There are a dizzying number of releases being pushed out every week by an ever-growing number of record labels, to stand out it takes a bit of luck, a lot of hard work and, above all – quality. One label who have been steadily putting their mark on things since their first release in November 2016 is Déjà Vu Traxx. With names like Sam Divine and Franky Rizardo supporting their releases, we caught up with label boss, Lee Jeffrey, to find out a bit more.
Lee, tell us a bit about Déjà vu Traxx for those who don’t know – what kind of music, artists and vibe can we expect from the label?
Hi, thanks for having me. OK, so with Deja Vu Traxx we are not going to be so rigid with what we release, we want to release everything across the whole house and techno range – if a track stands out for us, we would be mad to let it go. A lot of labels tend to bracket their music style and won’t sign something because it’s not their policy, but we really want to focus on a consistent quality rather than sound. Artist-wise, we love to support upcoming talent and won’t turn any track away because they’re not popular enough, take No Rules for example – their music is such a good vibe and the exposure their EP on Deja Vu Traxx got has helped them massively with future work and bookings, we feel proud to say we helped a little in their musical journey; we have a few artists like this coming up that we want to fully support and help get them noticed in the music industry.
We recognise the Déjà Vu name – are you based in Hull by any chance?
Haha yes, we are based in Hull – this is where I hold my residency for the legendary Déjà Vu night which this year turns 25. We used the Déjà Vu logo/ branding and adapted it into our logo for the label; when we first had the idea of the label we spoke to Déjà Vu boss Terry Spamer about our vision and he gave us his blessing to use the name for the label.
You’re now four releases in – how has the response been so far? Have you had the kind of support you’d expected?
Everything is beyond what we ever expected, to say we only launched in November the support the music we have released so far has been incredible – we’ve had some of the big DJs charting our releases so it’s nice to be recognised at such an early stage.
New labels are started every day – how have you ensured Déjà vu Traxx would stand out from the crowd?
I am a very picky A&R and won’t just sign anything. I’m maybe overly critical at times on stuff that gets demoed in, but I never want to fall into that trap of just releasing music because it’s popular at present time. Demos have to really grip me and make me go ‘wow, what a track’ – this is exactly what happened on our latest EP from Ettica, as soon as I heard Pianissimo I just knew the impact it would have on the dancefloor. We like to work with our artists closely, building a family and making sure they are looked after well after the release date – not like some labels where they sign your work and you never hear from them again. In my opinion that’s the wrong approach, if you want to gain respect in any aspect of life you equally have to respect them as well, I feel this approach strengthens us as a label and gains respect in the long run.
We’re at a point where label income is having to massively diversify in order to keep things afloat – how has this impacted your approach to starting a brand new label?
I was always warned well before this label started to be prepared to work at a loss to begin with, which I can live with because we are investing in every release to try and help it gain the most exposure we can for the artists involved and help the label grow. Sometimes it isn’t easy, but with hard work I think we can turn this around to be a massive success in the future – one thing we’re not afraid of is hard work and I hope this shines through in our results.
What other labels have influenced you growing up?
Growing up there was a huge number of labels that inspired me on my productions; stand-out ones would have to be Viva Music, 8 bit, Bass Culture, Robsoul, Madtech, Madhouse, Breakout Audio… The list is endless to be honest, for me music doesn’t have an expiry date.
Is there a specific goal you have in mind for Déjà vu Traxx?
I think the main goal is to keep releasing good music from artists that are both well-known, but equally the unknown. If we can build the brand who knows? I’d love to take the label off to Ibiza and do one-off parties but that is in the future – for now we just want to build the foundations.
Finally, what else should we look out for from Déjà vu Traxx over the summer
In the next few months we have an amazing selection of music coming from Josh Lee, Red Weeller, Angelo Raguso, FAW9 & West Minds, we are also working on our summer VA as well but we can’t say too much on that at the moment…
https://www.facebook.com/dejavutraxx/
