Farley Jackmaster Funk

Interview by Dan Prince

Farley a huge welcome back to DMCWORLD…where on planet dance are you today?

Thanks. I’m in Chicago right now. I’ve just got back from Washington after a trip to The White House with the Hot Mix 5 crew, Mickey Oliver, Ralphi Rosario, Kenny Jason and Mario Diaz. And of course, my own first lady, Delece Williams, Lady Jackmaster herself.  

What was the first piece of music you heard this morning after springing out of bed?

I heard ‘Frequency 7’ by Visage. I was putting together a tribute to Herb Kent who died last week aged 88. He was in the Guiness Book of Records as the longest-running DJ in the history of radio and had a weekly show, every Sunday, on the same station as me, V103. He was a really influential broadcaster – we used to call him one of the guys who inspired house music before the likes of the Hot Mix 5. He and I used to do a ‘battle of the bands’ feature on air with viewers voting for the winner. Herb used to wait until he got off air then start swearing at me to deliberately distract me, so I would forget to ask my fans to call in and vote! He was a real character, a true one off.

So young man, you continue to keep us all on our toes! This time with the news that you have returned to Chicago’s legendary TRAX Records with your first release since 2004 in ‘France We Send Our House To You’. And what a story there is behind the track! Please take us back to the Chosen Few House picnic in Chicago in the summer where you bumped into TRAX owner Rachel Cain, how did the idea for this charity single begin…?

The idea for the France single came from another song I did for Haiti. Darryl Pandy used to live in Haiti and after the earthquake in 2010 we started work on a charity record to help those affected. Sadly Darryl passed before we got to finsh this track, but now Haiti has just been devastated by a hurricane I’m going to get it finished. I’m working on 2 versions, one with Chicago artists featured, including Darryl’s vocal, Byron Stingily and Cajmere, plus a New York version featuring Barbara Tucker, Keith Thomas and Robyn S. There’s so much tragedy in the world, I just feel that the house music community should do its bit to give back. We’re so blessed to travel around the world and DJ. We’re happy to take from these countries, so I wanted to give something back. For the France single, I had already got the legend, Byron Stingily on board, then just by chance ran into Rachael over the summer at the Chosen Few House picnic. She was fresh so I called her to add a vocal, then I bought together singers from various Chicago churches to make the Chicago House Music Voices For Peace choir.    

The single is a collaboration with the mighty Byron Stingly and the Chicago House Music Voices For Peace choir. Please talk us through the whole recording process and sound of this incredible track…

This track was recorded at different times with different artists, with each coming over to the studio at my house to record their parts. I gave everyone cookies and milk, so they were happy and they delivered some great recordings. It was a joyous thing for everyone to come together and do it for the cause. The lyrics were written by me and one of my artists, Donnell Jones, and took us about 2 days to finish. I wanted to produce a record with a real heartbeat to it, something that you could play at a party, but also something that got the message across. I worked hard to get a strong groove in this track. 

The single will be donating all proceeds to the Give For France charity to help victims of the recent terror attacks. We continue to live in very worrying times with every week it seems another monstrosity occurring around the world. What is the answer to this global terror problem, how will we ever sleep easy?

I don’t think we’ll ever sleep easy. You’ve just got to keep on praying man. We need to work harder to prevent these things before they happen. The world needs more peace and more love. The problem is that it’s often not in our backyard so we don’t give it enough attention, but maybe we need to look closer to home to start with. We need to show love to our neighbours first. We’ve got plenty of inner wars that we need to fight before we even look on a global scale. Every day, people are fighting over things like employment, racism, politics and even things like football or baseball. I think it’s a sad time for the world. The only positive is that it’s amazing how tragedy brings people together. When the Twin Towers got hit all racism and differences were forgotten. People all came together to help each other, but the problem is, once the tragedy has passed they don’t hold on to this and things slip back to the way they were. Another thing to consider is how much we really know about the global terror problems. Do we know what the problem really is, what our government’s true reasons are for acting in certain ways? We’re exposed to a lot of propaganda.

The label undoubtedly helped you become one of the early proponents of house music and subsequently, one of its most influential names. Just how much of a debt do we owe TRAX for it’s music and what are some of the many tracks that have given you goosebumps over the years?

TRAX was definitely influential back in those days, but for me it was when they released the tracks with Phuture, in particular ‘Acid Tracks’, with DJ Pierre and the late great Spank Spank producing a thunderous, imaginative track – that was what took house to another stratosphere and gave house music a shot in the arm. I remember it being played in Ibiza and it was going crazy. That was the summer of love. It was cutting edge, but I released my album ’No Vocals Necessary’ at the same time – we were all cutting edge at that point. You didn’t have to be inspired by anything. We all had the same machines to make music so you were just free to be creative. My first record on TRAX was in 1984 I think, “Funkin’ With The Drums”, so it was an important and influential outlet for me, but Hot Mix 5 was also really influential at that time. We regularly broke house records via our radio show which broadcasted to over 3 million people every week! We were like The Beatles of house music – we had plenty of squabbles, but we played and made really good music.