After a long and winding road, Claude VonStroke is back. Like, really back.
Back to house music. Back on tour. Back in the A&R game. And back in the studio—where he’s back to the underground groove that started it all.
“Back to basics,” as the tech house legend puts it himself, speaking to EDM Maniac over the sound of distant kick drums at Detroit’s Movement Music Festival. Back in his home city, he’s hours away from igniting a rain-soaked hometown crowd with new material from his fifth full-length album, Wrong Number.
Launching his new label of the same name upon its release last month, the 10-track project is the first full-length album the DJ and producer has dropped since returning to his VonStroke alias in 2025, after spending two years making experimental bass music under his real name, Barclay Crenshaw, and selling Dirtybird Records, the famed San Francisco label and events brand he founded and served as the sole director of A&R from its inception in 2005 to its acquisition by EMPIRE Music in 2022.
When Dirtybird and tech house became commercial juggernauts during the genre’s mid-2010s explosion, VonStroke lifted his nose from the grindstone to find the cash-injected, drop-oriented scene was no longer his own. After a bit of searching, his new mission is now closer to home.
In a blender of dial tones, spoken-word sound bites, jazzy horns, chopped-up grunts, and broken bassline beats, Wrong Number (the album) wields sonic dissonance with the same charm that set the scene alight and became the blueprint for Dirtybird over 20 years ago, but with even more of VonStroke’s personal touch.
As vital a tool as any piece of hardware in his studio, VonStroke’s son, Jasper Crenshaw, a second-year pop vocal major at the University of Southern California, is a fixture on the album, performing every sung phrase, vocal texture, and oddball ad lib, with the exception of the phone call skit that opens the title track—a comedic chat between VonStroke and his oft-sampled wife, Aundy. His daughter, Ella Crenshaw, a talented songwriter, also appears throughout the project.
In a return to the sounds of Detroit, Germany, and Britain that captured VonStroke’s imagination as a teenager, listening to records and the radio in his family’s loft apartment in Greektown, Wrong Number (the label) is the multi-genre imprint that Dirtybird couldn’t be: More like Ninja Tune. Or Warp. Or XL, Stones Throw, and Planet-e. Any of the legendary labels that got him into the scene in the first place.
And now, with the vision fully defined, after years of mystery, he’s finally lifting the lid on his Dirtybird divorce and speaking openly about how he arrived at this next chapter. EDM Maniac dialed the wrong number and got put through to Claude VonStroke, who shared the backstory behind his latest batch of weird and wonky beats in the exclusive interview below.
EDM Maniac: We’re back in your home city of Detroit. What does this city and its music scene mean to you? And what’s it like to be back playing Movement again?
VonStroke: What the city means to me is like my childhood, my musical influences, all the radio shit I used to listen to when I was a kid was here. Even playing the cello, listening to Mojo, rap music. Everything came from here, musically. We got kind of lucky because I was born in Cleveland, and then we moved here. I was super bummed when we moved, but then it ended up being a blessing. Cleveland has its own music scene, but it’s more like a rock scene. This scene is more like what I like.
My parents still live here. I love coming back here. I love playing Movement. All my friends are here. Tons of guest list problems because we can never get in everyone we need to get in, but it’s awesome.
EDM Maniac: Detroit feels like a setting that your new album is built for. Lots of weird, raw, and minimal sounds, much like the beats you were making in the city years ago. Where on the album do you feel or hear the sounds of Detroit most strongly reflected?
VonStroke: It’s interesting that you asked that, because one of the songs is called “Beaubien,” which is the street that I lived on in downtown Detroit. I lived above Niki’s Pizza in a loft, and I wrote the string patch that’s in that song like 25 years ago on Beaubien, then just kept it on my hard drive and tried to make that song like three or four different times, and eventually it turned into a trance song [laughs]. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that the early Detroit techno kind of was trancey, so I felt like it was appropriate.
EDM Maniac: What made now the right time to bring that patch back out?
VonStroke: I don’t know. I just felt like it’s a challenge that I couldn’t defeat. I knew the string patch was cool, I knew the melody was cool, and I was just like, “We’re gonna fucking finish this one this time.”
