Steve Lawler has always remained all about the music. With a lengthy career deeply entwined in UK electronic music culture, Steve Lawler has now announced his new world tour concept – Life, taking things back to it’s roots by presenting a series of parties in unique and raw locations around the world…
Hey Steve, welcome back to DMC. You are in the middle of one of the most exciting live projects dance music has seen in a long time. It’s wonderful that someone has the vision and let’s be frank, the balls to undertake something like this. ‘LIFE’ is a series of events in unique locations around the world, disused buildings, outdoor areas and unconventional spaces. When did this idea begin to formulate and what is the outline of these breathtaking parties?
“The idea really came about in early 2011. I tend to find myself playing at after parties at a lot of shows that I do because I just love playing music, and if I’m going to be hanging out somewhere, I like to be hanging out playing records. So I just thought, lets take this to a bigger scale. My whole career doing what I do has been really exciting, but that’s mainly because I never want to be content with what’s going on and I’m always trying to think of new ideas and yes sometimes it is a challenge, not just for me but for the whole team, but that’s what keeps life exciting. And really the outline of these parties is just to go against the grain a little bit, do something a bit different. Give people the chance to party in a location like we used to have all the time freely every weekend back in the early 90s, you would always be able to go a party at these bizarre locations to party and it doesn’t really happen anymore, people miss out. They don’t really realise how organic and exciting that was, so I’ve been DJing for over 20 years, so I’m just trying to do my part in introducing what we did then to some of the new kids now, to show them what it was like. But obviously now with the better technology, better soundsystem, and me with my team around me, were hoping we can do this on a more organised and better scale. Honestly the first party was incredible and it shows it can really work after all the hard work.”
You were responsible for putting on some illegal raves back in the early days of acid house. This must have surely reminded you about those days of searching around for a space to dance?
“Back then I was too young to play in proper clubs, because I started doing my illegal raves when I was 17. I didn’t really think of my playing records as a career, I just did it then because of the hunger to play records in front of an audience of people. Whether that was 50, 500 or 5000 people, you just want to share the music that that loved with other people and you get a buzz off of other people enjoying your taste in music. That’s why I did it then and the reason I do it now is to give to people who came the chance to experience this, I’ve experienced this before, I’ve had the charm of playing in a tunnel or a disused/bizarre location. There is a sense of danger almost a sense of excitement that you just don’t get from playing in normal clubs and I think it’s the same for the people that come. So, its’ really important to emphasise this on what we are doing and also emphasise the fact that this is a ridiculously tough project to undertake for the whole team of people involved, which is why we are only doing 12 parties, but it’s going to be 12 parties that hopefully we can put a stamp on history and really do something that is different. So if we’ve started something new here, then that’s great, I’m proud of that.”
People have tried this before and have come up a cropper, I remember Sasha trying this years ago at stately homes but always came up against council licensing issues. How have the authorities been with you this time?
“Like I say, it has been difficult, we have had certain venues confirmed back in March and then it gets closer to the date and the promoters that we use, our local promoters that we use in these cities, that we’ve worked with before and we trust, they come back to us and say that they’ve lost the license or the authorities have been onto them and the party can’t go ahead, or certain things have happened and it has been difficult. But this is not going to deter us from this, the original plan was to have 12 parties in 2012, that’s why we launched it in 2012, we were talking about doing this in 2011 but we held it back because the number 12 was significant. But upon trying this, what we didn’t realise was how difficult it was going to be but I have made a commitment to this and whole team of colleagues from viva music have made a commitment to this and we are going to see this through and it will no doubt go forward into 2013. Possibly even 2014 and every event we do is going to be special and again each event is not just about throwing a party it’s going to be about using local artists, using local people that mean something.”
You launched in New York down in Brooklyn at Dekalb Market, basically a labyrinth of industrial shipping containers. Tell us about the party…
“The party was amazing it was absolutely packed full of people really excited to be there, really excited to be a part of something different like this. I mean it was smack bang in the middle of Brooklyn, I remember when it turned to darkness, I looked up and you had all the lights of all the high rise buildings all around us and I remember thinking this is incredible we’re getting away with this, you know it was loud, we had a big steve dash soundsystem in the middle of Brooklyn with 1000 people going crazy to some amazing music and I’m really proud of that, I’m really proud we got away with it, I’m really proud that we put it together and everyone involved worked really hard and the fact we could use local DJs on the show and local artists got involved, the whole thing was incredible.”
