There are a few real superstars in the electronic dance world. Most producers are quite happy to hide in the shadows of their studios out of the way. Joey Youngman is however one of the new wave of musicians ready to take America right to the top and shout about it.
He discovered raving in fields dancing with the rest of us after catching the dance bug thanks to a dodgy old club classics tape lent to him on a family holiday. Besotted by Kevin Saunderson’s ‘Good Life’ classic, he threw himself into listening to, learning and delivering great dance music. 2011 saw the world sit up and take notice with the release of ‘Illmerica’ and Forever’ that ruled the airwaves throughout the summer. Those in the know already knew we were looking at a major star. Now what everyone knows is that he is one of the new gods of the dance scene. Packing his unique high impact sound and punishing melodies, he is now set to headline the house stage at Ultra in Miami. There is no bigger audince for an electronic artist – world watch out for a year of great releases from one of the guys we know has a dance beat in his heart.
Words : Dan Prince
Joey, welcome to DMCWORLD. Born in the California city of San Luis Obispo, what are your early musical memories growing up, who were the artists you started listening to?
“I guess once I started digging into dance music, my tastes were very eclectic, I literally listened to every subgenre of electronic music out there. From house to downtempo to techno to hardcore. That was the first year or two. Then, once I refined my tastes it was all house. Armand Van Helden, the Strictly Rhythm label, Erick Morillo and Subliminal, Olav Basoski, DJ Sneak, Derrick Carter, Paul Johnson and Dust Traxx, that was my sound. I guess I was about 14 when I put on those tunnel vision glasses. And they stayed on for about 10 years, pretty much on that exact same tip.”
Your first real experience of dance music was on a family trip to Tanzania though, tell the story…
“My dad was there on business and he took the family. His business partner over there had a nephew from Wales who was 16 at the time, I believe I was 11. He was showing me some of his music and he had this compilation tape called Dance ’93. It had a bunch of random dance tracks on it, most importantly, ‘Good Life’ by Inner City. The minute I heard that song it completely changed my life. I remember asking him “Can I have this?!” And he gave it to me. And just listening to that song over and over the whole trip, the plane ride home, every time it would end, hit rewind and start over. And when I got back to America I just went on this mission to find anything and everything that sounded like this. It can all be traced back to that one song.”
“Wow Dan, you did your homework! I went to mostly the parties promoted by “B3″ in those days – House Sweet It Is, Jujubeats, those ones and they are some of the best memories of my life. Of course I was on loads of pills at all of these things, but even when they wore off they were still some of the best days of my life to this day and probably forever. There was just something special about that mid – late 90’s era. It was new and exciting for everybody. The headliners were Sneak, Doc, Mark Farina, Derrick Carter, Dan, and there would be 30,000 or 50,000 kids at these things. That was the popular dance music at the time – straight up house music. And that’s what I was into. To go see these DJs in these massive rooms with thousands of other kids who were into it just as much as me was and experience I will never forget. And as a producer trying to get inspired, it was the ultimate source of inspiration. I remember coming home from a Jujubeats that was in the San Bernardino mountains, I think in 1999, Doc Martin had played the sunrise set and I was there till the very end. I remember hearing all these new sounds I’d never heard before and coming home to my bedroom studio and making some of the most next-level stuff I’d ever made, because my mind had just been taken to this new plateau. Aside from the music, there’s the aspect of dancing with tens of thousands of people on the top of a mountain on massive amounts of ecstasy at 7 o’clock in the morning that does something to a person. And despite all the drugs, I remember all these parties like they were yesterday, every detail, the songs they played that I went on missions trying to find and later found, the people, the clothes I wore, everything. Now dance music is in a resurgence and it’s happening again, and it’s so refreshing to see, and to be able to relate to the people I’m playing for because I’ve stood exactly where they’re standing.”
What was your first break in the music industry?
“There was no big break. It was a very long, very slow series of small breaks that got increasingly bigger. Basically I wrote a song in 2002, and sent it to some friends of mine in San Francisco that had just started up their own little record label. They wanted this song to be the first release. So they sent me a check for $300, pressed a few hundred copies of vinyl, and sold it to some stores. In the end I think it ended up selling about 2,000 copies which was good at the time. Then I got “discovered” by Tony Hewitt who owned the Nightshift, Tango and Detour labels which were really well respected San Francisco house labels — lots of tribal-ey stuff and just real San Francisco house music. I churned out a bunch of tracks, probably 8 or 10, sold them all to him, we came up with a few aliases for me to trick people into thinking they weren’t buying 3 of my records at once, and he spread them out on his labels. And that’s when it became a business and people started knocking on my door instead of me knocking on theirs. This was all 2003. Obviously a lot has changed in 10 years but that’s how it all started, at least that’s when I dropped out of school and quit work and said “I’m gonna make my living making dance music.”
