RS: With your original tracks like, let's say Party for the
Weekend, do you start with a track and then write on top of it or do
you start with the vocals, how do you make your tracks?
Simon Langford: That one was kind of back to front. Normally we'll
come up with a backing instrumental track and then get it out to a few
topline writers to get the vocals in. This vocal was originally done
for one of Julian's other projects, JDS. It didn't quite work on that
track so it just kind of stayed on the computer for a while. We did
the "Party for the Weekend" track back in October 2004 and we were
kind of sitting on it for a while and trying to sort out what to do
with it. We got the track to Judge Jules at Radio One and he said he
really liked it, but it needed a vocal. We were all just sitting
around one day just going through ideas and we found these vocals on
the computer. It was the right tempo, the right key, and we literally
dropped the whole a cappella on top of the track and it just sat
perfectly. It was like right, OK, it was obviously meant to be on
this one.
RS: Is that sort of the way that your track with Dannii Minogue,
"Perfection," came about?
Simon Langford: No, that was very different. I'd been working until
quite late doing paperwork up in my office and I'd just come down to
watch some TV before going to bed. I turned on the TV and it was the
end of that Sharon Stone/Sylvester Stallone movie – The Specialist.
As the credits were rolling. they got in to the car and were driving
off into the sunset and then the Gloria Estefan song "Turn the Beat
Around" started playing. Instantly I thought oh my God, I wonder if
anyone's actually sampled this. I ran upstairs, managed to get a copy
of it and phoned up Julian to say that I had a great idea for a sample
record. This was on Friday night and Julian popped in Saturday and
had a listen. I was busy so he said we'd get to it on Monday. So
Monday comes, I get to the studio and Julian says oh I've already done
it. He'd basically done seventy or eighty percent of the track. We
finished it off that week and the following week we had offers on the
table from All Around the World, before we'd even got a play on it.
We held back a bit and didn't rush into anything. We sent it over to
Jules again, he gave it a few plays and then All Around the World came
to us and said they were interested in it as a Dannii Minogue song. I
think Dannii wrote the top line with Rob Davis and Therese and it sort
of started with the promo again on the vocal version and then it got
released.
RS: That's such a small world, you had Therese in there and you
do stuff with Hed Kandi. So in the UK pop dance world, everyone's
pretty much working with the same people?
Simon Langford: It's a surprisingly small business over here, the
amount of people that you know and have connections with without even
realizing it, you seem to know pretty much everyone. We do like
working with other people and we've got a few collaborations coming up
with various different people. It's nice because you get settled into
your rhythm when you're working on your own and you've got your way of
working and then when a third party comes into that it kind of throws
it off balance a bit and there's a benefit that you get a completely
different viewpoint.
RS: What's also interesting is how it seems like every couple of
years, that all the British and European producers change names.
Simon Langford: I suppose if you're in a band like Oasis, that is
what you do, you never go out under different names. But because of
the way this industry is, there are different opportunities and you
might be signed to Defected doing a certain style of music, but if you
feel like doing something else that wouldn't really be a Defected
record, you can come up with anther pseudonym and sign to another
label. Of course it means you can obviously get more material out
that way as well.
RS: Dance music is definitely of the moment and if you have a
song, you want to get it out as quickly as possible
Simon Langford: Yes, absolutely. I mean particularly now, 2006
wasn't a great year for dance music commercially in the UK. There
were some fantastic tracks released, but none of them really kind of
hit the charts that high. But towards the end, I mean in December
2006 and January 2007, I think there's been about eight or nine top
twenty records.