Markus Schulz is having a huge 2013. After being named America’s #1 DJ by the DJ Times, Schulz announced a new collaborative project with fellow trance superstar Ferry Corsten, entitled ‘NEW WORLD PUNX’, and has a huge show with Armin van Buuren at Madison Square Garden as part of the A State of Trance 600 show. After an incredible set at Ultra Music Festival in Miami, we sat down with one of trance music’s true all stars for this exclusive interview, where the producer talks about all that’s going on his career right now.

On his instantly classic 10-hour set at Space:

“Well first of all, I’ve been playing at Space for over ten years, it’s like home for me. When I first started I was a resident there and I used to play into the wee hours of the morning at Space all the time. So for me, it was sort of like going back to my roots. But the cool thing about when I do these long sets at like Space and also what I did at Avalon on New Years Eve, is that I really put a lot of thought into the programming. I’ll program it like three different DJs. I’ll do a proper opening set, where I play more deep and build it up…and then I go into like a peak hour set where I play all the stuff that people expect to hear…and then the fun starts later on in the night when you can get down into the rabbit hole and get really weird and twisted. Space is one of those places where the rabbit hole is exceptionally deep. I think I stayed down the rabbit hole for like three or four hours up there on the Terrace. It was just like one of those nights where you felt that something special in the air.”

On his favorite parts of Space:

“Well, The Terrace is fantastic, but I have so many memories of the Main Room as well. I mean, I remember the Main Room at Space…I remember seeing Danny Tenaglia play, hearing Deep Dish play…Space in general for me is one of those sentimental places where I started out as a clubber, became a resident, and now to go there and be a headliner in this place…to me, it’s a very sentimental place.”

On his upcoming A State Of Trance 600 Show at MSG and what it means to be apart of the ‘A State Of Trance’ family:

“It’s a real honor…I’ve known Armin since 1999, so to see him kind of, to see everything grow – you’re just kind of amazing by it all. I was actually one of the first artists signed by Armada, so to have my career grow, and to see Armada grow, see A State Of Trance grow and Armin grow, it’s like – just being part of that is something very special, to be apart of such a movement.”

On his upcoming cross-country bus tour:

“Well you know what..the idea behind it is, a lot of these cities I’ve been to, some of them I haven’t been to, but one of the things is, a lot of these cities when I goto them, they don’t have like, LEDs, or lasers or whatever…so I’d ask the promoter ‘hey, why can’t we get some LEDs for the night?’, and he’d say ‘well we have to get them shipped in from California or here or there…we don’t have them in our city’. So the idea behind this tour was to take our production, and take to these cities a show that people in Ibiza see all the time, or in New York City, or here in Miami. And the only way to really do that is to travel with a crew and bring your own stuff. So, you have to do it by a bus.

It’s going to be really exciting, you know. One of the cool things is when you look out at the audience and you know they’re experiencing something for the first time. This is the first time they’re seeing a production like this. You just see it in people’s eyes and it’s really exciting. For me, doing this bus tour is going to be really cool just to see those people’s eyes when they see the production for the first time.”

On his ‘NEW WORLD PUNX’ collaboration with Ferry Corsten:

“Ferry and I have been playing the same gigs together for many many years, and last year at some point we decided ‘lets do some back to back sets’. And there was like, a lot of chemistry there. We are both in the same point in our careers where we just want to have fun. You know, there’s a lot of politics and drama that goes on behind the scenes, and sometimes just to get in the DJ booth and play with someone who you can….just have fun with…it was instant chemistry. So, from that, so many promoters started asking for us that, to book us together. So what we decided to do was to put an official name to it and a concept behind it. Like, next week we only have one hour, and the one hour is going to be a little different then our five hour set at Mansion today. But, it’s a lot of fun to just like, jam out with somebody and collaborate who has the sort of same ideas and the same feeling.”

On the future of ‘NEW WORLD PUNX’:

“We’re gonna debut a new track that we did together and it’s a massive one…we’re gonna debut it tonight at Mansion and, of course, next week will be the broadcast debut of the track, it’s called ‘Romper’. But yeah, you guys will hear it first tonight.

You wont want to miss Markus Schulz performing b2b with Ferry Corsten for the New York City debut of NEW WORLD PUNX as part of the A State Of Trance 600 show at Madison Square Garden at March 30th. If you missed out on tickets, you can still catch Markus at the official after party at Pacha New York.”

Markus Schulz Returns To Pacha Saturday, February 8. Tickets are available here.