SO HOT Words: ELE BEATIE Pics: BETH CROCKATT
labels, not to mention his indelible solo material, like the Crosstown Rebels hit ‘Summertime’. But it’s apparent that he has no truck with short-term appeal or gimmicks; he’s playing the long game. After spending a bit of time with Jamie before his set for us at the DJmag 20th anniversary party at Space, it’s obvious that this is not a man who rests on his laurels. With a residency at Space’s brilliant night Kehakuma this summer, and both a Hot Natured album and Fabric mix all brimming on the horizon, this is a man who constantly remembers his future.
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FORWARD MOTION Born in Southampton and raised in a small town in Wales, good music was often just out of reach for young Jamie. He would try to rig up homemade aerials to tune into Manchester’s Key 103, but his attempts were unsuccessful. Instead, it was all about looking forward to Fridays, because with them came the Radio 1 Essential Mix (a show he counts as an integral part of his musical education) and a trip to the local nightclub. “It was called Paradox, we used to beg and plead with the DJ to play Stardust or Daft Punk, otherwise it was ‘YMCA’ or some other usual small-town business! “Initially I was into drum & bass and hardcore, but as soon as I got turntables, it was all about house. The first records I bought were Byron Stingily’s ‘Get Up (Everybody)’ and Kim English’s ‘Nite Life’. ‘The night life, woooah, that’s where I want to be...’” he sings. Earlier this summer, Jamie was invited by Pete Tong to IMS (International Music Summit). “Some of the first big records I heard were on Tong’s show, so being asked to be a keynote speaker along with Damian [Lazarus] was really cool.”
DJmag also caught up with Tong at IMS. When we asked him to pick a potential summer anthem, he selected a track included in both his IMS closing party set and on his ‘All Gone Ibiza 11’ compilation. The tune? Jamie Jones’ remix of Azari & III’s ‘Hungry For The Power’, of course! Jamie’s rework refines the original, gives it
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s there any hotter property in dance music right now than Jamie Jones? Burning dancefloors with a lush conflation of dark, ominous techno funk bass and warm disco samples, he’s equally in demand as a DJ, as one half of production outfit Hot Natured (alongside Lee Foss), and for co- running the Hot Creations and Hot Waves
a sinister undertone and a subtle build that ultimately consumes you. When expanding on why he picked this, Tong said, “I want to make it an anti-anthem. I’ve managed to work it and play it in certain situations, and see it go off like if I was playing a Swedish House Mafia or David Guetta track!” After a shared chuckle and some raised eyebrows, Jamie responds. “Well, that is interesting,” he ponders. “I definitely take it as a compliment. I never read message boards, but somebody showed me a similar thread on RA in regards to our Hot Natured track, ‘Forward Motion’. They said it’s no different to what Guetta is doing... both vocal and accessible. “I’ve said this before, anyone who disses Guetta for what he is doing is an absolute idiot! He is the biggest pop star in the world and he has achieved that through dance music. He is getting 13-year-old kids into electronic music, and in the same way that I was into hardcore at that age, hopefully they’ll reach their 20s and start being into good electronic music. “People keep repeating, ‘dance music is dead, blah, blah, blah’ — but right now it’s the biggest genre in the world and that’s a lot to do with him, you know? Obviously purists can diss him, I used to be one of those people, and in a way I still am, but I appreciate what he’s doing: making accessible dance music for the masses...”
EBB & FLOW Having first visited the White Isle for a week’s holiday, Jamie has returned every summer to the place that he counts as his springboard to success, witnessing the ebb and flow of its many musical cycles. “I was 17 when I first came to Ibiza — we barely ate! We’d scrap enough money to get into the clubs and survived on milkshakes and apples for the rest of the time.” But it wasn’t too long until he took his rightful place behind the decks. “My first gig was at Mezzanine, Charlie Chester’s bar (the man who started Circo Loco). Eventually, I started playing the Ministry Of Sound after-parties on a Saturday morning. If a DJ didn’t turn up, I was the stand- in.” Next step? A residency at Manumission’s Music Box. “They were the first people to bring that London/Paris/Berlin electro sound to Ibiza, people like Captain Comatose, Ivan Smagghe, Damian Lazarus. Those parties arrived at a crucial
time. They were influential in improving the musical standard on the island. Even DC-10 was stuck in a tribal rut, and that’s coming from a die- hard DC-10 fan.”
Then the next big change was the arrival of Cocoon. “They were one of the first places to have a strict music policy. Around 2000, it was Sven Väth playing crazy 130bpm in the main room, then in 2005, Ricardo Villalobos played a game- changing opening set there. Manumission opened eight weeks late that year, so where did everyone go after DC-10? We all gave Cocoon a try. Ricardo was bubbling under then and he played an unbelievable six-hour set. I stood there with Damian and neither of us talked for an hour. We looked at each other like ‘what the hell is this?’ Nobody had ever heard that before. It was the first time everyone heard Mathew Jonson’s first big tune on M_nus, ‘Decompression’. That was a turning point for great music on the island.”
MINIMAL TO DISCO Minimalism enjoyed a serious stint on the frontline, but the starkness began to wane and Jamie, amongst others, has been responsible for resuscitating the vocal in dance music. In an interview with Kerri Chandler for DJ magazine, he broke it down for us: “It’s simple, chicks dig vocals, and if chicks are dancing, then it’s a better party.” “It’s not just chicks that dig vocals!” laughs Jamie. “Last time I checked, I am not a chick, and I love them! After two, three years of absolutely zero vocals and complete minimalism, people celebrated hearing a human voice again. But Kerri is partly right. People always comment about the level of women at our Hot Natured parties. It does lighten the atmosphere. At the end of the day, it’s a party, not a chin-stroking competition. “Lee Foss’ use of quality disco or r&b vocals is an example of how to do a vocal well. We get sent lots of demos of people trying to copycat that all the time. But our next release is a real techno track from these guys from Belgium, Vernon Bara & Igor Vicente. People won’t expect that from us, but I’m fighting hard to not get pigeonholed into this sound of
RIGHT NOW!
Burning dancefloors and stereos across the globe, Jamie Jones and his Hot Natured crew are the hottest property in dance music, full stop. With a residency at Space Ibiza’s sterling Kehakuma night through the summer, a new album and Fabric mix due to drop, there could be no better time to talk to the disco-tech don…
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