What can you tell us about the forthcoming cities and venues you have picked?
“The venues and cities will be released when we are about to promote that show. In fear other people might try and take the venues before we use them. Because it’s been quite difficult to find venues that no one has used before or locations and turn them into a venue because that’s what life is about.”
How would you say your style has changed over the last twelve months?
“Well my style hasn’t changed. My style is my taste and a leopard doesn’t change his spots, unless it wants to and wants to wear a tuxedo, but my taste has been the same since day one, was does change is the technology that you create music on and that in itself does change music, it changes how its developed over the years and even though flavours and inspirations have stayed the same, the outcome products will always sound more modern as time moves on and technology is improving and moving forward at a rapid rate.”
Miami was insane, what are your thoughts on EDM blowing up in America – Pete Tong is very worried about the whole situation claiming the amount of money being thrown at the scene in the States could be really detrimental to dance music…
“This is how I feel about what’s happening in America. Quite simply, house music is being Americanised for the American market. If the American market take something they like, they Americanise it, and that usually means the sole purpose is to make money. That’s how America works. Everyone knows it’s that land of opportunity, everyone knows it’s all about business and money in America. Also about making things bigger, bolder, shinier and that’s the whole thing with electronic music in America right now. Bigger shows, bigger productions, bigger DJs, bigger money, bigger this, bigger that. I don’t think that will affect our scene because our scene is the way it’s always been which is house music and techno and it’s always been here and it always will be here. The pop dance electro movement is an offshoot of house music, an offshoot that’s turned commercial and that’s been put there for its sole purpose to make money. Now I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Because what it has done is introduce a whole wave of kids into electronic music. Taken them away from hip hop and taken them away from rock music, which is positive. But if they want to have this uncontrollable situation with money being thrown around, I honestly think that there’s positives and negatives to everything and I think that personally, I really can’t stand the electro pop dance, I really think it is the worst music I have ever heard in my life, I would really rather listen to a bag of spanners being thrown around,…But you know some people like it, it’s for them, it’s just not for me.”
Where have you enjoyed spinning this year, where has stood out?
“To be honest this year has been an amazing year of gigs. I had a really quiet winter, I made sure after NYE I took the whole of jan and feb off and just spend some time with my family and spend some time in the studio and get creative. The only way to really get creative in the studio is when you get a little bit hungry for music, and then you really stuck into the studio and that was my aim, to just take time off and get my head back around music and write some tracks that will now come out or the rest of the summer. I already started touring in March, did a few gigs. The conference was amazing for me this year, the VIVa MUSiC party was incredible, Timewarp was absolutely out of this world. Definitely by far best house and techno event I’ve ever seen, I’ve ever witnessed and that really is a celebration of house and techno, which I was really proud to be a part of. We’ve had some incredible gigs, yes it’s been an amazing year so far.”
Production wise what’s coming next?
“Well most of the production I did, I did at the start of this year. There is a whole bunch of tracks that I have made, I’m not sure when they are going to come out yet, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them, one is called Cavalier, there’s a track called upside down, there’s a track called You Just Feel it. I’ve got quite a lot of output that’s been done finished and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it just yet, My remix of Layo and Bushwacka’s new track should be hitting the shops shortly. Also I have the single Future Pain, which I did with colleague and Viva artists Darius Syrossian, which will be coming out on Viva on the forthcoming Viva Warriors mix album.”
And finally, your home city of Birmingham seems to be on a resurgence at the moment, some great venues and parties taking place…
“Yes absolutely I totally agree. We have a Viva music residency with FACE, which is at Rainbow/ Rainbow warehouse and we do 4 parties with them a year, which have all been a huge success, Darius Syrossian is the resident of those gigs and we bring in myself or Tiefschwarz or other guests to play alongside the Viva guys. It’s a great way to get our Viva artists out there and performing at an amazing venue and it’s been a really encouraging thing for me to see that, because obviously Birmingham being a place where I am from, I’ve seen how it’s gone for many many years and to see that it dropped off for many years.”
Steve Lawler’s VIVA Warriors takeover every Wednesday @ Sankeys, Ibiza from 4th July.
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