RS: Which brings up, how much education do you think needs to be done for this current generation of DJs to realize the importance of Trax Records? What role do you think the compilations will play in that?
Screamin’ Rachael: I hope that all these DJs that are out there making it today and those that are coming up, will know that DJ culture started right here at Trax. It’s a funny story because it really started with three friends, Vince Lawrence, Jessie Saunders and myself, and a vinyl pressing plant called Precision pressing. We needed vinyl for the parties and that was the beginning of it. We didn’t even make CDs until this year. We did licensing deals, so other people would make CDs of our music, but as far as Trax making our own CDs, we didn’t do it because we survived on vinyl. Why was that? Because we were a label dedicated to DJs.
I think it’s really important for them to understand where it came from and the timeless nature of the music. When people hear the Acid Classics, they are saying that it was decades ahead of its time. When you do things or innovate something and it’s from your heart and not with the thought of making a big hit record and millions, people really get the message of the music. At the time we were just kids that wanted to make records that could be played at the parties in the city.
If DJs today can appreciate that as well as be inspired by it, maybe they can break the mold and do what they feel from their heart. Everybody's on these kicks, like a perfection kick and all these things that people are into, and truthfully I think it might be the simplicity and the raw feeling and maybe you would call it an indefatigable kind of a spirit that we had. We knew when we were doing it even then, even with the first song for some reason, that it was special. When that first song “Fantasy” started getting played on the radio over here, we knew the feeling was getting out.
RS: What do you think DJ’s could learn from all of this?
Screamin’ Rachael: DJs need to take more chances because that is what made DJs great back then. Someone like Ron Hardy, who was the competition to Frankie Knuckles at the time, is still remembered as a legend by the people of Chicago and you will see people wearing T-shirts that say “Remember Ron Hardy” or “Remember the Music Box.” What made Ron Hardy like the greatest DJ and so unique, to me anyway, was he took chances and played things that were brand new. It was the way he mixed and the way he had a variety of stuff that he played. Frankie was always smooth and disco, but Ron Hardy could be anything. Ron had every kind of medium that was available at the time, vinyl, cassette or reel to reel and would play tapes that we handed him mixed into his set.
I think it’s impressive that DJs these days mix CDs with vinyl, but hey wouldn't it be great if they would take some more chances. Everything seems to be so uniform these days. You seldom get a DJ who’s willing to break the rules and make up his own rules. That’s what I’d like to see.
RS: You probably say that for club DJs and radio DJs alike.
Screamin’ Rachael: I’d love to see radio open-up, that’s a big goal of mine. We’ve had support from more cutting-edge radio but people are just so inhibited about accepting new things. We really appreciate USDanceRadio.Com, C89.5, and B96 that have supported us. To this day, we really have to depend on DJs. We created DJ culture and now we’ve got to kind of depend on them. As far as the radio goes, it’s not breaking ground, it’s the DJs that are breaking ground. Some day I hope, radio will break ground. With satellite radio and great people like Mickey Oliver from Hot Mix Five who have shows on Sirius, I think little by little radio is improving. I would like to see it come a lot further.
RS: Closing this up, is there anything you want to say to all the people/music lovers out there?
Screamin’ Rachael: Please support Trax and hopefully support Screamin’ Rachael. Reason being, without you and without your love, without you going out and buying the music, we won’t survive, we’ll just become like a little footnote in history. All kinds of pop trends come and go, but I think music that has a real heart lasts.
The people who really love house music and really love Trax, even though maybe they could go and download it, maybe they’ll go and purchase these albums. Because it means the survival of the music that we have created.
Hopefully, if you love me go out there and buy the album because I love my fans. I write them, they write me and I’ve gotten some beautiful eMails from people about how the music has touched them. The fans are what’s going to save us, and that’s what I’ve got to believe in.
