|
 His
latest single Changes has received critical acclaim, A
listed by Radio one as well being loved by Pete Tong amongst who championed
track back in the summer of 2005. Chris Lake is hailed as the ‘the biggest
talent to emerge from Scotland since Mylo’.
As well as deejaying, Chris
Lake is also a producer
and remixer. But as he tells UK Music,
it hasn’t exactly been a smooth journey…
Hi Chris. So are you excited by
the reception the single has received?
It’s
been amazing, a bit overwhelming to be honest.
I didn’t expect it when I wrote the record, to this day I’m still
surprised by how big it’s seemed to have developed. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a
lovely surprise though!
What kind of reaction have you been
getting?
The
club reaction has been consistently excellent. I don’t really think I’ve heard
of anyone who’s played it said they’ve had a bad response which is good for me.
Obviously getting great support from radio and TV with the video, it’s great. I don’t think I’ve got much to complain
about.
How long have you been deejaying
for?
I’ve
been deejaying since 2001, but never to the level that I’ve been doing it in
2006.
It
is overwhelming. I didn’t see this coming at all. It’s great, I’m shaping my
career now, which is what I’ve wanted since I was very young. I wanted to make
this my career.
How did you get into it?
I
think it was after I saw one of my friends deejaying at a club, playing music
that I‘ve never really heard before. It
wasn’t commercial, which was very exciting for me. I just started getting into
all this house music and decided I’d start trying to produce it. So, here I am
now, it’s just taken a lot of time and effort, experimenting and lots of
mistakes.
What kind of mistakes?
The
many bad records that I’ve made! I live in a quiet a rural part of Scotland where there’s not many fellow musicians
making electronic music, so I haven’t really had anybody to compare production
techniques or test out different bits of studio equipment and stuff like that,
whereas I would have if I was in London.
I’m nowhere near any of the big cities so it’s been very difficult for me and
I’ve made mistakes along the way, but I feel I’m in a place now where I can
compete with other well known producers.
Has being so isolated helped you
developyour own individual style?
I
think it’s been one of the key things. I feel as if I do have my own sound now.
I think a lot of that has been forged by the fact that I have been completely
self taught and I’ve applied my own methods instead of using someone else’s
that has been passed on to me. I think
it’s been an advantage for me and I’m quite detached from the normal scene as
well. I’ve got my own ideas of how
things work and how things should work and I suppose I just use my initiative
as much as possible.
Do you think the dance scene is
healthy at the moment?
Yeah
I really do. It feels like there’s a bit of a buzz coming back into it again.
It feels like it’s all becoming a little more exciting and the quality of music
I feel has really risen and the production quality tracks have risen, so I
think it’s exciting times ahead for dance music.
And you’ve acts such as Hot Chip
and the Klaxons who are bringing dance music into the live scene.
Yeah,
it’s great that people develop dance music into a different area doing the live
performances. There’s more technology
now that allows you to do that and be more creative and you can do it more
cheaply nowadays as well. It’s good to have more public performances of that
kind. I don’t think it’s something I’d want to be doing myself, it seems like a
lot of hard work!
Do you think dance music is still
relevant today?
Yeah
I still think its got information in it. I think people that are into dance
music, it’s all the younger generation and they wouldn’t have heard the classic
records that were out in the early ‘90s, 2000s whatever. There’s lots of areas in the UK
that are still new to certain sounds in dance music. Especially in other
countries as well, in some places it’s still very new to them and very exciting
and they’re just loving all the new music that’s coming out.
Do you prefer deejaying or
producing?
My
main thing is production that’s the thing I enjoy the most. I enjoy dejaying,
but if I had to choose it’d be production every time.
What advice would you give to
aspiring DJs?
I
suppose just to have belief in your ability and work very hard at trying to get
yourself noticed and don’t be afraid to stand out from other people, because
obviously there’s a lot of people that are in this game and it’d be difficult
to get noticed unless you had something that makes you stand out. I suppose
it’s just finding your own qualities and playing to your qualities.
Changes featuring Laura V is out
on 25th September.
For more info: www.chris-lake.com
Words: Helen Duong
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