Joey Negro is the most well-known pseudonym of master British producer, remixer, DJ and label owner Dave Lee, an artist who, under various guises, has created a truly exceptional back-catalogue accounting for many of house music’s highlights over a career spanning three decades.
Here, Lee tells us about creating one of the first ever UK house records, balancing commercial success with underground credibility, and how he feels about being an official House Master...
Tell us about the first time you were really excited by music...
One of the first times I remember being really excited by music was The Sweet 'Blockbuster' on Friday night on Crackerjack. Sweet were kind of a Glam Rock band and a lot of their stuff was written and produced by this duo who wrote for Suzi Quatro, Mud called Chinn and Chapman – they were the PWL of glam. The track 'Blockbuster' was kind of a rip off of David Bowie 'Gene Genie', at the time I didn't really know that but I liked these guys, they looked quite different, they all had long hair. I suppose it just seemed very cool to me and I became a big Glam Rock fan.
Then a few years later, maybe two or three, I heard Heatwave 'Boogie Nights' on Swap Shop. I guess that was how, back in that era, you heard a lot of music, from TV and on kids' television programs and on Top of the Pops. There wasn't the internet or YouTube or even MTV so the access to hearing music was much more limited. I guess I liked pop music, I liked what was in the charts. It was a great era - 1977 to 82 for Disco music but also for punk and generally for pop. It was a good era to grow up in.
To paraphrase Blaze, do you remember the first time you heard house?
Proper house I think would have been something like Adonis 'No Way Back' or Mr Finger's 'Mystery of Love', they were the things I heard when I first move to London and got a job in a record store. Although some of these records had been around for a while house music tracks like 'Jack Your Body' and 'Mystery of Love' were just coming in in large quantities to London as imports. Before that I recall Chocolate ‘East Street Beat’ being one of the first fast electronic records I heard a year or so before.
There was also a lot of really strong hip hop like Eric B, Mantronix and Big Daddy Kane around so there was these two scenes that were putting out very different, but equally creative music. I was as much in to hip hop then as I was into house. I suppose a lot of nights you went to it was a different scene because not many DJs could mix, you would hear house, hip hop, rare Groove as well as more standard soul dance like Cameo, Midnight Star all mixed up within an hour. It wouldn't be like now when you go to a night and it tends to be very genre-specific.
Was this around the time you were considering a career in the industry?
I dreamed of being a DJ or remixing records for a living but it just seemed like something that was a pipe dream. I went from finishing school around 1980-81 to just bumming around, spending maybe a year on the dole then going on a course in a local college for a year. Went for a few jobs but never really got past interview one. I didn't really know what I wanted to do but I was fanatically interested in music, going to second-hand record shops, reading about music, talking about music, talking to people on the phone I'd met through magazines. When I got the job in the record store I just did my absolute best not to lose it. I had a shot of getting into the music business and I just don't want to mess it up.
I worked in that record shop for nine months and then I got a job at Rough Trade distribution and that went reasonably well. It was tough at the beginning as they weren't a dance distributor and shops were resistant. I was doing some really boring shit to make myself busy, photocopying sales figures, packing orders etc. Eventually I managed to persuade them to give me my own label which was christened Republic. I started off with a bit of licensing from the USA; stuff like Phase II 'Reaching' and Turntable Orchestra 'You're Going To Miss Me' - early house productions.
During that time I was at Rough Trade I'd been spending my weekends in the studio with some friends from school. I had made music before that but just messed around at home with a Waltham tape recorder playing guitar and my brother playing bongos. We'd play that back and sing on top of it - was all just fun. I had also toyed around re-editing records on my music center tape deck, I recently chanced upon my chopped up version of the Bar Kays 'Sexamatic' on the cassette which was just pause button editing... so I had an idea about arrangements and drum machines but I didn't really know how to make a finished record.
You also made one of the first UK house records around that time...
I think back in that era when we made M-D-Emm 'Get Busy' it was a time when there was a lot of different influences coming together. There were quite a few records that sort of combined hip hop with house and rare groove and 'Get Busy' was one of those records. By the time we actually finished it I actually thought the record was rubbish because it just wasn't what I had in my head. We were trying to emulate an Arthur Baker record by Criminal Element Orchestra and failed miserably. But what we did do was finish it and I think that was a useful lesson.
