You recently played at Fabric in London. How was the gig?
It was magic, it’s definitely magic. There was vibe in the crowd, the sound system was rocking, fuckin’ yeah it was sick.
Is there a difference between playing London and Leeds?
I haven’t spent enough time in London to have an honest say so. I have a lot of friends here in Leeds, a lot of family, so it’s hard to say.
Where is your favourite place to play in the UK?
All the clubs I play in I’ve had really good moments at. They are all special in their own way, honestly. I definitely gotta give a big up to Basics and the Basics crowd. Big ups to Sub Club and big ups to the Circus crew and Fabric as well, everything has been wicked. The UK in general has a great scene actually, coming from America in general where the scene is heading downwards.
When you played Back to Basics and Mad Hatters recently there was a buzz about where people wanted to see you play. What do you say to comments that you have a cult following in these parts?
I think it’s really cool. I just wanna say thanks ‘cos without them I wouldn’t be able to take this where I want to. One can’t exist without the other. You know, the party at the end of the day is like a machine. The DJ is a wheel, the crowd is a wheel, the music is the belt that keeps it all moving. We need each other, so word up!
How different is the scene in Leeds compared to Chicago?
It’s definitely different in size; you guys have a larger scene here. There are definitely more kids getting involved here and more younger kids. I think it has to do with in America you have to be 21 to drink and 21 to get in the club. Raves are definitely illegal. There are no more really good underground warehouse parties on or anything. All the young kids in America are really into bling bling hip pop; its not even hip hop, radio bullshit and they’re all influenced by MTV. So they’re all doing that thing. We have a club called the Smart Bar where I resident DJ. Heather, Miles Maeda, Colette, it’s pretty much our little fortress for the underground, you know.
How much and in what ways has the scene in Chicago changed since you began DJing?
Scenes change every couple of years. I’ve seen it since the beginning, since I was at grade school until now. I think everything changes every three or four years. You get new people coming in and old people leaving. The music evolves and people get involved in it that have different ways of doing things. It all boils down to just time. Times change and people change and the world changes. At its peak there were rave warehouse parties with 6000 kids, you know, and now it’s down to 400 kids on a night and that’s a successful night. You can still have a small party with 100 kids and have a tight vibe. There is still a very thick vibe with things going on; it’s just now not on such a large scale.
Who were your heroes and inspirations when you first began playing out?
When I first got into it early, Bad Boy Bill, like way back when I was in grade school, when he was mixing like jack tracks and acid house. You know, after that I gotta give it up to Derrick Carter of course, he was a huge inspiration. DJ Traxx, a good friend of mine was definitely an inspiration and a good friend. I draw musical influences from the past and the present. Wooly, Buckley, my boy Dan X my partner in No Assembly Firm. Even just from life in general you pull influences from everything not just house music.
How are things looking for the label?
Things are looking really good actually, yeah. I think we got a really solid line up of tracks for the start of the year, for 2006. We got a Bionic Bump Band release coming up, a Phil Weeks EP. We got a new artist called Content with some stuff coming out. Also Sound Republic, some local Chicago kids doing some wicked shit. So things are looking good.
When can we expect to see the No Assembly Firm album coming out?
It’s in the works; we are working on some of the tracks now. But in between we have a lot of remixes we’re doing over a few EPs so we’re juggling between work. It’s gonna be a while, we’re taking a lot of time with it.
When can we next see you over in the UK?
Not too sure, we’re working a few things out, but around spring time I would say. I love it here.
What would you do today if you were not a DJ and producer?
You know it’s hard to say, there are a lot of things… I have actually thought about this. If today I wasn’t DJing I could see myself definitely getting into the culinary arts and cooking, doing something like that. Or maybe doing something like opening a comic book shop or something like that, you know the options are endless. I haven’t had to really think about it much, but they are some of the things I would do. Maybe even designing video games or something like that, you know..
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