Hugely influential Production & DJ duo, The Sharp Boys launch Sharp Digital with their all vinyl Sharp Recordings catelogue available for the 1st time digitally in over 20 years, remastered and with new artwork featuring their cheeky Sharp Boy logo. With heavyweight fans including: Carl Cox, Nicole Moudaber, Eats Everything, DJ Sneak, Harry ‘Choo Choo’ Romero, Yousef, Mark Knight, Hifi Sean, Smokin Jo, Roger Sanchez, Danny Tenaglia and more, their chunky cut up house sounds continues to play on the dance floor. Kicking off the new releases are the Sharp Tools series with one being released every Friday and currently on Vol 4, Vol 5 is due this Friday July 2nd.
Co-creators of the Lite Lounge at the UK’s best know all nighter Trade, the Sharp Boys, were instrumental in shaping the landscape of London’s 90’s lgbtq club scene from their original residency at Friday night’s Garage at Heaven, thru to their Royal House monthly also at Heaven and with landmark residency sets at Beyond at Fire, DTPM at Fabric and Orange at the Coliseum. Alongside these sets The Sharp Boys also played at many of the UK’s finest Northern house music emporiums, racking up sets for Radio 1 at the Love Parade in Leeds (plus 2 ESSENTIAL MIXES for Radio 1) Love to Be, Vague, Sundissential, Miss Moneypennys, Garlands, Passion and at the very first Creamfields.
Alongside this, the boys hosted their own hugely successful 6 year Saturday Night show on Kiss 100 with guests including Boy George, Nile Rogers, Pet Shop Boys, The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim & Basement Jaxx and they also went on to rack up over 300 remixes for many iconic artists such as: George Michael, Faithless, Ultra Nate, Madonna, Britney Spears, Aretha Franklin, Mary J Blige & Pink. On the decks the Sharp Boys have played at some of the world’s finest clubs including at Ministry of Sound, Fabric, The End, Turnmills, Scala, Miami’s Winter Music Conference, ADE, Ibiza’s Manumission, Pacha, Space and Eden clubs over 10 years of weekly residencies and Japan’s Yellow club in Tokyo and Shoon over 8 tours ; the RA Club @Luxor in Las Vegas as well as multiple tours all over Europe and in South Africa across nearly 3 decades in Johannesburg, Capetown & Durban plus a 3 year bi monthly Moscow residency at Most.
Hello Steven & George – The Sharp Boys – its been a while but it’s so good to see you releasing your impressive catalogue digitally for the first time with the new Sharp Digital label and you’re kicking off with the Sharp Tools series. You’re now up to Vol 4 with a new Volume being released every Friday, can you talk us through the first 4 releases…
Hey DMC! We went into the studio with no template but lots of enthusiasm and the influence of the US House labels and producers we adored and attempted to do 1 track a day and 3 days later Sharp Tools was born. We originally never titled the tracks until this remastered series for Sharp Digital Recordings as with so many new platforms it made sense to track title them! We aimed to have a big diva vocal on at least 1 track per EP like “That’s It”, “I Need” or “Keep On Livin’ “and by the time we got to the third track; we were simply just having fun and that in itself enables the creative process to develop. We are incredibly grateful for the support the first few releases have achieved and are excited at the prospect of what is ahead with the next phase of releases.
Was there a particular incident that galvanised you to start the label again for the digital age, and how’s the response been so far?
Basically it was from the many requests we’ve had over the past few years asking if our Sharp Recordings tracks were available digitally. Very few of our back catalogue tracks had ever been released digitally, so we’ve had them remastered and it seemed like the obvious and logital direction to head in with Sharp Digital Recordings. Some of these tracks are up to 25 years old, so we are blessed to have such fantastic support and requests for them after all these years.
For those not old enough, or whose memory has faded, can you give a brief history of how Sharp Recordings started and what inspired you both to form the label and DJ/Production team?
