DJ Ron: How did the dance music bug bite you?
Jason Nevins: I guess it was in the early 80s when I heard guys like Glen Friscia spin the mixshows on the radio. I was just starting out as a DJ and kept hearing all these megamixed and remixed tracks which sampled other tracks which really got me interested in dance music.
RS: Were you DJing on a college station or in nightclubs?
Nevins: When the dance bug bit me, it was before my time for going to clubs. When I was in college, I got more into it and I was DJing in the clubs and on the radio as well.
RS: I read in your bio that your production style is cut-and-paste, what exactly does that mean to you?
Nevins: Well, that doesn’t hold true anymore. When I first started out doing records, a lot of them were samples and bits from other records, the Todd Terry-style from back in the 80s. When I first started out, I would just take samples from records that I loved and put them together in new ways. Back then, the UK used to call it cut-and-paste and now they call it a mash-up. That was the style back then, but I haven't done that style or used that as my tagline in a long time.
RS: Back then, before computers, were you using reel-to-reel tape and cutting and splicing?
Nevins: No, everybody was using Ataris actually, before even people were using Macs, before people were using the computer technology of today, we were all using the Atari 1040ST.
RS: Oh, I used to have one of those, those are amazing.
Nevins: Yes, and for the time they were really good.
RS: Whenever I mention to people Jason Nevins, they all know about your mix of Run DMC’s “It’s Like That” and how at the 2003 Billboard Dance Music Summit in New York, you told the story of the record. How did that record come into being and what have you learnt from the experience?
Nevins: The first thing that I’ve learned from experience, is that you really can’t believe what people tell you and you have to take matters into your own hands The second thing is to never bring a record to its original label, like I did with this record. I brought my remix to Profile, which owns the Run DMC catalogue, and that was a huge mistake right there because I basically brought them what they already owned and they had free will to do with it what they wanted. That’s why I got stuck with the lousy deal that I did, because it sold nearly five million copies and I got about five thousand dollars from it.
RS: So you heard the original record and you did your own remix, or what exactly did you do to the record and what was the inspiration?
Nevins: Basically I had my own record that I was creating, and it had all the sounds, drums, and keyboards. I loved Run DMC and grew up listening to their stuff, so it was more of a labor of love. I had always said that I wanted to use something from their first album, and I went digging into the crates, found a greatest hits type pack, and I basically took their record, put it on top of mine and merged the two records together. I mean a lot of people think it was just me putting a beat under their record, which it really wasn’t, there was a lot more than that. If you took the original Run DMC record out and played it against mine, you’ll see that it’s completely different. People like to sling mud and say it’s easier than it was.
RS: No, it obviously wasn’t easy because it was a totally different tempo, it was a totally different sound. So anyone who says that, you can just throw something at them. One thing I always notice is how you take hip-hop records as well as rock records and give them a totally new sound. How do you approach remixing a hip-hop record or a rock record as opposed to a straight up pop single?
Nevins: When I first started doing like the tracks and the remixes, rap was really the vein that I wanted to mix in with dance music. Dance music to me is the root and then along with the root I bring along sub-genres. For many years I was doing the rap thing with Run DMC, Cypress Hill, and Missy Elliot, and now it’s the rock thing. I’ve been honing my skills with the rock stuff and working with a lot of rock bands and rock riffs for probably more than a year. It’s really starting to emerge as my new sound with more of the dance with the rock thing, and I even throw rap in for good measure. Because I still love working with rap guys and I actually love working with rap vocals over singing. I find the mash-up between the two really interesting, and that also stems back from the early 90s when hip-house was in.
