Emmerald: You're playing in my hometown, Nashville, Tennessee this weekend. Have you played here before?
Larry Heard: This will be my first time in Nashville. I have driven through a time or two and always wondered what it was like there. So it'll be an adventure for me.
Emmerald: It's a neat little town, we like it. You actually live in another part of Tennessee.
Larry Heard: Yes, I'm in Memphis. I've been there for about eight years now.
Emmerald: How do you like it there?
Larry Heard: I like it a lot. It's definitely a nice change in contrast to being in Chicago where everything's so busy and always moving so fast. In Memphis, I can pace myself and really think. That was my purpose for moving, you know, get somewhere where it's a little more relaxed pace so I can really think about what I was doing with my life. I get so focused on the music that I lose track of the fact that I'm still me making my way through life, which is serious.
Emmerald: Do you have a family or any other connections in Memphis?
Larry Heard: No, I don't. I needed to get away from everybody when I was getting away.
Emmerald: Right, you definitely have to do that sometimes. How did you get started creating music and what were some of your first pieces like? Were they house or were they other forms of music?
Larry Heard: Well no they weren't. Maybe seven to ten years before I even stumbled across doing house music I was playing drums. I first started playing guitar in high school and that progressed to bass. I thought bass would be easier because it has less strings. (laughs) One of the guys in the neighborhood where I used to live in Chicago was starting a band, and I told him I could play the drums, even though I couldn't. I had to make good on my word, so I had to get a drum set and start practicing so I could be a part of this group. I have been involved in making music ever since I bought those drums. It just progressed to the point years later where I didn't feel like was getting to participate in the creative process, so I wanted to move to one of the tuned instruments. I ended up picking out keyboards because I was so interested in the sounds that synthesizers were able to make. It was new technology at the time so there was a little bit of adventure connected with that.
Emmerald: You played in a rock band, is that right?
Larry Heard: Yes, I've played in rock bands, reggae, jazz, fusion, soul groups; I did it all. We used to play all these Rush and Yes covers and things like that.
Emmerald: How did you end up moving into house music?
Larry Heard: That pretty much just happened on its own. I was new to the keyboards and so I wanted to simplify it for myself. With the beats, even though I was a drummer I still was new to the drum machine. So I simplified everything and made it straightforward so I could teach myself these new instruments. It just happened that I stumbled across something that was close to the field of disco music.
