Spain's Vicious Magazine Interviews apaull

The English translation is below. En Espanol see pages 48-50 of https://issuu.com/viciousmagazine/docs/vicious_magazine_n_101

Photos by: Dave Clarke

Your journey into electronic music is quite unconventional, beginning your production career later in life after a long path in science and business. Looking back at the past year, how has this chapter of your life shaped the way you approach music today?

Yeah, it is. I didn’t start until my mid-50s. I had built and sold an environmental consulting company, and for the first time I had the time to do something I had always wanted to do.

In the beginning it was just steep learning curve after steep learning curve. I had to learn, from scratch, how to write, produce, mix, master, release and promote music. I was so deep in the fog of war of learning I didn’t realize the similarities of what I was doing now as compared to what I did before.

Fairly early on though, I had an “aha” moment that much of what I had learned in business was directly transferable to music. The key common principles were putting in the time to learn the craft and at the same time creating a network with whom to share the music.

Where this really hit home for me was audience development. In the beginning, it was flood the market and hope people would listen. This is a futile exercise. My “aha” moment reminded me that in business you need to find the right market to sell your product and then work hard to earn sales. You are owed exactly nothing.

Over the last year I have really been able to detach myself from the mindset of caring about who likes my music. I am now very secure and at peace with what I produce. I focus on making sure that the production quality is high as possible. From there I continue to work hard at creating the network and audience who might appreciate my art.

Your new album Gunfactor explores themes of fame, ambition and notoriety. What inspired you to build a record around this concept, and how do these ideas translate into the sonic identity of the album?

The idea came out of a meeting in Amsterdam with a booking agent. She said to be successful you need good music, but, you also need the “gunfactor”, which in Dutch loosely means “it factor.” It is that intangible whose invisible hand pushes you into the zeitgeist and towards fame.

That conversation stuck with me and evolved into the album theme of pathways to fame.

There are two pathways. One is through properly marketed exceptional talent and the other is infamy, achieved by notorieties such as violence, which shock sensibilities and deliver (pyrrhic?) fame. Two sides of the same coin.

For me, the album theme (and its impact on its sonic identify) really comes through on track vocals. That’s the anchor. I’m constantly absorbing what’s happening—news, politics, culture, random phrases—and then building vocal ideas out of that. Sometimes it’s samples, sometimes text-to-speech, sometimes my own voice. Once the track vocal has been developed, I build the music around it. Each track has a very distinct meaning and collectively contributes to the album’s theme.

The album blends techno with industrial, indie dance and synthwave elements. How did you approach the balance between these influences while keeping the sound cohesive across the record?

Genre is a funny thing. I’ll ask my executive producer, Abe Duque, the genre of the track we are working on and he’ll just shrug—it is what it is.

When producing a track, I don’t start with the genre as much as above noted influences. I find the four on the floor kick easy to work with and go from there. I add other elements and like an episode of Survivor take them out and put them in until they start to fit. Afterwards my team puts a label on it, generally techno (peak time driving), at least on Beatport, although I find that to be more of a parking spot than something definitive.

Cohesion comes from production consistency. I am always producing at least one track and sometimes two. I am religious about finishing tracks so that means there are one to two new finished tracks each month. While the tracks may be quite different my head space moves more slowly and I include enough common or complementary elements between tracks to create the necessary continuity. My goal is to create a unique apaull sound.

Many of the tracks on Gunfactor feel designed both for peak-time dancefloors and deeper after-hours moments. When producing, do you imagine specific club environments or is the process more instinctive?

I don’t really produce for a specific environment. I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m not a club guy (and I don’t like dancing). I like clubs well enough but prefer to be the one entertaining rather than being entertained.  That said there is nothing like hearing a good track on a club sound system.

So, I produce tracks that can work in a club but also hold up outside of it. Something you can live with, not just react to for five minutes on a dancefloor. Production quality is critical to me. As I thread between clubs and other environments I never want anyone to say the track sounds poorly produced.

To help with club play, I strategically lean on the remixers I hire to re-interpret my tracks to create more deliberately produced club tracks for various dance floors. For the Gunfactor album remixers include Junior Sanchez (House), Andre Winter (Techno), Dina Summer (Indie Dance) and Rhys Fulber (Techno).

Your collaboration with legendary techno figure Dave Clarke goes beyond musical support—he also photographs your official imagery. How did this relationship begin, and how has his perspective influenced your artistic vision?

My work with Dave is really centered on photography. What drew me in wasn’t just his music, but that he had built this second artistic lane.I started following his photography closely and just liked the aesthetic. And I thought—here’s someone who understands electronic music and its art deeply, who can translate that visually in a way that feels authentic.We don’t collaborate on music at all, although I consider it a great fortune when one of my tracks earns a spot on his globally syndicated Whitenoise radio program. However, you learn things just by hanging around. If you pay attention there can be an osmosis in terms of approach to the craft and how to position art. To that end, he did give me the pithiest of responses when I was struggling with the idea of not wanting to be a full time DJ when he said to me: “Then don’t.” It gave me the confidence to be what I need to be rather than what others think I need to be.

Visually he presents in the way I want to be presented. He somehow pulls that out of me and there it is. People often see the pictures before they hear the music.

You also run your own label, Furnace Room Records, which has become the main platform for your releases. How important is it for you to maintain creative independence through the label? Are you currently open to receiving demos from other artists, and what can we expect from you and the label throughout the rest of 2026?

At the beginning it was very much a chicken-and-egg problem. I had music, but no label. I could have spent years chasing that, but I wasn’t prepared to wait or to shape my music to fit someone else’s expectations.So I built Furnace Room Records as a vehicle for my own releases. It gives me full control—what I release, when I release it, how it sounds.The trade-off is reach, so instead of relying on labels I’ve leaned into remixers. That’s been my way of expanding—working with artists who already have an audience and building outward from there.I’ve been very selective with other releases on the label. To date that includes my collaboration on the Horizont EP with Blake Baxter and Abe Duque who produced a cover version of my track “Billionaire Bitch”, in late 2025. I’m open to receiving demos but not looking to build a big traditional label.

2026 is all about the Gunfactor. Each track will be released as a single with an accompanying remix.

2026 is also about more live performances. While I am a competent DJ, I am more interested in performing my music live and looking to build on my current live bookings, which include a 15 May 2026 City Wall Records show in Brighton opening for Dave Clarke.