We did a house mix of it and a rare groove mix of it and later a more acid house version which Derrick May licensed for his Transmat label and it got played in the Hacienda and that sort of stuff. I think the Acid mix is probably better than the main mix, the main mix we worked on for about nine months and it went on for so long. We didn't even have a sampler so we had to hire a guy in the local area who had one and he'd come down for the day and allow us to utilize the four seconds of sampler time his machine possessed, so you would sample something, put it down to tape, then sample something else: it was such a laborious, long-winded process, but of course it was a great feeling when we actually released a proper record. Seeing it in DJs' charts and the Record Mirror Club Chart - which back then was THE club chart - was amazing.
You set up your current label, Z Records back in 1991... what happened to Republic?
The reason I set up Z Records was that Republic was owned by Rough Trade. Though I put out some of my records out on Republic I was an employee really, so I started out ZR as a way to put out my own music and be more in control of what I wanted to do with the label and know I’d get paid at the end of the process. I'd just finished the first track I had produced totally on my own and wanted to start something new. Things had been financially delicate at Rough Trade for a while, and it looked as if Republic wasn't going to be an option in the future anyway.
Initially Z was just a way for me to get my music out quickly and easily. Often it's not that easy to find good labels to release your music. With Z, if I want it in a picture sleeve or if I want to spend money on the packaging and promotion I can do it. If I want so and so to remix and I can afford to pay them I can do that- it's all up to me and nobody else. I probably am a control freak but I've got used to doing it my way from quite early on.
You're known for having a wide range of aliases, all of which are quite distinct musically. When you're heading to the studio do you think to yourself, 'ok, today I'm going to make a Joey Negro record'?
Generally I just go in to the studio and make music, I might get halfway through a track and just think, 'well this sounds like Akabu'. When I'm doing an album project I specifically make tracks for that album. But if I'm just in the studio making a clubbier track I am flexible with the name. If it's more disco-sampled then it could be Doug Willis, if I was doing something a bit deeper then maybe it would be Akabu. I don't really make my mind up until it is close to finished.
Sometimes I do have a specific idea and think 'yeah that would work for Sunburst'. But what I've learnt over the years is that what feels like a good idea doesn't always work how you planned it would and sometimes you've got to be realistic and think 'okay I've started this track off, I've spent a couple of days on it but actually it may be better to knock it on the head because it's never going to be as good as I thought it was going to be'. I think that is an important quality in a producer, just to be able to know when things aren't working.
So when you've made something as commercially successful as 'American Dream' under Jakatta, is your reaction to make more of the same, or to do something deep and underground to balance things out?
I think sometimes when you've just made a commercial track and you're enjoying the success of that you do want to go back and make something a bit more underground to balance it out. After I made the Jakatta album - which I enjoyed making and was different to what I've done before - I wanted to make a Sunburst album because I'd been avoiding all the normal influences I had, which is the more jazz and soul that just wasn't right for Jakatta. I was calling on the film soundtracks, which was great, but when I was finished I didn't want to go back.
There was a point where Ministry of Sound wanted me to do another album, but I just didn't want to do another album at that point; I wanted to do something different. I think just for your own variety it's nice to change up. I've produced some pop acts over the years and I like working on a variety of music because I have a diverse taste in music and for me, just doing one thing gets boring and you end up making boring music. After I produced Take That I could have gone more the pop route, but I really didn't want to do that....it’s great now and then but not all the time
Did you think that 'American Dream' would go on to be as successful as it was?
When I first made 'American Dream' I knew there was something about it, but the first version I did didn't have the full vocal on it, it was just the sample and some drums and it had the spoken word accapella. It was done very quickly and I released it as a white label type 12” called American Booty. It was around for about a year but a few people really liked it, for example Mark Doyle who was at Hed Kandi. He would always say he loved the track and wanted to put it on a compilation album but he couldn't because the sample wasn't cleared. There were a few people who said it really could catch on beyond the underground so after a while I made a slightly more accessible version with a vocal by Swati Nektar.
When we sent the record to Pete Tong he loved it and supported it on his show. That sort of launch pad can really help a record, and of course everybody loved the film American Beauty so it wasn't just about the music, but also the association with a fantastic movie. It was one of those records that just rolled. I've been involved in quite a few records that look like they're going to be hits and then they just peter out somewhere along the way but this record didn't, it built up and built up and when it came out it sold well and reached no 3 in the mainstream charts.