“If I told you I’d have to kill you. Or find 10 new ones, which ain’t easy. Basically 70% of my set is my own original music – released and unreleased. 20% of it is other peoples’ music, but very extreme edits, bootlegs, and mashups that I’ve done with them, which I generally keep exclusive and don’t give out. The remaining 10% is music people send me or that I buy on Beatport that’s so strong I don’t really need to do crazy edits to it.”
The new EP ‘There and Back’ whats the story, is it a musical journey?
“Nah. It starts with a basic one-chord pattern. Then it goes into the full three-chord progression. Then it goes back to the one-note pattern. There and Back. It just had a nice ring to it. It’s like the old format they’d do in disco house. Use the first beat of the disco loop for the intro and outro, and break out into the full sample for the middle. I still use that format a lot.”
You were a proper funky / tech house producer for about 10 years putting out class music and then around 2008 flipped your style to a harsh, electro glitchy style. One journalist once described you now, as Daft Punk on steroids with a stammer! What were the reasons for the change in musical style and how would YOU describe your sound today?
“There are a few questions there, and I could write a few pages answering them. I changed my style because the funky / disco house stuff I was doing was dying, it was stagnant, nobody else was putting out quality music in that vein anymore, it was just done. I had to start bringing back records from the late 90’s to play in my sets in 2007 because nobody was doing it proper like that anymore, the old stuff sounded better than the new stuff. People were re-using the same disco samples over and over. It was just ghetto. And I was cool with that to a point. But I guess 2007 was just that point. How would I describe my sound today? I hate that question because I can’t describe my music in words. So whatever I say here is just the best I can do with my limited lexicon and the English language to describe something that needs to be heard to be understood. My music is like if pop music from 2003 met house music from 1998, had a threesome with west coast rap from 1994, went into the next room and did a line of disco, then came over to my house and let me clean it up and help it understand what just happened to it. Then I take a time machine 5 years into the future, listen to what I’ve made, and come back and make it.”
What a great answer. Your sound works so well in the clubs and also on the radio, some have said you are ahead of your time. The word on the street in the UK is that 2012 is the year that is going to take you to super-stardom over here? Thoughts on that…
“After “Illmerica” and “Forever” last year, I came out with an album full of what we all thought were singles and the label that bought the rights for it for UK territory never released it. There are 3 more vocal singles on there, all of which we thought were prime candidates to be massive commercial hits in the UK. But when the record label never releases the album…that’s kinda impossible isn’t it! All I can do is try and continually outdo myself and improve my music and hope the people that connect the dots between my music and the ears of the masses do a better job of making that connection this year. And yes, to repeat myself, I released a full length album last September called ‘Weekend In America’, which is still not out in the UK yet, 6 months later. It’s like a glitch in the universe.”
Your love of all music is well documented, so if we came back to yours after the club, what is the Wolfgang Gartner Back To Mine 10 you spin us to groove on…
1) Wale – “Lotus Flower Bomb”
2) Young Money – “Every Girl In The World”
3) Junior M.A.F.I.A – “Get Money”
4) Armand Van Helden – “Hey Baby”
5) Ghostface Killah & Jim Jones – “Handcuffin’ Them Hoes”
6) Notorious B.I.G – “10 Crack Commandments”
7) Pete Rock – “It’s A Love Thing”
8) Big Sean ft Nicki Minaj – “Dance Ass”
9) Jill Scott – “It’s Love”
10) Dipset – “Salute”
Most people when thinking of new additions to their new house think of underfloor heating or a walk in wet room. You sir have been throwing ideas around about having a river running through your house or even a waterfall. Care to elaborate?
“I like waterscapes, what can I say? I got this waterfall, it’s like 6 feet high but it’s straight up and down, the water flows down this ridged surface into a little pool at the bottom. It weighs 1 tonne, literally. So I put it in this room of my house I wasn’t using, put a massive speaker system in there, got some dope lighting and zen decor, and it’s like my home spa now. I turn on the spa radio station and put cold cucumber slices on my eyes and listen to the waterfall. Awesome for jetlag or just a long day. But I want to have a river running through my downstairs, like from the living room to the dining room maybe. With a little side-river running off into a coy pond. And some nice plant life too surrounding it.”
