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Noel Sanger - Never Ending Story
For a man who has over 100 releases on 30 labels over the past 10 years, having sold over 100,000 mix CD's, it's hard to think that this man isn't known on a global scale. The fact of the matter is that he has not played once outside the United States. His latest double disc mix 'Summerbreeze 2' is out now on Nettwerk Records, showing off some exclusive work of his own in the mix. With a lot of current work on Music Now, tracks with DJ Hyper on Acetate Ltd., and Saeed and Palash remixing his work soon, be on the lookout for this huge talent from America.
RA:When was the first time you realized that you wanted to produce dance music for a living?
NS:I guess it was about 1989 or 1990... I was working as an on-air "personality" at a Naples Florida dance music radio station. But I had always been into music, I mean even at that point I was still playing guitar and singing in crappy bands doing originals and Ramones covers and Guns ‘n' Roses covers and all that stuff. At first I was just really taken with the simplicity of the pop-freestyle dance stuff I was hearing and the idea that I could write these silly little girl broken heart songs and make a ton of money. People always think there's a ton of money. Anyway it was around 1990 that I started hearing "techno" like 808 State and Eon "The Spice" along with true early 90''s house like Masters at Work, Mr. Fingers, and even the Italo-piano stuff that was typified by Black Box. It all got to me. I still don't know if I ever really decided to do this for a living, it just sort of happened, unconsciously.
The term ''progressive'' get thrown around a lot these days. What do you feel is the definition of a truly progressive track?
I'm not sure what any of these words mean anymore. I just always liked the idea of "progressive" connoting forward motion and out-of-the-box thinking. As a genre, it has come to mean somethng very different in the last couple of years. It's become kind of a bad word in the industry in a way. Oversaturation, too many prog dj's all playing the same sound, if not the same tracks. Even with the marketing of Summerbreeze 2, the Nettwerk label folks had decided to stay away from the word in the adverts, up until the last minute when they were desperate for a defining slogan to give people some idea what the CD was about. So they called me "America's Premier Progressive DJ". And I am not that. Quite embarrassing in terms of how many people I know personally who can lay claim to that title far more accurately than I can. Having said all that, proper thumping progressive house is wonderful music and all the politics aside, it's what I love the most
in dance music.
Many of todays top producers, like yourself, came from an industrial music background. Why do you think thisis so?
Actually, my industrial background in incidental. I was more into metal, and progressive rock. Anything guitar-oriented and hard to play. I only got into industrial when I brought in local goth scene founder Jimmy Cochrane to co-host my alternative radio show on tuesday nights, and he turned me onto a world of music I wasn't previously aware of. That was 1990, so I was a little late to that party. We basically discovered the new "techno" genre together and wrote our first several tracks together. But you'd be surprised how many big prog producers are ex-metalheads as well.
How did you approach your latest mix disc "Summerbreeze 2" when selecting tracks?
I got a ton of submissions, like maybe 250 CDR's, so I had a huge amount of fantastic music to wade through. The tracklist changed and changed and changed again. Before I got serious about compiling there were label delays as well, so I had a good long time to let the music set in. Some tracks that I was super into when i started out came out in the meantime and showed upon other comps but I didn''t really care. I just wanted to make a good mix that I would enjoy listening to, not be Mr. showoff message board DJ with all this upfrontness. And I wanted it to be positive, and uplifting without being cheesy, and be something that new converts to electronic dance music could appreciate while still satisfying the veterans. I hope I came close anyway.
Why do you think that dance music in America is still not being supported by the radio stations even though the club scene is so successful?
Lack of good songs, lack of good artists. Radio needs a 3 minute morsel its listeners can ingest eleven times a day. I shouldn''t say lack of good songs or artists, but lack of marketable product. The music in the clubs is made for clubs. The songs with crossover potential in the clubs ("Rapture", "Safe From Harm", etc.) are few and far between. Even then, it''s a radio mix or edit done by somebody who is producing it for the radio that makes it on radio. I used to be one that moaned about the lack of radio support, but I don''t think I want it anymore. Outside of specialty shows and mix shows, if dance music gets support on the radio, its Ultra-cheesy absolute nonsense that the masses then take to be representative of the whole genre.
Because it has a similar beat or whatever, and they go out to clubs that play songs they know and the whole scene in any given city commercializes and necrotizes because people think they already have the best of what's out there when they haven't really got shit. Our music has nothing at all to do with the what they play on the radio when they play "dance music" on the radio.
You started your musical career at a ripe young age. What got you into music in the first place?
Never really had any aspiration to do anything else. Not since i was about 8. My dad was a professional musician for about 10 years or so, and I was always around music my whole life. My parents were always very supportive of the whole thing, never tried to discourage me even though they knew this was a particularly difficult path to take.
Your productions seem to come out at an alarming rate and get a lot of press, yet you aren''t on the DJ circuit as much as other producers. Are you planning on increasing your appearances with this latest mix
album?
Do they come out that fast? Sometimes I am quite rapid with the productions, or I used to be. Since I have been a father, though, they come out a bit more slowly. But I think the quality keeps getting better. At the present I am doing about one "Noel Sanger" release on Musicnow every six months, which is about to speed up considerably in 2003, with two or three remixes for various labels in between. As far as increasing my appearances, yes, please! Thats always been my goal. It''s so funny, everywhere I go people think I'm huge somewhere else. But I''ve never been much more than marginal, despite selling over 100,000 mix CD''s, despite 100 releases going back 10 years now, in a dozen countries, on what, 30 labels?. I've never been outside of North America. But I do have a great foundation to build on now, so the plan definitely is for this CD to raise my profile a bit. I love to DJ, so the more new places I get to do it the better.
Where do you see the future of the progressive sound taking your upcoming productions?
I have no idea! I have so little control over what happens in the studio, I just get a vibe and the parts going and let it evolve on its own. I am always trying to be diverse, one project i'll do a housey prog track at 124 bpm, and the next day twisted electro at 132 so as to try and evolve the elements together of all the musical styles I love. I am also trying to focus on songwriting, and actually finally getting around to producing my wife Dauby's album, which will have lots of guitar on it and wont be specific to any one genre. I have loads of remixes upcoming, DJ Hyper for Acetate Ltd, Descent for Release, Dakota "Lost in Brixton"... there's a really cool 80's booty i'm working on, and four original projects on Musicnow before the end of summer 2003. "Toward the One" finally gets a full release this month, after a couple months of promo and an appearance the Saeed and Palash mix comp. Markus Schulz just finished an incredible mix of "Kali Ma", the original of which is on Summerbreeze 2, that''ll be just intime for WMC.
After that, two vocal tracks featuring Dauby will drop, the first of which ("Something In The Air") is being remixed by Saeed and Palash, and remixers are being confirmed for the second ("My Prayer") at the moment. More vocals, less rules, funky, sexy and spiritual are what I hope for the future of my sound, and i hope i can contribute a little of that to the sound as a whole. People just need to get over taking their clubbing so seriously and have a good time again. Isn't that what it's all about?
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Published / Sunday, 05 January 2003
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