Dimitri From Paris: It’s cool to be underground, but where is it going?

Image: Dimitri From Paris

Dimitri From Paris (actually, originally from Istanbul), has spent the past thirty years in clubs and on the radio and beside the catwalk, ceaselessly absorbing, editing and reprogramming strains of funk, disco, soul and jazz often positioned decades apart.

Both a keen crate digger and a shameless crowd pleaser, Dimitri combines the best of many distinct worlds when he effortlessly commands a dancefloor. Before this weekend’s gig at A Wing where Dimitri will play within Lancaster Castle's disused prison, we had an extensive catch up with the smartly attired don of modern disco.

First off, I’m guessing you’ve never DJed in prison before?

No, as far as I’m concerned I’ve never set foot in prison either working or otherwise, so this is definitely a first for me.

But you’ve been DJing for 30 years now?

Yeah, something like that, professionally around 30 years, since I was 17.

And it began on the radio?

Actually I had a job filling in at a disco, before that. I put an ad in the paper and got hired to fill in for a local DJ when he was sick.

But that was the old way, where at least in France, you were not allowed to bring your own records, you had to DJ with whatever records they had in the venue. It was not the creative job it is today, so I dropped that and went on pirate radio where I thought I’d have more freedom.

What sort of records were you being asked to play in the club by the club?

It was the early eighties, so it was stuff being played on the radio like euro-dance and stuff like that. I wasn’t into it, but when I tried to stray away from it, I had the boss on my back.

How did you end up on the radio?

Well, similarly to the UK, we had a lot of pirate stations that went legit. And one of them heard my show and offered me a job there, and I got a slot, and then I got my own show on a very large station that is still happening today.

I had a show there for eight years, until they started to get their nose into my own playlist and I quit my job, but I had a lot of listeners and I could do whatever I wanted, which was great.

When people envision pirate radio in the UK, they usually think of a dodgy transmitter on top of a block of flats for example. Was it similar in France?

Well, it was a little like that. My first broadcasts were from an attic, so it was pretty cramped and not very professional, but it started everywhere like that, police raids and so on. They would take the transmitter until eventually they just decided to let us do it anyway.

And at some stage, you ended up programming music specifically for fashion shows and catwalks?

Well yeah, it was something I was brought in to do as I wasn’t too bad at editing and mixing things. And the guys who were doing it at the time were much more like selectors than DJs, so I was the technical side, and also learned to be a little more eclectic and grow outside of the dance music I had chosen to favour.

Rather than just wanting to make people dance, it opened my mind to lots of different types of music.

Were you interested in fashion at the time, and if so, do you continue to be? You’re definitely one of the best dressed DJs on the circuit.

Well, I don’t follow the fashion industry, I’m more interested in style. The fashion industry just wants you to buy whatever they come up with, and they get inspired by things they see around them or that specific stylists have in their head. I’d rather be my own stylist than follow somebody else’s trend. It’s just whatever goes, I’m no fashionista.

The British people have always had a lot of style, I could see this when I was a kid going to England to buy records. French people always used to admire that in England, you can dress as eccentrically as you want and no one is going to just turn their head watching you down the street. And that’s an inspiration to me.

I like things that are quite vintage, from the fifties or sixties, and sometimes the trend is on my side and then sometimes it’s not. Depending on what I can find I’ll go to H&M or to a vintage market.

You seem to avoid the common trap of the miserable DJ press shot…

Well, it’s because it’s fun to do that, and to be creative. And the standard DJ with the T-shirt and the headphones looking miserable thing, if I had to do a photo of me like that, then I’d rather not do the photo. But it takes time and a bid of budget to sometimes get the studio, and sort the lighting, so I had to wait until a certain point to afford to do that.

I think a lot of DJs are realising it’s fun to have an identity. And we’ve moved from white label culture to superstar DJs, which is too much of an extreme. But my music, as you say, it’s very playful, it’s disco infused and it has a certain genre, but I’m not trying to be super underground or edgy.

I’m just trying to create a cool atmosphere, and sometimes it’s a little cheesy, which is fine. It’s cool to be underground, but where is it going, you know? What are we sharing with the people?

And yet, in the past few years, you’re a big name in Ibiza, you have your face on billboards near San Antonio airport. But as far as the Ibiza goes, you are relatively underground or alternative, right?

Yeah, but it’s just been about what I do, I’m not playing EDM or underground deep house. But when I play in Ibiza, I get people from all over Europe, and the usual Ibiza crowd is a mix. There’s a lot of tourists and you’re playing for a real mix of a crowd, and you try to find some sort of a middle ground that you want to share with the people. 

When did you feel the balance tipped in your favour with disco being a ‘thing’. It’s always been there, it feels like I’ve seen half a dozen disco ‘revivals’, but it’s much more cemented now.

