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MOST DJs fall into club-life because they love music. Not Dave
Seaman. He decided he wanted to become a DJ when he was eight
years old – and Played his first gig at 12. All his DJ dreams
have long since come true, but he’s never lost his enthusiasm or
his creative drive. Seaman has headlined clubs on every
continent – he is one of the UK’s most travelled, most creative,
and most celebrated DJs in the world. In Japan he was
photocopied in a life-sized Xerox for a Levi’s advert; in
Australia he presented an episode of the BBC’s Choice World
Clubbing programme and was later profiled for Channel 4’s 4DJ
series. His Global Underground mix albums have come from
Melbourne, Cape Town and Buenos Aires.
He’s DJed for a Stella McCartney birthday party, got drunk with
Robbie Williams, and lived in New York. As half of Brothers In
Rhythm, he produced for Kylie Minogue & the Pet Shop Boys,
remixed U2, Michael Jackson and Dido.
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He was the defining first
editor of Mixmag and a resident DJ at Shelley’s, the legendary
acid house club that launched the career of Sasha. He was there
at the beginning of the British dance music revolution and he’s
still one of its leading proponents today, his contagious
enthusiasm unabated despite this glittering career.
Today Dave Seaman is more energized than ever - because he recognizes
that British dance music, having gone back to its underground
roots after a period of upheaval, is entering a renaissance.
Outside of the mainstream, away from the UK’s transient
pop-culture fashions, cool new scenes are forming in cities all
over the UK. “We’re entering a new phase. Dance music in the UK
needed to implode - the great acid house detox,” Seaman says.
“We shed all the dead wood and hangers on. I feel like I’m
starting again almost. It’s very exciting.”
Consequently Dave has spent the last year in a creative
whirlwind. He’s about to release the second volume of his Audio
Therapy mix series, with Luke Chable, for Renaissance. His Group
Therapy production alias with studio legend Chad Jackson has
produced barnstorming remixes for the Scissor Sisters, Tears For
Fears and Starsailor. Group Therapy aren’t just about remixes,
either. Their singles ‘My Own Worst Enemy’ and upcoming release
‘Something To Believe In’ pitch singer Natalie Leonard’s
hypnotizing vocals over sleekly funky melodies and pumping club
beats. Group Therapy’s high-octane fusion of vocals and
strong-arm licks with pumping dance beats neatly updates
Brothers In Rhythm’s club-anthem sound. “We've been working with
a lot of vocals - and that live rocky sound. Lots of guitars,
but quite bleepy as well,” says Dave. “The idea is to make it
accessible to More than just the underground. If you can give
things mass appeal, but with more depth when you look beneath
the surface, then there’s more substance.”
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Born and bred in Leeds, Dave famously won his first career
break in a competition. He was a member of the groundbreaking DJ
organization DMC when he won a trip to the New Music Seminar –
then the world’s leading music conference, held in New York. DMC
bosses were unsuccessfully queuing at the door for Nell’s - at
the time NYC’s hottest club – when the cheeky Leeds teenager,
who’d befriended a bouncer, popped out to lead them past a
throng of irate clubbers, industry big-wigs, and hot-shots into
the venue. They were impressed enough to offer him a job as
editor of their in-house magazine, Mixmag. Dave’s early work
helped establish the magazine as the world’s leading dance music
title - a role it still occupies today. And he used the magazine
as a springboard to his DJing career. So when Mixmag
photographer Gary McLarnen opened a club in Stoke-On-Trent
called Shelley’s, Dave found himself warming up for Sasha.
Shelley’s quickly became legendary in early 90s clubland – and
Dave’s DJing career was up and running.
