Interviu Steve Lawler la L.A.
În acest weekend la Los Angeles, de cealaltă parte a lumii, se desfășoară Monster Massive, un eveniment cu muzică electronică în al cărui line-up se regăsește Carl Cox, Moby și desigur Steve Lawler.
Cu această ocazie cei de la L.A. Times i-au răpit câteva minute artistului pentru a răspunde la câteva întrebări:
So much of American pop and rap music is informed by the sounds and structures of techno and electronica today. How has that mainstreaming influenced or changed the ambitions that longtime dance music artists want from the genre and culture now?
I’ve never been drawn to the more commercial side of music. What excites me about music are things that are new and creative; the birth of something is always where it is most exciting, in my opinion. What tends to happen is artists … start music trends and fashions and they go on to become commercial. By the time it has become commercial, we usually have been a part of developing and creating something new. Pushing a new direction.
And that’s the pattern that I’ve always found myself falling in. The whole idea of the R&B and hip-hop scene using elements of house, techno, and electro, I don’t really know how to view it. In one breath, it’s a good thing because it’s introducing new people to electronic music, but on the other part I feel like something has been stolen, because something that we have nurtured and created in the basements of the world is now being capitalized, marketed to death and commercialized and used solely to make money.
What this crossover has done [is] opened up electronic music to people who might have never listened to it before. What that means is, big events like Monster Massive and Electric Daisy Carnival will become busier and attract a much broader audience. You will find, in some cases, people may go to these events in search for their commercial fix and stumble across an arena with someone like myself or Carl Cox, Digweed, etc. playing and think, “I really like this, actually I prefer this than what I heard on the radio.”
I remember when I stumbled upon house music for the first time it was by accident back in 1989. Just by pure accident I heard this music and I then spent the rest of my life following it. So if this does open that door and bring more people in, then it’s a positive thing, in my humble opinion.