I would imagine, Daft Punk definitely helped. I’ve loved Daft Punk since their first album, since 'Stardust', and Thomas (Bangalter) and I used to hang out as we were starting at the same time, and then obviously they evolved to be much bigger.

Then they came out with a disco album, which I thought was great, and there was so much marketing going on for them that I assumed we’d be seeing a lot more copycats. And then, that never happened, actually. Even to this day, I’ve heard very few people copy what they were trying to achieve.

I always assumed it was because Random Access Memories sounds so rich and was so expensive, few producers have the tools to make something sound that true?

Yes, perhaps, but I sort of manage it, without whatever resources they did it with. So I do it in my home studio, and perhaps you just need to know how to? But I assumed there’d be more people attempting, or perhaps they didn’t succeed?

But you’ve also got records like Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars. He’s given everything an eighties boogie twist that he’s really the best at. I think overall, we’ve seen more copies of Breakbot than Daft Punk. But when people get used to a sound, that’s when they can really embrace it.

I was lucky enough to work on the Nile Rodgers and Chic reissue box set, and that came out before Random Access Memories, but I think it only became really successful after when it was re-released in a condensed version. My remix of 'Lost in Music' was a much bigger hit than I realised, I mean of course that’s already a massive hit, but I played it in a UK club and it took the roof off.

And that gave me more confidence to work on a bulk of sounds amidst the avalanche of EDM or very minimal, stripped back house. And I’ve always tried to be accessible, and when the disco revival came out, I could share the music I love with people more concerned with the underground.

What do you think, from a producer’s perspective, is the element that makes a timeless disco record, be it a classic or a new track you’ve been playing?

It’s the fact that it evolves a lot. I was just characterising deep house as being minimalist, you know? You’ve got a few loops going on. And the way those tracks work is the repetition is met with the slightest change that’s like a bomb. So it works on a different type of energy, bringing in all these elements and getting trippy. With disco, it’s the complete opposite!

There’s always something happening. You’ve got pianos, you’ve got chord changes, you’ve got saxophones, you’ve got all these people singing. But it’s something that’s very organic, even if you can make it with machines now, but it’s also very rich.

And for some people, it might be too rich, I can also see that. But it’s also in a way, more human, if there’s people playing in there. Their personas, their souls are going into the music, which is part of it’s appeal.

To go back to Daft Punk again, ‘Human After All’ (listen above). It has lyrics! People can sing along to it, which is memorable, that it’s slightly more playful.

The classic club sound is more cost effective in a way, it’s stripped out of elements down to what matters the most. And years later, people see that those things are great to have, or at least some people are returning to vinyl. Or simply to things that are more superficial.

I mean, what’s wrong with being superficial, at least for a moment? And that’s what good party music is. It never tried to be intelligent, it never tried to be edgy. And even today, those are the things that appeal to people because they are simple, and they are honest, and even somebody who isn’t a music specialist can tell the difference between disco and deep house. And when they have a DJ whose focusing on that sound, they can identify their tastes to a particular artist.

Even working within the genre of disco, you tend to work through a lot of records. I often ask this to people who’ve been DJing a long time, but how do you come across music now and ensure nothing gets stale?

It’s a good question, and I think when I find I’ve been playing a track a little too long I look for something that can replace that. As I was thirty years ago, I’d look at the record sleeve and see who was the producer, and think, “Oh, what have I got that’s like Chic, but isn’t Chic?”

It’s like looking through recommended videos on Youtube, and it brings up something else, it’s like serendipity. I also try and add things to met sets that other people may not have, so I try and do my own edits or my own versions, so that I’ve something to offer that is mine.

It’s like cooking, you know? People can cook chicken, can cook beef, but it’s adding your own little spice. I’m not always looking for unreleased music, but I’m looking at what I can add, as I’m trying to think with my tastes.

And I have to find that middle ground between what people truly want to hear and what they’ve never heard. That’s my job, breaking new music all the time without breaking people’s balls! And it’s hard work sometimes, it’s not easy.

You’ve remixed a lot of solid gold classic material, that some people might not touch as it’s seen somehow as sacred. Do you ever get nervous, potentially meddling with classics?

Yeah, I do. Like when I was asked to do the Chic stuff, I was super nervous, as everyone knows that record. So you have to come up with something valid, and that’s very stressful, so it’s about putting it into a perspective with the people familiar with it are happy, but as I also tried to do with Prince, introduce it to a new audience.

I won’t just put a big electro beat under it, and I don’t want the people who love the originals to be pissed off with the remix, so I’m trying to find a way to make them modern enough without exaggerating them. And this is where all my thinking goes, and it can be very difficult, and there are definitely some tracks I wouldn't’ touch because I couldn’t bring enough to them.

You can catch the man himself at A Wing this Friday. For more on Dimitri From Paris including his upcoming gigs, head here. 

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