Plane Right

He'll be back in town in the new year for Summadayze, but my phone call with Vito De Luca (aka Aeroplane) finds him chilling in his bed at home in Brussels. “It's pretty early in the morning here,” he relays, slightly dozy. “I'm trying to save a lot of time to be home during the week. My studio is at home so I need to be here to actually make music.”

The Belgian DJ-producer, and flag-bearer for the 'nu-disco' banner that lingers over his head to this day, released his debut album to a positive reception in 2010, and followed up with last year's Info Entertainment, a mix compilation featuring new and exclusive tracks from artists he's digging. When discussing the record it becomes immediately clear that his greatest passion after producing is finding music, and trying to educate dancefloor enthusiasts as to his tastes.

“That was the biggest part of that compilation for me… I found all these guys, I made them make a song especially for this compilation and I pushed them to do a great job and now you can buy all those songs. And then if you do buy the songs, you get a mix with it. But for me the biggest interest with that compilation was the songs themselves and not the mix,” he enthuses.

Of course when you're introducing people to your tracks in a club environment, it can be a different story. “[Playing exclusives] has been good and bad for me for the past years,” he says. “Good, because when people get it, people understand what it is that you're doing, they come to your show and they think 'What is he going to play?', 'What are we going to discover?'. And they hear songs that they are going to love next month and they discover them and they go crazy on the Internet and they create all this excitement about it.

“And then on the other hand people are like, 'Yo, play that remix that you released on the Internet five years ago, that you have played a million times'. And If I don't play it, then it's a bit of a drama because they are like, 'Oh my god, he didn't play this remix. What did we even come here for!?' So I kind of have to find a middle spot where I can play the music that really turns me on – brand new stuff that's maybe going to come out in two months, a demo or whatever – but that I really think at that period in time is the best track that I can possibly play and mix it with Aeroplane classics or that specific genre of music's classics… You have to play that little game and keep it healthy with the right amount of new stuff and the right amount of stuff people know.”

It's interesting to note De Luca used to own a record shop, fitting the mould of record store-owner thrusting the freshest 12”s onto unsuspecting young'uns looking for a bit of guidance. It's a role that now extends to his career as producer, DJ, and now record label-owner for his own Aeropop records.

He's not in the business of signing acts though. “With my label, there is no plan whatsoever to sign other artists… It's just a way for me to do whatever I want to do, whatever genre, and just be able to get it out without having somebody lecture me about how it is not dancefloor enough, or it's not this or it's not that… I don't care! I just make the music I want to make.”

And after the Aussie summer, De Luca will turn his attentions to album number two, which he's “really, really excited to start”. And there's the potential for a new live show. “I really hope before the [European] summer I can put the record out and I really want to do a live show and a live tour and go places and just play my songs. You know, not have the pressure of having to play songs to please the crowd.”