EDM Maniac: Congrats on finally slaying that dragon. As far as the bigger picture is concerned, where did the title Wrong Number come from, and what does it mean to the ethos of both the album and label?
VonStroke: I was never like DJ Mag‘s number one DJ or the coolest kid. Nothing ever was easy. I never had an easy time, and I just feel like most people almost try to tell you they’re cool, but most people feel uncomfortable or feel anxious, and I felt like Wrong Number was the perfect way to describe that feeling without just saying it. Like, I’m not gonna call the label “social anxiety,” you know? [Laughs] So it’s like a metaphor.
EDM Maniac: It’s not the first time you’ve released as VonStroke since coming back to the project, but in what ways does this maybe feel like more of an official comeback?
VonStroke: Because I just did some single records and a remix, I never really said what was happening after I sold Dirtybird three and a half years ago, and this is the first time I’m saying to everyone, “OK, I’m doing a new thing, and I’m officially moving on, and I’m not trying to hedge anymore. This is the new project.”
Everywhere I go, still, people have no idea that I even sold Dirtybird, which is fine. I get it. Why would you know? It’s not like everybody’s following everything that everyone’s doing. So I feel like I needed to make an actual statement and say, “OK. I did this. And now we’re here doing this. And I’m telling you, plain as day now.
EDM Maniac: Though it’s not the first time you’ve brought your family into the fold, your wife and kids feature heavily on this album. What was it like to have their voices represented so fully on this project?
VonStroke: Our house is really incredible, because Jasper is an amazing singer, my daughter Ella is an amazing songwriter, my wife can sing or come in and do any kind of a skit. She always wants to be a part of it as well. She’s the voice on “Who’s Afraid of Detroit?” and she’s the voice on “Aundy,” the little chops and stuff, so she’s on the biggest records.
It’s always been something I did, as you said. It’s just now these guys are just around. I don’t do a lot of collabs, and I’m just looking for the best way to finish songs. I just come up with ideas through the tools that are around. Their voices are around, so I come up with ideas through using their voices. It’s really fun, and I think they like it. The ideas just come from what’s around me, and then I chop it up into something crazy.
EDM Maniac: Ever have any family jam sessions around the house?
VonStroke: Yeah, Jasper came in like two different times, and we went through the whole album. I’m like, “OK, on this song, I need you to do this, this, and this.” And he would just do it. He’s very good.
EDM Maniac: What’s it like watching your kids step into their own musical talent?
VonStroke: Well, my daughter doesn’t want to do music, even though she’s incredible. I don’t know if that’s because she saw how hard it was for us to pursue music or what that’s about. But my son does want to do music, so we’re gonna help him as much as we can.
It’s a totally different thing than what I do. One-hundred percent. It’s like “FKA-Bieber,” like modern R&B. I don’t even know how to explain it. But that’s really exciting to me because, yes, I could DJ until I was like 80, but it’s cooler to help someone else that you love try to see what they can do.
EDM Maniac: Going left when everyone went right was what built Dirtybird. But you’ve expressed your feeling of detachment from the commercial tech house boom that it eventually became a part of. Before you sold, what was it like to feel that misalignment in the moment?
VonStroke: The funny thing is I was already feeling misaligned, and then I disappeared for a year and did a whole other genre. By the time I came back, I’m like, “I don’t even know what this is anymore. I don’t even recognize it.” It’s so commercial now. It’s so massive.
I basically had the worst timing ever if I wanted to make tons of money. Because everybody in house was just getting massive. No offense to anyone. I don’t want to be saying people are bad. But the commercial tech house thing, it’s just not for me. Everything goes in waves, so we’ll see what happens. But my intuition says that I will end up being right again. [Laughs] Take that however you will.
EDM Maniac: What were your emotions like when you finally made the decision to leave Dirtybird?
