GTA: What was it that drew you into that darker side of house music? Was it a particular song? A particular night you spun?
SL: I don’t know. It’s really strange. My inspiration doesn’t come from music, doesn’t come from other DJs, it doesn’t come from, you know, music. It comes from—dare I say—“vices,” you know? It comes from people and places that I see and just experiences that I have. If I’m really blown away by a certain experience in my life, I will translate that as much as I possibly can into music and into house music and into a dance floor and into an atmosphere in a club. I don’t know what turned me to the darker side. I think I just—for me, it’s a very natural process. I start listening to records and things start to excite me. I don’t know why, they just do. And if it excites me, that’s what I get into, because I have to enjoy what I do. It has to be—I DJ and I make records because it’s a passion for me. So if it doesn’t excite me, I wont do it. And if get drawn to something, I never really know the reasons why until about a year later; I look back and think, “Jesus! Things really did change there for a while in me!” And I think one of the reasons why I’m not playing so dark now, or so heavily dark now, is because, in my opinion, the world is a dark place. And it’s just a difference where my head is at right now, you know? I play music how I feel, from my heart, from my head. So, you know, if something in my life is changing, then over a period of time the music will as well.
GTA: And—just continuing that point of music changing—I’ve noticed especially in your latest CD, Lights Out 2, a considerable amount of electro creeping into your music—electro, or electro-inspired house music.
SL: Electro-inspired, yeah.
GTA: Tracks like “Future Spirit,” which is on Lights Out CD, for example. What’s your opinion of the whole electroclash movement and its music?
SL: I’m glad you’ve asked this question, because it’s something that I’m frequently asked for the Lights Out 2 compilation. And it’s very simple: I don’t actually like electroclash music and my opinion of the sort of electro ’80s sort of phase that’s going on in house music right now I don’t like either. For me, the ’80s was a bad time in music, so why bring it back? That’s how I feel.
GTA: What was so bad about it?
SL: Well I don’t know, it’s just the ’80s—I wasn’t a big fan of ’80s music. Late ’80s, yes—Depeche Mode, New Order, when the music started becoming more—when it sort of left the romantic scene and became more electronic. That’s when I was turned on to the music in the ’80s. Before that it was very cheesy, very quirky, very all niceties; there was no rawness to it—because it lacks that rawness and it lacks that individuality and freshness. I just didn’t—I wasn’t into it at all. What I’ve taken on with the Lights Out and in my general sound at the moment is in every movement of music comes a new influence—that’s how music repeats itself, you know? We’re always looking back to move forwards. And what’s happened is, you know, this whole ’80s thing—the electroclash thing you’re talking about—all sort of started to happen and in that there’s as lot of stuff I didn’t really like, but out of that, now what has happened is you’ve had some really great house producers, numerous guys form Italy and Spain, that are taking some of the ideas and elements and influences form the electro sort of sound—mainly some of the organs and some of the dirty bass lines that are used in that genre—but put it into solid, chunky house music. And it’s created a sort of sound that—thank god—nobody has labeled yet.
GTA: Right.
SL: You know, there a track on the album, Danusha, “Movin’ On”—this, to me, has got electro sounds all over it. The “Future Spirit,” as you said, the Java and Gabi Newman track as well—there’s a lot of tracks on there that have got that sort of taste in there, but it isn’t an electroclash record and it isn’t an ’80s record. It hasn’t been labeled yet. That’s what I think. It’s a very new sound to me, anyway; something that really excites me. It’s got the roots of house music, but it’s got the taste of sort of the electro overtones.
GTA: And so it’s the whole raw, sexy vibe that meshes with your style?
SL: Yeah—exactly! Yeah. It’s something that hasn’t been caught on to by a lot of people yet, and I’m glad about that. It’s something that, as I say, excites me.
