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14 MusicWeek 17.0114 THE BIG INTERVIEW DEFECTED RECORDS


sell-out and they’ve provided a great facility for us to do that. We also have a good relationship with them and they help our music get to a broader audience. It was the right home for us to take the Storm Queen record. The cornerstone of everything we do is still releasing music. An artist needs records: to market yourself and get credibility, it all comes down to the music. Primarily we’re a record label and that’s the main income into the company. But off that we have a publishing company, an events business, a DJ management business, we’ve just launched merchandise that we’ve invested in really heavily and has got off to a very satisfying start. We’re a rounded music company rather than just a record label, but the label is the cornerstone of our ability to trade in all of those areas.


Are you worried about the lack of artist album sales at the moment, or are you a bit insulated from it? No, I’m not concerned about it at all. In the main, dance operates on a singles basis. Obviously there are artists that produce albums with big success, but it’s the compilations side of this business, especially in dance music, where things have been thriving in the last two years. Ministry have been quoted as saying their business is 30% or 40% up on last year [FY2012] in terms of digital sales, and our figures basically reflect that as well.


Traditionally, when a genre blows up like ‘EDM’ has in recent years, the major labels up their game - sometimes via company acquisitions. If you took a call from a big firm like that interested in buying you, what would your reaction be? [Laughs] This discussion comes up on a regular basis - what would we do if we were made an offer. I’m still really enjoying being involved in dance music. I’ve just turned 50 and I still get very passionate. Some people when they get to this age seem to lose their enthusiasm, but for me it’s still very much within me. I love discovering new talent and listening to new music. This is a moment I’ve worked really hard for 15 years to get to, but of course your head can always be turned by the right offer. It’s not something I would never consider. Life is pretty good at the moment, I’m enjoying it. So far, no-one’s made me an offer that I’ve not been able to refuse.


Which global territories are you seeing growth in your business and the dance genre more generally? This may or may not be true: I think the house scene has been allowed to flourish [in the UK]


RIGHT Raise your hands: Defected’s regular club nights at Ministry Of Sound included a New Year’s Eve special in 2013, featuring sets from MK, Nick Curly and Simon Dunmore


www.musicweek.com


“I’m still really enjoying dance music. I just turned 50 and I still get very passionate about it. So far, no-one’s made me an offer [for Defected] I haven’t been able to refuse” SIMON DUNMORE, DEFECTED


because a lot of the mainstream, the ‘EDM’ artists, have been camped out in America for the past two or three years. They’re being paid very healthy fees in places like Las Vegas and Miami. That means that they haven’t really been playing that extensively in Europe, especially in clubs. So the house scene has blossomed in front of a younger audience in those territories. There are a few [house] records that are hitting the mainstream, but there are tens of thousands of records released every month that don’t. That’s going to be a springboard for us to sell more music in places like Australia - where we’ve seen a lot more interest in the past six months - as well as Japan. More widely in Asia, we’re doing more events after a quiet five years, and in the US, as people look to the UK and Europe for different genres, which I think we’ll really benefit from in the next couple of years.


How reliant are you on Radio 1 in particular? From a specialist point of view, we enjoy great support from the dance shows on Radio 1 and 1Xtra. There’s two sides to what they do on Radio 1, they hit the mainstream with playlist records but they also do a lot of amazing work on a specialist level. Their dance presenters are real tastemakers, but if we’re going to crossover, then obviously Radio 1 is super-important. But our business isn’t dependent on it.


What do you think or hope the Defected brand means to people? Just because of the music I grew up on, which was soul, funk and disco, I like to have a vocal and emotional element in my dance music. Tracks come and go but songs seem to have much more longevity. That’s our calling card: the sound may evolve, but the song element of what we do is really key. We also need consistency: we have high standards, and if you maintain that, there’s no reason why you can’t continue over a long period of time. We’ve got a great team here, we’ve spent 15 years learning from our mistakes as well as our successes. With the history we’ve built up, we have the benefit of hindsight, which not a lot of [modern] labels have.


DEFECTED’S ONES TO WATCH IN 2014: A ‘SPELLBINDING’ DANE AND SOME DIVINE INSPIRATION NOIR


Danish DJ and producer Noir is one of his home country’s most renowned house music exports. An A&R expert from his own specialist label Noir Music, Defected calls his recent mix for the label’s In the House series “spellbinding”. He has played the company’s residency at Pacha in Ibiza on a number of occasions.


SONNY FODERA Born and raised in Australia, Fodera


now lives between the UK and Ibiza. Having played alongside the likes of Mark Farina, Derrick Carter, Jay-J, Inland Knights, Audio Jack and James Curd he has made a fast-rising name for himself on the house circuit. The


DJ/producer’s work incorporates many original and live elements with jazz, funk and hip-hop influences.


SAM DIVINE


A long-term Defected client as a live DJ, Sam Divine’s stock is rising as 2014 arrives. Having made her name through sets like her three-year residency at Ushuaia, Ibiza, Defected now calls her an “icon for inspiration” – because of both her musical ability and her admirable work as an


ambassador for Breast Cancer Research.


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