Page 74 - DemoZone Magazine Summer Issue 2020

What are your first musical memories?
Well the first music that I remember having an emotional impact on me was Dionne Warwick’s ‘Valley Of The Dolls’ album. I remember lying in bed as a young child, when I was about 5 years old, and hearing my mum playing that album. It made me feel happy and sad at the same time. I remember that feeling well, and I’ve always liked music that made me feel those contrasting emotions. That music definitely had a great impact on me and consequently I’ve always liked to write uplifting music that has a melancholy feel. I didn’t know it when I was 5 years old, but years later I realised that much of the music on that album was by Burt Bacharach, and I’ve been a big fan of his music ever since.
Any artists that you think have influenced you from a young age?
David Bowie is my biggest musical influence. Also Prince. They were both
musical geniuses and I was devastated when they both died, so close together. If I had to name my favourite track of all time though it would be Iggy Pop’s ‘Turn Blue’, which was co- written and produced by Bowie, with Bowie also supplying backing vocals. It’s just a seven minute masterpiece, it’s more a performance than a song, expressing anger and joy and sadness. I’ve listened to that track hundreds of times and it moves me every time.
Punk Rock also had a massive influence on me - more for the attitude and politics of the songs rather than the musical content. Though there were many sublime punk songs of course, particularly by bands like The Clash, Siouxsie and The Banshees and Killing Joke who were all great bands.
When it comes to dance music and house. I got into Hip Hop first, I loved Public Enemy, and then NWA and De La Soul. Then I got into the early hip house and acid house, and also early deep house. Soon after that I got into the Balearic scene and Italo house (just loved those piano riffs) and then onto progressive house.
My first DJ hero was Paul Trouble Anderson, and my first chemically enhanced dance-floor experience was at Dingwalls in
Camden Town with Trouble on the decks. Then I started following DJs like Danny Rampling and Andrew Weatherall. Again, it’s been incredibly sad to lose those DJ heroes - Trouble and Weatherall - so close together.
What were your first steps into the music business?
Before I got into dance music I was a drummer in punk rock bands in my home town of Swansea. My first record releases were punk tracks on compilation albums.
I moved to London and got into the club scene. Then the rave scene came along and I started to going to warehouse parties.
I desperately wanted to start making house music, but I had no idea how. I bought Roland R8 Drum Machine and a Casio keyboard and tried to record some stuff, but I didn’t know what I was doing.
I had a lucky break when I met my wife at a club in London in 1990. She was a keyboard player and she introduced me to a producer friend, named Morgan King, who had already had some quite big house releases. Me and Morgan started working together and producing tracks for a Swedish label called BTECH. We recorded under various production names, one of which was Soundsource. We had a big track as Soundsource, called ‘Take Me Up’ which was licensed by Pete Tong’s label FFRR. It was one of the biggest house tunes of that year-1992orwasit1993-it’sallabitofa blur. Then we started our own label which was called Om Records, to release our own tunes and tracks that our friends were making. We had people like Leftfield, Billy Nasty, 108 Grand, Bump and Slam on the label, it was crazy time.