RS: At what point are you normally approached? When a track is
already in the clubs or before it's even released or promo'ed?
Scorccio: It depends, because sometimes DJs will put out their white
labels with the uncleared samples just to test the crowd reaction and
see if they can get the sales coming in from a thousand copies on
vinyl or something. Otherwise sometimes they'll come to me even
before that stage and say, we know this sample's going to cost us a
lot of money to clear, we know it's going to be a hit, we need to have
the samples recreated. So they'll come to me before it's even out on
vinyl or on CD.
RS: For example, "Lola's Theme" by the Shapeshifters. Did you
jump onboard before it broke at Winter Music Conference when it was
buzzing or afterwards?
Scorccio: That came at a time when they had just put it out on a
limited addition promo copy and I think that was like fifteen hundred
maybe two thousand copies at the most going around with the original
sample. They came to me when they knew it was going to be a big one
blowing up.
RS: Have you ever been approached by the original artists that
did the music that you're copying. What kind of reactions have you
got?
Scorccio: Well there was one replay I did for a label in Germany of a
track by Flash in the Pan on a track called "Hey Saint Peter."
Kontor, the company in Germany, released this track with the replay I
did and within a week they had eMails and faxes coming in from Flash
in the Pan who are based in Australia, saying that they had to stop
the release of the song because it contained usage of their original
song, the sample. So Kontor had to prove that it was in fact a replay
version of their song, even though it had the vocalist singing on the
track, the original vocalist was the guy who was doing all the
complaining saying you've sampled my song. But I had found a vocalist
who sounded just like the original vocalist, he didn't recognize
himself, he thought it was him.
RS: What are you working on right now?
Scorccio: I can't say exactly what I'm working on right now because
I tend to keep a lot of my projects under wraps until they're actually
out on the streets and available to the public. But some of the
things I've done recently were "He's the Greatest Dancer" by Sister
Sledge and and an interesting one was Taylor Dayne "Prove Your Love,"
which was a big hit in the States and here in Europe too. That was a
great one to do because I found a really great vocalist who could
sound just like Taylor Dayne before she had her nose job and it
changed her voice completely. So I got a great vocalist who sounds
just like Taylor Dayne, yes.
RS: Are you still DJing yourself?
Scorccio: No, no, I haven't DJed for a couple of years now. But I
do miss it from time to time but I'm just too busy with the sample
replays, they take up a lot of time and energy and a lot of resources.
So I'd like to get back to DJing at some point, but for now I'm just
very busy with all the projects that I'm working on.
RS: Where does the name Scorccio come from?
Scorccio: The name originally derives from a BBC TV program called
the Fast Show, a comedy show that was a real big hit in the early 90s.
It was jone of the regular sketches that they had on there with a
pseudo-Mediterranean weather girl, she would always point to the
weather map and say "and here today it's going to be Scorccio and down
here in the south, Scorccio" - a made up Mediterranean word meaning
hot and burning up. It fit with the burning hot, scorching disco fired
up sound that I had. So I used it as the name for the label because
it just seemed to fit with whole sound that I was putting out, and I
kind of made it more Italian sounding with a double C rather than CH,
just to give it a bit more originality. Then Darren Emerson came
along and used that same idea but spelt it differently with CH.
RS: What advice do you have to all the DJs out there making records?
Scorccio: I would say to be clever in your choice of samples, don't
always choose the most obvious - they were hits before so they'll be
hits again scenarios. Try and find tracks that were very good at the
time and can be revived. Try and make something that will make you
appear to be a bit more ahead and forward-thinking rather than just
using something that was very obvious, something that was a big, huge
hit in the 80s. Try and uncover something form 1975 that wasn't such
a big hit.