We were already DJing together, so it was a natural progression for us to set up the label, then the desire to start producing our own tracks came pretty soon after. At the time we were inspired by a lot of the tougher tracks that were coming out of the U.S.producers like Armand Van Helden and DJ Sneak, so that influenced us a lot in our own production sound and also many of the tracks we licensed to release on Sharp. Oddly enough, we never ever called ourselves The Sharp Boys but kept getting tagged as it, so in the end the name stuck and we thought we may as well use it.
With over 23 releases on the label, do you have a personal favourite and what makes this tune so memorable?
All the tracks we released on Sharp had to have that bit of extra special buzz for us both personally and for the club floor but Sara Parker’s ‘My Love Is Deep’ is most definitely one of those tracks. Although it was only our third release and it remains one of our most requested. It was our first crossover release as a club track to mainstream chart success back in 1995. We will be releasing it again later this summer on Sharp Digital Recordings.
What’s coming next after the Sharp Tools series?
Following the Sharp Tools series we will be releasing more of the Sharp Recordings remastered back catalogue along with some of our biggest and most requested remixes that we did for other artists.
As well as releasing your classic tracks, are you going back into the studio to make some new goodies?
Absolutely! All roads lead to new material along with new releases from other artists too.
Alongside your Sharp Recordings label, you were the go-to-remixers back in the 90s racking up over 300 remixes for the likes of superstars such as Madonna, Kylie & Danni Minogue, Britney Spears, George Michael, Moby and Pink. Again, do you have a favourite remix and is there a story behind it? Did you also meet any of the famous artists you remixed and how were they?
We were lucky enough to be invited to the “Spinning Around” launch and were introduced to Kylie who was absolutely adorable and her sister Danni who we remixed a couple of times and who also came on our radio show on Kiss FM for an interview which was kind and hilarious as she is really funny.
Alongside your productions and remixes, the Sharp Boys were also hugely prolific on the gay scene then with residencies at Royal House @ Heaven and Garage @ Heaven, and you also went on to launch the Lite Lounge at the legendary all nighter Trade. How did that come about as you’re often credited for keeping the mixed gay club scene funky with your tuff house sound? Any crazy stories you can share with us from those days?
Well there was one crazy Royal House event at Heaven with both Boy George and Pet Shop Boys’ Chris Lowe in the DJ box which was brilliant and quite mind blowing as we are big admirers of both of them. At another afterhours gig Boy George MC’ed behind a curtain over our set which was just brilliant as the crowd couldn’t see him but could hear him! Trade Lite was created after a conversation with Laurence Malice and i actually started in an upstairs coat check room at Turnmills and just grew and grew! It completely complimented the sound of the Trade main floor and both rooms worked really well together. Such magical times working with Laurence and his ambition never ceases to amaze us!
And before I forget you, also hosted a radio show on London’s leading station, Kiss FM, and some of those sessions were hugely memorable for your guests interviews and features. How did you find your experience on radio and it would be great to have you back on the airwaves…are there any plans?
Over the 6 years of Saturday Nights we did get to meet quite a few of our heroes; Fatboy Slim, Pet Shop Boys, The Chemical Brothers, David Morales and one weekend as he was playing at Wembley Nile Rogers phoned in for an interview which was incredible as some of his productions and Studio 54 stories were legendary!
I hear Eats Everything is a big fan of the Sharp Boys sound, and who else is on your A List crew of supporters
Well we are massive fans of his so it was really nice to find out he loved Sharp Recordings. He payed two of our remixes on Radio 1 across two weekends, top man! What was lovely for us (as huge US House fans) was getting support and plays from Kevin Saunderson, Harry Choo Choo Romero, Jason Nevins, Junior Vasquez, Ralphi Rosario and Danny Tenaglia. They inspired us so much.
The Sharp Boys release ‘Sharp Tools Vol 5’ is out now and follow them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/thesharpboys
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdfpL27x342FEPasvoT1UBA
soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sharp-digital-recordings
