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Damian Lazarus is the leader of Crosstown Rebels — not just a label, but a globe-trotting party and network of likeminded artists. Celebrating 10 fiercely independent years of always innovative house and techno in 2013, the Lazarus man opens up about his path to dancefloor domination, rising from the figurative dead, his belief in the Crosstown


“family”, the Rebel Rave concept and what the future holds... Words: BEN ARNOLD Pics: DAN REID


T


here seems to be something about Damian Lazarus that inspires loyalty. At Manchester’s Warehouse Project in the North of England on a freezing night in December, he’s hauled in his crew from the four corners of the world to be by his side. There’s Fur Coat from Caracas. Francesca Lombardo from Lake Garda in Italy, but now resident in London. Maceo Plex has


travelled in from Barcelona, and Subb-an from Berlin. There’s Danny Daze from Miami, and statistician and artist Deniz Kurtel from New York, via Turkey. There’s also two of his very old friends, a couple of chaps called Sasha, something of a citizen of the world, and, from Paris, Laurent Garnier.


It proves to be a long night, of friends playing music, and when they’re not playing music, dancing together. Ever the Frenchman, Garnier stands on the side of the stage in the cavernous main room with a glass of red wine, probably the only glass of red wine in the house, while Lombardo bounces up and down, hands in the air. And bringing them all together under one roof is


Lazarus, the founder of Crosstown Rebels, spindly and dressed in black, standing at the console in front of an undulating blancmange of 3000 grinning northern ravers looking like an acid house Mick Fleetwood.


This is not unusual. Where he goes, others often follow. Just a few weeks later, he succeeds in gathering together 4000 people in the shadow of a Mayan pyramid in Playa Del Carmen in Mexico. The likes of Trentemøller, 3D from Massive Attack, James Lavelle, Jamie Jones and many of the aforementioned Crosstown crew join him for the Day Zero festival, intended to celebrate the end of the Mayan calendar, and possibly the end of the world. The site was difficult to access, there was no power, and the venture ended up costing him a fortune despite its attendance. But he wouldn’t have changed a thing. “Everything that could possibly have been thrown at us as a way to try and tell us not to do the event, happened,” he says. “We literally built everything from scratch and pulled in a lot of favors. When I arrived a week before the event, there were 50 or 60 people working, carrying shit, making stuff, painting, putting stuff up, cutting shit down. I just thought, ‘Who are these people?’ Turns out they were kids who had flown in from all over the world to help as volunteers. Not groups of people, individuals


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