Ahead of his appearance & performance at Puscha’s “Undercover” event this Saturday (2nd Feb), we are thrilled to bring you an exclusive interview with spinning star Seamus Haji, he helping us look back over an illustrious career behind the D.J.’ing decks & in the recording studio, while revealing plans for both Saturday and the future.
With a real spring in our step which has released the resplendent return of our Q&A feature, “Disco Matters”, we cannot contain our excitement at having been afforded exclusive access to a true star of the music industry scene, Seamus Haji, who is set to play a prominent part of the Puscha “Undercover” event this Saturday (2nd Feb) at Electric Brixton. So ahead of his appearance, we jumped at this outstanding opportunity, with a huge helping Haji hand, to look back over this spinning stars illustrious career, both behind the decks and in the recording studio, Seamus responding to our questions with immensely interesting & articulate answers.
So, intermixed with the occasional video clips, here is this exclusive interview in all its glory.
Your career in the music industry spans an amazing & accomplished 15 or so years now, but what brought you into the business and what/who were your early influences?
I started DJ’ing at the age of 16 in the mid-eighties and went onto work in local record shop. I think when I started working in record shops in Soho I got more of an insight of the business. In the early 90’s I secured a residency at a night called The Satellite club run by Kiss FM in London and that’s where I made my name on the house scene. I started to do reviews & interviews for the popular dance mags and got into production too. One thing led to another and around 1998 I was offered the role of A&R label manger at Slip’N’Slide, then went onto work for Defected and then left to set up Big Love in 2002. My early influences were labels like Strictly Rhythm, Slip’N’Slide & AM:PM so it’s been an honour to work with all the people involved with these labels as well as amazing artists such as Masters At Work and Blaze at their peak. I come from a black music background so I was a US House head to start with so MAW, Todd Terry, Roger Sanchez, Keri Chandler etc were all massive influences. Over recent years travelling around the World my tastes have broadened so I guess I’m less of a purist in that sense. If I like it I’ll play it regardless of genre or sub-genre.
We see that Big Bang Theory was the name of your first single in 1996, this name also seeming to play a significant role in your early production years, eight tracks/EP’s released between then & 2003. Tell us a little about this?
After the success of the 10 year re-release of “God’s Child” I was inspired to produce the recent “Hold It Now”. It’s great to go back to some bogie & disco inspired stuff and go back to my roots. I’m currently putting together a Big Bang Theory compilation. A lot of the early material from the mid-late 90’s isn’t available to buy online so I’m having it all re-mastered with some Big Bang Theory remixes I did for other people, new re-edits and some exclusive unreleased tracks for my Big Love label. Should be out mid March.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xWNsUAqi2w [/youtube]
(Seamus Haji – “Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life” – Original Mix)
2004 saw the release of the massive “Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life” followed by other big hits “Weekend” & “Take Me Away”, all which are true classic favourites of ours. Would you call this a purple patch period in your production and was the Hed Kandi exposure significant to your work, or did other labels such as Universal & Mercury play a more positive role?
They were good times! House was universally big and I think that because we were forward thinking in adding an electronic edge to our releases we captured a lot of people’s imagination when a lot of house was getting a bit dull and wasn’t changing with the times. Hed Kandi and the like were big supports of ours and it definitely helped profile for us & them. Over the last few years we’ve seen the rise of ‘EDM”. Things go in fazes as we know. Over the years I’ve seen the rise of UK & US House, the Italian & German house sound, the Dutch, the Swedes and now America is back again after a European version of dance or “EDM” has been sold back to them. I’m very lucky to of had a “Purple Patch” J
We remain huge fans of your tracks found on the various Hed Kandi albums in our collection, still looking back fondly to that period between 2004 & 2008 when your music ruled our airwaves. What would you say was your most enjoyable production moment during that time and how do you view this period in your track recording life?
I think remixing the likes of Mariah Carey, Rihanna and Roisin Murphy was inspiring. Working with great artists always helps. And working with the likes of Beverly Knight (who’s a one take vocalist..amazing), Robert Owens and Roachford are all names I’ve grown up with. As I said before this was before the EDM explosion so things were a lot more musical back then which worked well for our electronic edged sound with full vocals.
We also love many of your other tracks, but particularly with Paul Emanuel. Are you still working with him and can we expect any new projects from you as a studio recording partnership?
