Longevity in the dance music world is a rarity. 2007 marks the 15th anniversary of Juliet Roberts' "Free Love," which was Lenny Bertoldo's first remix. Known to everyone as Lenny B, he has remixed everyone from Fall Out Boy and Jewel to Britney Spears and Ace of Base. A trained musican, Lenny is one of the few remixers capable of music productions without the need to rely on engineers or programmers to help out. In addition to his trademark commercial sound, Lenny explores underground house with the side project BluSol and releases on his newly formed Blue Noize label.
Disclosure: Ron Slomowicz works with Lenny Bertoldo and Tommy Dorsey as part of the remixer/producer team Piper.
DJ Ron Slomowicz: Going back to the beginning - were you a DJ or a producer?
Lenny B: I was a DJ first. Remix and production came later.
RS: How did you make the move from DJing to producing?
Lenny B: I was a musician first, a DJ second. I started playing piano
at 5 years-old and got into DJing around 13 or 14 years-old. I was
into breakdancing and loved the early hip-hop stuff, which is ironic,
since I won't touch urban/hip-hop in my club sets! When I was 14, I
started DJing some mobile gigs, mostly "house parties" for friends. I
started off with a pair of belt-drive Technics turntables, which were
a nightmare to work with, as you can imagine (I got my first pair of
1200s when I was 16). I landed my first club gig when I was 16
years-old. By the time I had gotten into DJing, playing piano took a
back seat until later, when I started hanging out with friends from
high school who were musicians. So, in addition to DJing, I started
playing out in bands occasionally. I got into the whole dance music
thing first through DJing, of course, but it really started for me
when I landed a gig working for Mega-Mixx, which was where the guys
who started X-Mix came from. This was in 1990, I believe. Back then, I
belonged to Masspool, one of Boston's two record pools at the time (I
believe there are three now), and Gary Cannavo, the pool director,
knew I was a musician, so he walked me across the hall and introduced
me to these guys who were starting a "remix service" called Mega-Mixx.
I walked in, saw Armand (Van Helden) sitting at a Mac IIx in one
corner, a DJ setup in another, a mixing console and a few keyboards. I
was like, "well, I know how to play keyboards, I've been using
computers for years, and, yeah… turntables? No problem." So, a week
later, I was doing "re-edits" for Mega Mixx. Well, over time, I
started adding additional keyboard parts to the mixes, and,
eventually, started doing some mixes from the "ground up," using a
capellas that were on the records we were remixing.
RS: What were some of your earliest productions?
Lenny B: Well, the first official label mix I did was "Free Love" by
Juliet Roberts, on Warner Brothers. By the time X-Mix started up, we
were getting a capellas from the labels to do exclusive remixes for
the service. We would send in the mixes for approval, and Warner Bros.
came back to us and told us they wanted to release my mix of Free
Love. Neil (Petricone, from X-Mix) figured we were on to something,
and I started doing more and more label mixes. One of the next label
mixes I did was "Runaway" by Real McCoy. I'll never forget this one,
'cuz my friend Donnie (Bennet, from X-Mix) and I actually drove to NYC
and met with Richard Sweret over at Arista. He popped in the DAT,
listened to the mix, and said, "So, you want to put this out on your
little remix service?" Donnie and I just kind of looked at each other
and were like, "Uhh... no. We want YOU to put it out on the 12"." And
that's how I landed my first Real McCoy remix. It also started a run
of mixes I did for Richard and Hosh Gureli over at Arista, including
another Real McCoy single and three Ace of Base records.
RS: With X-Mix, Boston seems to have been a hotbed for dance music.
What about the city encouraged the dance scene?
Lenny B: Well, personally, I always considered Boston to be a rock
town. Boston's known for bands like, well, um, Boston, Aerosmith, The
Cars, 'Til Tuesday, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Extreme, etc. Sure,
Boston's where New Kids On the Block and Marky Mark came from, but
that always seemed more "pop" to me than dance. Boston did (and still
does) have some great nightclubs, and some of the best local DJs I've
ever known. Boston, being such an international city, with all of its
Universities, has always been a melting pot of different cultures.
Kids from all over the world go to school there, especially NY, for
some reason. We all used to joke about all the New York license plates
that would show up every August when moving day came around. What was
cool about all that was there was this constant influx of promoters
and DJs, especially the Europeans, who would throw parties and events
around town. Those DJs from overseas would play the coolest music.
That's probably where my love of European dance music came from.
RS: The X-Mix posse has included luminaries such as Armand Van Helden,
Junior Sanchez, Felix da Housecat, DJ Sneak - did you ever work with
them?
Lenny B: Not directly. Back when Armand did his mix of Faithless'
"Insomnia," the label needed a version that at least somewhat
resembled the original version. Armand did this amazing remix, but it
was a dub, and it contained hardly any vocals. So, basically, the
label sent me the multis, I took Armand's dub, restructured it, flew
in elements of the original version, and created what was to be called
Armand's European Vacation Mix.
