It’s no overstatement to say that the acid house scene of the late 80s and early 90s shaped the electronic music culture of today. For the week-long squat parties and open-air raves that saw thousands descend onto farmland and have it large, acid house provided a soundtrack that was innovative, energetic and new. When the masses started to flock to even larger sites for longer parties, the government cracked down with the Criminal Justice Bill of ’94, pushing them into the organized super-clubs that have evolved into fractured scene we now know.
It’s also no overstatement to say that DJ Pierre pioneered acid house. With the rest of Phuture he released EP ‘Acid Tracks’ in ’87, which kicked off a global trend. For the past twenty-five years he’s been a prolific releaser, remixer and selector, played at clubs around the world, and watched the scene mutate into something entirely different. We caught up with him at Brighton Music Conference to discuss marching bands, doing business in pet shops and leaving Chicago behind.
So Pierre, how did it all start for you?
I’ve been into music since fourth grade when I started playing clarinet, then in seventh grade, I started playing the drums. I think that me playing clarinet in concert bands and marching bands kinda helped with my music. I felt differently, as a child, y’know – when I’d listen to songs, I mean – everyone sings the lyrics, but I found myself getting caught up in all the bits and pieces behind the lyrics, all the different sounds in the background.
You’re famous for using Roland hardware to create the traditional acid sound. What do you use now when producing and DJing?
Reason by Propellerhead, it’s perfect for me. I use Roland’s Aira, the new stuff. As far as DJing: CDJ2000s, DJM900, and Traktor as well. I try not to use laptops when I am out so in clubs I use CDJs and a flash drive. I still collect physical records but not so much any more, usually because when I go somewhere there’s not many record shops left. The last time I bought records was recently when I went to Japan, they’ve still got tons of record shops there. But I still got a pretty good collection at home. I don’t even know how many… Thousands, just thousands.
Has unrestricted access to music and sounds made it harder for producers to stand out, in your opinion?
I just think that the technology that people are using to create music is all taking from the same pool of sound. Its hard to make something different with the same sound, and no matter how differently you try to do it, there’ll be similarities. People need to go back to analogue and it’ll seem like the new fun thing to do. Its funny, if I go to a gig and play vinyl, people say “aw, Pierre, you still playing on vinyl?” but if some new kid comes up and plays vinyl, everyone says “oh wow, check that kid out, he’s playing vinyl.” That’s how it’s going to be with this new analogue gear. It’s funny, Phuture did a gig last year with all the old gear up there, and people were complaining about it. Now watch, it’s going to be the ‘in’ thing, but it’s not the ‘in’ thing for people who always were using it.
The new Roland stuff, I love it. They’re putting the 707 and 606 in as a firmware update too. They’ve made it smaller and lighter, it syncs with everything I’m using, and it has all the pretty lights and stuff. They made them look better – lights that light up for no reason.
What do you think about the way social media has impacted on the way producers operate?
Technology always drives how we do things, and I think it’s important to use it. Everywhere I go, I gotta hop on Twitter, hop on Facebook, say where I’m at. Just say I’m there. I do the check-in thing – check-in at the airport, check-in when I get there. Find a place to take a picture when I’m tired and don’t want to. I think you have to use what’s out there, or you become stagnant or part of a scene that gets left behind.
Some people might be good at marketing but it might not turn into sales. But people have always done that – think about Erick Morillo. He got a huge payday from ‘I Like To Move It’ and he started a label from that. And people would talk behind his back, saying about how he poured all that money into the label, but he did make his label seem bigger than life, and even if he didn’t get back all that money at the time, it was a strategy and then he didn’t need to do it any more. I think Strictly Rhythm should have done it more. They were the bigger than life label of their time but they prided themselves on being that way without spending any money. It always happens to the big fish – when they think they can’t be taken down, before you know it, the little fish get bigger and the big fish is seen as old and played out. You have to be one step ahead and not get complacent, and that’s why I do what I do on social media. People got to do what they got to do.
Which producers have excited you recently?
I like whatever music sounds good. Whatever genre. Names never stick with me. I thought they would once I started DJing with flash drives, but I still manage to find a way to look at a picture to realize which track I want. I just do not remember names.
When did you first play in the UK and how have you seen the electronic music scene change since then?
I first played in the UK in ’92, and I play in Brighton today. The biggest change for me in the UK is how many places there are to DJ; in the early 90s in a weekend I would hit London, Brighton, wherever Hard Times was, the Cream parties… Now I just hit one place in the whole country and that’s it, time to hit another country. The scene isn’t the way it was, back then you could even license a song to more than one label in the same territory and it was ok – now you can’t do that. Everything’s so much more exclusive.
The vibe now is a bit ‘been there and done that,’ it’s not as exciting. In the 90s people were so excited that it was like they’d never heard music before. Now, even if kids aren’t into it, they know about it.
Do you still have connections with Chicago, the spiritual home of acid house?
The Chicago scene is healthier than it has been in a lot of years but I still don’t play there much. You’re never appreciated by the place that you’re from; you can trace that back to the bible days and the people in Jesus’ hometown. Chicago is a player-hater city, for sure. That’s not even just the music, if you studied US politics, man, you would tear Chicago apart. They say they’re crooks, they’re liars, they’re back-handers, they stab you in the back. Chicago is corrupt from way back when, it’s wild from the gangsters like Al Capone. That’s the vibe of Chicago. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. I knew it when I lived there, but not like I know it now.
So is this why you left Chicago for New York? Or for Strictly Rhythm?
I went to New York because I was leaving Trax Records. People weren’t paying up, and I needed to either quit house music or move somewhere else. It wasn’t like you could do it over the Internet in those days and I had visited NY a few times and the scene felt good, and the way people did business. An office was an office.
Let me tell you, Larry Sherman worked out of a cruddy rat-filled warehouse and his office was just him sat on an old ragged barstool with a podium in front of him, like some minister of rhythm. And he would just sit there, not in a room, just in a big space with records broken up all over the place. It was the warehouse where he’d melt the records down and re-press them. The other record label that I did Phantasy Girl on was done out the back of a pet shop.
Coming from that and going to New York where they had real offices was a no-brainer so I rolled out of Chicago; I was done with it. Not from the people but I cut ties from the labels. Chicago cut ties with me, if anything. They’d say “you’re New York now,” and when I got booked, they’d put New York under my name. But Chicago was so insular. One drum machine would go from one person to the next to the next, and if I wanted a 909, I’d have to call and track it down. People would call and say “hey Pierre, you got a 303?” and it would go round: we were a community like that.
I’m in Atlanta now and the community there? Forget it. I started a monthly and I’m hoping to start a little scene. There’s a little bit of fan-base there and I think it can happen.
We hear Phuture are back together now?
Phuture are back together, officially now, we got shows and everything. Spanky was doing Phuture 303, but straight Phuture was always us as a group. Phuture 303 is now defunct. We’ve always been in touch and he always wanted me to get back with the group. I guess in the last couple of years I’ve thought I wanted to get back into it. It’s going to be fun.