels particularly comfortable in South America - where people are open with his music. "People there just feel music - either they feel it or they don't."

Moving away from Dresden was never really an option for him, Piontek said. "I was never the type who always had wanderlust, was totally happy with the life I had in Dresden." He said it was always important to him that his success grew as naturally as possible. For the past ten years, he has been traveling "extremely much" for work. "Since then, Dresden has become my home again in a completely different way. I have namely noticed through it, what the city really means to me and what I have in it."

On Friday (September 15) Piontek is now in his hometown on stage. As a child, he said, he attended his first concert in the Junge Garde with his grandma. "The fact that I'm on stage in Dresden does a lot with me. From the moment I decided to do it, I also almost regretted it," he said with a smile. Friends, family, companions - everyone is there, he said. "That's nice, and at the same time it scares me a little bit, because I just feel more comfortable when I'm in some city where I know few people. It's easier to leave there if something goes wrong. You can't do that in Dresden."