Some serious air miles you have in the bank there pal, does that mean that you have probably written most of your songs in the air rather than on the ground?
“Not one note. The music I produce cannot be produced on a laptop on an airplane. I’ve tried. With many laptops. On many airplanes. Your capabilities are very limited. The producers who do that are either making very simple and easy music, or just jotting down ideas and developing them later in a proper studio.”
It’s your birthday. What DJs do you ask to come and play for you?
“My birthday is coming up actually. I don’t want any DJ’s to play for me. In fact, I don’t want to hear dance music at all. I don’t want to be in a club, at a party, any of that. I want to be on a deserted island or at home doing absolutely nothing. DJs and clubs are a special event for everybody else — they’re the office and the co-workers to me.”
What are the plans for Miami, you taking some new tunes, where can we find you playing?
“Headlining the house stage at Ultra on Friday the 23rd and throwing my own pool party at the National with some special guests on the 24th. Loads of new tunes yes! I think 5 or 6 of them now that are unreleased.”
It’s great to see and hear a producer using original analogue gear, does the Moog and Juno behave itself long enough for you to sample it?
“Well the Moogs (I’ve got 2) are brand new actually, so they work flawlessly. The Juno is pretty smooth too. The Poly Evolver has a few glitches. The Andromeda has a few more glitches. The Arp Odyssey is so whacked but it’s almost cool because it makes everything sound like some twisted clockwork orange soundtrack stuff. A few of the voices on the Oberheim OB-8x went out and I just boxed it up and said screw it. And the rest of the stuff was digital and I decided there was no point in having digital hardware anymore.”
“LMFAO – ‘Party Rock Anthem’. That’s the first time I’ve ever publicly admitted it. I’m even embarrassed to admit it to close friends, they always laugh at me. But I seriously love that song. I bought it and I listen to it in my car when nobody’s with me. The chords, the beat and the harmonies in the chorus are magical.”
What was your thoughts on Skrillex cleaning up at the Grammy’s?
“Well he’s one of the nicest and most talented guys I’ve ever met in the biz so I figure there’s no better person to represent for electronic music and help make a statement this year. I think he deserved it.”
You stepped into the ‘Devils Den’ on the Skrillex EP, did you hook up in the studio together or was it all online production?
“All online. Which is weird. Because we both live in LA and were in LA the whole time we were doing it. But our schedules were so crazy we had to just do it online back and forth when time permitted. I’ve had people fly in from other countries to get in the studio and collaborate – then I do one with a guy in the same city and we’re going back and forth online. Ironic.”
You have created many pseudonyms in the past, are you happy with being Wolfgang Gartner for a while or is there another side of you waiting to be unleashed?
“I think it’s Wolfgang from here on out. In fact I’m pretty certain of it.”
How is your obsessive-compulsive/obsessive-creative disorder ticking along these days?
“Actually seems to be a lot more under control. I’ve finished as many tracks in the last 3 months as I finished all of last year. To me that’s a testament to my OCD being more under control and being able to finish things without every single little detail being absolutely “perfect.” It’s also because I upgraded my studio and I am capable of working much faster now due to faster CPU / workflow etc.”
Not many people know this, but Wolfgang Gartner is really good at?
“Air piano.”
You once said “I have to make something that’s never been made before; have to make the best thing that I’ve ever done in my life – otherwise it gets stagnant or worse.” So how do you think you are doing?
“I think I took a certain sound to the absolute limit of where it could be taken, so I’ve been toying around with a sorta new sound, and trying to take that to the limit. Inevitably it will get there and I’ll have to try something new again. As long as I make it the best I can possibly make it, I’m living out that quote…”
What piece of music are you the most proudest of to date? Last year’s album?
“‘Illmerica’. And maybe ‘Space Junk’ in second place. As for the album, I think ‘Circus Freaks’ is my favorite, Dipset are personal heroes of mine and I think we really broke boundaries getting them on a dance track – and not just spitting some generic “in the club, dance, poppin bottles” shit, they’re being real.”
What has the rest of 2012 got in store for us all from the studio…
“A LOT of music. Probably twice as much or more than last year. I’m in a more prolific period than I’ve ever been in. I also plan to release a continuous flow of singles this year, rather than holding it all back for an album.”
And finally, do you think the men’s soccer coach at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo has any idea just what he has created lending you his name?
“I have no idea! I can only assume he has no idea, because I’d think if he knew, he’d get in touch with me somehow. I hope somebody does find him and tell him someday though, and he knows the full story and that he taught me to juggle a soccer ball, and takes it as an honor to his name.”
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