#007: Maurizio DeJorio

Ah yeah! It's a new Wednesday and time for our 7th Q&A. You may not know his real name, but you would definitely know his voice. "Night of Fire", anyone? Yes, I got ahold of Maurizio (a.k.a Niko or King of Eurobeat) last weekend. He was very excited and pleased to do my Q&A. I hope everyone enjoys.

1. Occupation:
I’m a Dj, co-owner of an Italian radio station called Radio Gamma and owner of an accounting company

2. Where are you from? 
I’m from Trento, Italy

3. How did you get into Eurobeat? 
I started Eurobeat at A-Beat-C label in Mantova back in 1991 along with Bratt Sinclaire and Dave Rodgers

4. What studios have you worked with? 
Mainly at Domino studio (A-Beat-C), Sinclaire Studio 1 (Delta in Milan), and Sinclaire Studio 2 (current SinclaireStyle studio).

5. What names have you sung under? 
My main former aliases were:
7th Heaven
Casanova
Charlie Tango
D-Essex
D.Essex
David Essex
Derreck Simons (now used by Tomas Marin)
Kevin Johnson
Marko Polo
Max Coveri
Morris
Oda
Roswell

Current aliases with Sinclaire Style:
Niko
Dejo

6. What song that you have worked on is your favourite?
There are a lot of them which I love very much. My favorite among the soft ones is “Victim of love” by D.Essex. Anyway I think Night of fire has something very special.

7. You are close with Leonardi (Bratt Sinclaire). Can you tell us about your relationship with him? 
Well, he’s a kind of brother-friend for me. He took care of my self and my Eurobeat career since the beginning (early 90’s) and never stopped. I do admire him over the top since I’ve been watching him composing and producing so much smashing hits in the last 22 years. He left me speechless so many times with very different tracks and genres. He’s a genuine international music genius even if no one of his collegues would ever openly admit it.

8. What was it like to film "1.2.3.4. Fire" as a music video? Who decided to make a music video of the song? That was a great time! We’ve been shooting over 3 days in Lecco surround (where SinclaireStyle is based) and it was the very first time for me in playing myself in a concept video with a real story board and all that… Well, the idea came from SinclaireStyle since the track was just voted as the “King of Eurobeat” for the year 2010 in Japan. I was very proud of it of course..

9. What makes eurobeat so special? 
Well, I’ve been thinking about that so many times and I still don’t know actually.. Anyway, it much depends on what song you’re thinking of….

10. Have you worked in other kinds of music? If so, what kinds?
Oh yes, I do love many different genres of music: pop, rock, pop-dance. I’ve always been playing in more than one band at the same time. About 10 years ago I was the singer of a Robbie Williams tribute-band including female dancers etc.. etc.. We had lots of fun!

11. Who are your musical influences? 
Michael Jackson, Jeorge Michael, The Queen, John Bon Jovi and many others.

12. Let’s talk about “Night of Fire”. This is considered one of the most important eurobeat songs ever made. Why do you think the song is so important to eurobeat history? What makes it special? 
Well, Night of Fire has something built in that no one of all other existing Eurobeat tracks have ever had. My feeling about it is that the more you are into Eurobeat, the less you have the chance to understand its secret key. My kids are not very much into Eurobeat but they do love Night of Fire!

What I know for sure is that Night of fire is the perfect hook for all those who still don’t know about Eurobeat around the globe yet. That’s why it became the global Eurobeat flagship song. In japan it went even much, much beyond Eurobeat though. In the land of the rising sun NOF (as we call it) is one of the most popular song ever, regardless the music genre. It is still used for many and many Tv commercials like CocaCola, Nike, Konami, baseball games etc.. etc.. Of course this makes me very proud.

13. Why have you continued to sing eurobeat for so many years? 
Because it’s fun!

14. Where do you see Sinclaire Style and eurobeat going in the next few years? 
It’s not easy to predict at all. Meantime we’re doing our best to keep Eurobeat quality as high as we can. We’ll see…

15. What have you been listening to, recently?
By running a radio station I’ve been listening any kind of music...

16. Do you have any guilty pleasures (movies, food, music)?
I do love karting lately

17. Is there anything you would like our readers to know? 
Well, we do appreciate the fact that after so many years there are still so many friend of us outhere. That’s absolutely amazing! Thanks!