Paul never really embraced the DJ’ing side of things and these days if you’re making dance music you need to be performing to make a living out of it as sales have dropped due to people no longer buying or downloads. Illegal downloads have killed that side of the business so these days you have to earn from the performance. I’m still in touch Paul and he mostly works as a mix engineer or works on library music for TV & Radio. We may work together in future..it just needs to be the right project.
Back to “Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life” which was absolutely huge on dance floors right around the globe. Would you rank this as your greatest track achievement to date and are there plans for a re-mix of this classic, which seems to be a trend with producers right now?
It was a peak moment. I never intended it to be that way. Something that started out as a bootleg idea just blew up. I never expected it to be blaring away on Radio 1 all day and hit top 15 of the UK National Charts! I’ll give it a bit longer to consider a re-working but personally I think I got a lot out of this the first time. Maybe some new blood could help out on some mixes.
You have a really impressive list of remix productions and for some real stars of the music scene, Mariah Carey, Danni Minogue & Rihanna three, while we see you have also recently worked with Jamiroquai, Jessie J & The Scissor Sisters. Have you met up with many of these artists and who would you say was the most pleasurable to work with?
You hardly ever meet the artists. I’ll get reports that Mariah was running around New York playing our remix to people or an e-mail from Moby or the Ting Tings to say their loving the mix but that’s about it. I did meet Roisin Murphy after doing “Overpowered” and she was really cool. Beverly Knight was lovely of course (no ego) and then childhood hero Robert Owens is so humble it’s amazing.such a nice guy.
Of these many remixes of yours, we rate Booty Luv’s “Boogie 2nite”, Shakedown’s “At Night” & Chanel’s “My Life” extremely highly. Do you agree or are there others that hit your own high notes?
Well, I do agree especially as my mix for Bootyluv hit number 2 in the pop charts so I almost had a number 1! Roisin Murphy “Overpowered” is a personal favourite and I still get asked to play Late Night Alumni “Empty Streets” whenever I play in Russia…it’s massive over there.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la2B2Q_FqNI[/youtube]
(Roisin Murphy – “Overpowered” – Seamus Haji Remix)
So, we obviously know you best as a highly successful record producer, but how long have you been D.J.’ing & where?
I taught myself how to mix & scratch when I was around 15 and at school and not many people could do it or were interested back then. 6 months later I had the role as the mix DJ in a sound system. It was almost 30 years ago in the mid-80’s and was just before the house music explosion over here. I was playing soul, funk, hip hop and what would later be called early garage & house. This was with ex-reggae sound systems in London at house & warehouse parties. My first experience DJ’ing properly I was 16 and playing at an all dayer with all the top 10 sound systems from London to around 2000 and it’s first and only time I’ve seen my hands shake! Fortunately I did well and the rest is history J
We are truly excited that you will be playing at “Undercover” next Saturday, but how did you get involved with Pushca?
It was in the mid 90’s. I’d built up a good name in London and by the mid-90’s I was approached to play for Pushca at MOS. This was in the good old days when people would dress up to go clubbing, especially on a Pushca night. I remember there being a lot of energy and a glam element that I think has been missing in the UK for a while now so it’s great to see Pushca back after all these years!
So what can we expect from your set next Saturday?
I’ll see what the crowd responds to of course but you can be sure I’ll be dropping some of my remixes & productions, some exclusive edits & bootlegs and some party classics.
Finally, what more can we expect from Seamus Haji in 2013, both in terms of D.J. gigs & potential new productions?
We’re just putting together dates for my diary for this year with a few things to be confirmed. Hopefully I’ll be playing at Mardi Gras again this year in Sydney so we’re putting together a mini Australia tour as well as Asia & Singapore. Closer to home there are some things coming up in the UK so people can check www.facebook.com/seamushajifanpage for details. Plus I’m working on some new tracks with D.Ramirez, ATFC and newcomer Nelski as well as a solo single that I’m currently trying to find a topline for and I’ve just submitted remixes for new artists Foxes, Katrina and Blondie is next!
So what more can we add to this enticing insight into his truly compelling & colossal career in music, than sending our huge thanks to Seamus Haji for sharing scores of magical moments and memories with us and now you. And come Saturday, there is surely only one place you will want to be, that is witnessing his prolific performance at Puscha, all the detail of this “Undercover – Le The Mystery Begin” event, out in our preview at http://discomatt.com/web/?p=6779, while we leave you with favourite production piece of Haji house music heaven. (DISCO MATT)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fByfmqoRCIE [/youtube]
(Seamus Haji & Emmuanuel – “Take Me Away” – Vocal Mix)