Seaman is unique among leading DJs for his versatility: his
ability to work within different genres without compromising his
distinct musical identity. He is world-renowned as an
underground dance DJ, yet as half of Brothers In Rhythm with
production genius Steve Anderson he worked with some of the
biggest names in mainstream pop. In the early 90s Brothers In
Rhythm created classic club anthems like ‘Such A Good Feeling’
and ‘Peace And Harmony’ – not to mention an unforgettable remix
of Sabrina Johnston’s ‘Peace In The Valley’ - that soldered
euphoric soul vocals to blistering house beats. These were
tracks that helped define a golden age for British dance music,
and which quickly brought Brothers In Rhythm to the attention of
the Pet Shop Boys. ‘Such A Good Feeling’ was Chris Lowe’s
favourite record of 1990: Brothers In Rhythm suddenly found
themselves chucked in at the deep end, producing ‘Go West’, ‘Was
It Worth It’ and ‘DJ Culture’ with the Pet Shop Boys at some of
London’s plushest studios.
Brothers In Rhythm worked on Kylie Minogue’s ‘Impossible
Princess’ and ‘Kylie Minogue’ albums, writing tracks like ‘Did
It Again’ and the beguiling, atmospheric ‘Confide In Me’.
“Probably the song we’ve made I’m most proud of,” Dave says now.
They were in the middle of the fan frenzy that surrounded Take
That!, one of the 90s biggest pop bands, producing the ‘Nobody
Else’ album and tracks like ‘Never Forget’ and ‘Sure’ while fans
tried to scale studio walls and Dave enjoyed wild nights out
with one of the band’s most charismatic members: Robbie
Williams.
In the early 90s, so-called ‘progressive house’
emerged: the UK’s first distinctively British, house music style.
At DMC, Dave and his former Mixmag Deputy Editor Nick Gordon
Brown started Stress Records, releasing early productions from
Sasha, Andy Cato from Groove Armada, and John Digweed. Brothers
In Rhythm embraced the new genre’s fusing of American grooves,
British dub and European techno sensibilities, producing
progressive house classics like ‘The Mighty Ming’ as Brothers
Love Dubs and ‘Nasty Rhythm’ as Creative Thieves. They went on
to remix David Bowie, Placebo, U2 , Alanis Morrisette, New Order,
Blur and Sting. It’s fair to say that no other British dance
production team has made such an impact on mainstream pop and
rock acts.
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In 1998 Dave moved to New York’s East Village for a while.
Back in the UK in 1999 he started Audio Therapy with a gang of
like-minded music lovers – and the company has since become home
to an A-list team of DJs and producers. Dave’s links with
Melbourne’s vibrant club scene has brought in key talent like
the innovative DJs and producers Phil K and Luke Chable and
hotly-rated live electronic act Infusion, alongside leading UK
names like Lexicon Avenue, Jonathan Lisle and Pete Gooding. The
company has also worked with international DJs like James
Holden, Timo Maas and Anthony Pappa as well as groups like
Slacker, Evolution and The Light.
Audio Therapy is also a
leading independent label – home to Dave’s Group Therapy project,
as well as a roster of diverse talent that covers all bases from
progressive through to breakbeat and the funkier styles of
French house. It’s an imprint that’s kick-started the recording
careers of Infusion, Habersham, Ernest Saint Laurent and Stel.
With a set up like this behind him, it’s no surprise that Dave
is now tailoring back his international DJ commitments to focus
more attention on his recording career.
But he remains a star DJ with an enviable, international
reputation, and his disarming Northern humour means this never
goes to his head. On his website, he presents a cheeky snapshot
of himself with a more famous namesake: former England
goalkeeper Dave Seaman. It’s typical of an approach to music and
business that have kept DJ Dave Seaman’s feet on the ground and
his audience’s hands in the air.
“It’s about having fun, but understanding that the music has got
depth as an art form. Finding that balance. I try to put that
ethos into the records that we make and into the DJing that I
do,” he says, “trying to give dance music an identity beyond the
underground.” This instinctive understanding of what clubbing is
really about means Dave Seaman is perfectly placed to enjoy
dance music’s creative revival. “Acid house is dead,” he
enthuses, “long live acid house. Here we go again!
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Copyright Clubbing Magazine 2001-2005