VonStroke: I was ready for a while. The only problem I had with it was kind of leaving an entire fanbase without a figurehead. What do you say when you’re not the figurehead anymore? You’re doing something else, but they’ve put in like 10 years of being your fan. Like, how do you tell them? “Oh, now I’m just over here. Get used to it.” It’s not that simple. So there was a little bit of that going on in my brain, and a little bit of self-sabotage that everyone has. But I think that it was definitely the best decision.
I wish that I had been able to navigate it better, and I was like Goldie, and I tattooed Metalheadz on my forehead, and I was never gonna change and just took it to my grave. But I’m not Goldie, and I’m fine with it. [Laughs] And I love Goldie, and I love Metalheadz.
EDM Maniac: As you mentioned, amid the label sale, you went left yet again and dived into fully building out your bass project, Barclay Crenshaw. What made that the right time for that move?
VonStroke: Well, the funny thing is the same thing happened with that project. It’s like I kind of start things and then I lose control of them really fast. That project started out as a futuristic, ‘90s hip-hop, dusty, experimental bass project. But the circuit of the United States only wants to hear hardcore dubstep, so that shit started to seep into my sets more and more and more. And then by the end of that tour, I was like, “Well, this isn’t really what you were trying to do either.” So now I’m taking that one back to the roots.
I keep making the same mistake over and over again. But it’s OK, you just learn and keep learning. Last night, I played Barclay Crenshaw at Spot Lite, and I was back to more of what I wanted to do initially. Which is like mixing an MF DOOM or Gang Starr track into the weirdest SATURATE! track from Germany, into Eprom, into trap, into jungle. That was the original idea, and then all of a sudden I was playing some crazy ass dubstep tracks at WAKAAN.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Those people are so fun, and I actually really think that bass music is better at festivals, because it has a way higher energy level. Maybe for this festival only, it works, but house isn’t a festival genre. Now it is, but the reason that works is because everyone has to play these incredibly massive drops, which is kind of what happened to the music.
EDM Maniac: What’s the plan for weaving in Barclay Crenshaw moving forward?
VonStroke: My wife tells me that I’m crazy for doing two names and that I should do it all under one name, but I’m like, “So you want me to release a rap album under Claude VonStroke? I don’t think anybody is even gonna understand what the hell that is.” That can’t happen. It’s not gonna work. They’ll be like, “No, I can’t accept this.” [Laughs]
So I’m gonna continue both names, and I have more music. It’ll go in waves. One time I’m doing this, then I’m doing that, then I’m doing this. Right now, we’re in a Claude cycle. But I’m not gonna start two labels. I know that.
Everything is going to be under Wrong Number. Wrong Number will be multi-genre. My son will be on Wrong Number. I’ll be on Wrong Number. It’ll be R&B. It’ll be bass. Everything interesting. Weird stuff. So don’t just send me a bunch of tech house demos, because I’m not gonna listen to it.
EDM Maniac: Moving forward, besides following your own artistic compass, what does this new chapter mean to you as an artist?
VonStroke: Dirtybird was more about the people. Dirtybird was more about the collective of people who wanted to hear gritty, squelchy bass sounds put into house music, and old-school hip-hop and Bay Area hyphy somehow squeezed into hip-hop in a tasteful way.
This label is more my actual personality, more artist-centric, more off-kilter. Less direct and a little bit weirder, maybe. I wouldn’t say this album is that weird, but the general trajectory is weird.
EDM Maniac: You’ve already begun a headline world tour for Wrong Number, playing lots of smaller, more intimate venues. How have those shows been, and what went into that decision?
VonStroke: I just went to Europe for a month, and I kind of battle-tested everything, and I was very happy. It all really worked. It was cool. So now I’m here.
We aren’t doing that much. But we are about to announce a bunch of free shows in pretty big cities. Not that many. Once again, I’m just making terrible business decisions, not making any money, because fuck it, it’s OK. I already did all that shit. I already played all the EDC shit. I don’t need to do that anymore. Maybe I’ll do that down the line or something again if it makes any sense. But I’m back to basics.
You can catch Claude VonStroke mixing new album, Wrong Number, live at one of three free parties in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Denver this summer. Dial +1 (229) 544-2436 for a free RSVP link.
Featured image courtesy: Claude VonStroke.