Did you find that there was any resentment from the underground 'heads' after you experienced this level of mainstream success?
There are always going to be some die-hard purist types who don't like you for being on Top of the Pops or the fact that you've had some commercial records in the charts. I would concede something like 'Make a Move on Me' is quite a commercial sounding record but I really enjoyed making it – as a by product of its success it also generated a lot of money which allowed me to do other things I wanted in the studio, buy equipment etc. But yeah I think that the only negative of having commercial success is that it makes you less cool on the underground.
I've never really been that cool apart from briefly in 91/92. And I've never been a snob about music. Just because Stevie Wonder made “Ebony and Ivory” (with Paul McCartney) or 'I Just Called To Say I Love You' doesn't make me like Songs in the Key of Life any less. I never cared for Kool and the Gang 'Fresh', but I will always love 'Funky Stuff' ‘Open Sesame’ etc and I still enjoy hearing those tunes. I guess I’m not a purist like that, so if some people feel they can’t listen to my new Sunburst album because they weren't into another one of my more commercial tracks then it’s their decision.
We last spoke back in the summer after you've just played your first Glitterbox party in Ibiza. What do you think it was about the night that made it such a success?
I think Glitterbox has worked in Ibiza because it was offering something different to pretty much everything else that is out there. I think there is a myth that people go to Ibiza and only want tech house and techno. Glitterbox gave people an option if they want to hear disco, classic house and some modern house but not something that is horrible and cheesy and won't be full of kids and it's going to be in a classy atmosphere. I've met a lot of people who say they go to Ibiza and they don't know where to go.
There was an opening there but it's about getting the message through and doing it well; you've got to stick to your guns musically. I think you've got to keep it accessible but also say that this is what we're about here and we're not going to be doing what they're doing round the corner. I enjoyed playing Glitterbox. There were some really good nights; some of the best gigs I've played in Ibiza actually, including the 90s.
Your House Masters Joey Negro release will be dropping early next year... with so much music to choose from, how do you go about putting a tracklist together for something like this?
I tried to look at it from the perspective of someone hearing what I do for the first time, and to try and give them a cross-section of my music. It's about taking on board the general public's view of what you've done with some of your own personal favourites and try balance that out.
What are some of your personal favourites?
Sunburst Band 'Garden of Love' is a favourite of mine. That was a track I was actually going to give up on, but eventually we got it right. When you're in the studio you're often looking for that moment when all the individual elements come together to make something special. My favourite records all have those moments. I also really like my mix of Blaze 'Wishing You Were Here'. It was a great song from their Spiritually Speaking album but the drums and bass were quite abstract and I knew I could do a good remix of it as soon as I heard it.
I've done a few remixes like that where I can hear the potential to get it to work better in a club but keeping what is intrinsically great about what it is. It's sometimes as simple as just changing the drums, bass and arrangement. They're the sort of remixes I actually really enjoy doing, where I can see the potential and it's just a matter of realizing it. Another one I have fond memories of is 'Can't Get High Without U', where I worked with Chaka Khan's sister Taka Boom for the first time, who used to live in London. That was a track I really enjoyed making, it's got lots of good elements in it.
Finally, how do you feel about being an official 'House Master'?
It's great to be acknowledged for what you've done and all the hours of studio time you’ve put in. The House Masters series is like a who's who of house music, so of course it's nice to be part of those albums and be there alongside Dennis Ferrer and Masters At Work. I try not to rest on my laurels and think 'I've achieved this or that'. To a degree you're only as good as your last record, even if you have had lots of music out over the years. I don't want people to think "Oh I like the early stuff but not sure about now". Occasionally someone will say something like that to you at gigs and it's like “I know you’re trying to be nice but it's not actually what any artist wants to hear”.
Pretty much every record I've ever been involved in I've put 100% into; even if they turned out crap I tried my best with what I had to work with – if it was a remix. If it was my own song and I didn't think it was up to scratch then I didn't release it. Some producers are happy releasing a couple of songs per year but I’m not one of those, I enjoy spending time in the studio creating music. It doesn't have to be a big seller for me to consider it a success; I just have to have enjoyed making it and be happy with the end result.
Defected presents House Masters Joey Negro is out 11 January (2CD and digital) on Defected Records - order from iTunes and Amazon
