In a subculture that is supposedly open-minded and creatively free, there is an underlying strangulation of inspiration with all the genre definitions and labels in electronic music. In most artistic movements there is always a group of key players who importantly help to loosen these strongholds that suffocate innovation and prevent things from moving forward. Detroit artist Stacey Pullen is one of those key players.

Growing up in a city where the sound of Motown is enthralled in its roots and where music is a part of the people’s every day lives (whether it be hip hop, rnb, house, techno….). What influences and sounds does one take from this melting pot of music? “I think that growing up in Detroit, there are so many influences apart from the Motown sound, you got Parliament Funkadelic, you have the Jazz musicians who came from Detroit as well, so growing up in that environment and seeing it every day and picking up the spirit was probably the most important thing that anyone could ask for.”

In the same way that legendary Jazz musicians broke through cultural and musical boundaries, oozing a certain style, a certain artistic composure, a breeding ground for a forward thinking movement, with artists feeding off each others creativities and innovations, the Detroit techno movement can draw wonderfully similar parallels. “When I recorded my album a couple of years ago, I was reading a lot about the Jazz movement and reading a lot of autobiographies of different jazz artists and I drew parallels to what we are doing here in Detroit. It’s the way of dress, the style, the innovative artistic frame of mind that we always work in.”

When Detroit legendary jazz bassist Ron Carter was jamming with the Miles Davis Quintet, becoming a part of the magic triangle rhythm section with Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams, it was all about advancing in rhythms and structures and structural freedoms of the era, very much the same way that the techno pioneers of Detroit influenced their peers and the artists who were to follow. Stacey expresses how this togetherness of ideas and influences inspired him throughout his career. “They were all influenced by each other you know, so that has always been an inspiration in my career and the yard that I put out.”

Does knowledge really equal power? Can too much information be detrimental to the way we enjoy music? All you ever seem to hear these days was how good it was “back in the old days”. Just by reading this article you are being given a plethora of viewpoints, you are in some way being manipulated to think and feel a certain way. “With the older generation, you know the guys that grew up with the music back in the 80s, who were going out in the clubs when they were 12 & 13 years old. That culture had the history and they know the knowledge of the music that they heard in clubs, and this is why they go to the clubs – because of the music. The generation now – I call it he microwave age, because everything is hot and fast. It’s a big marketing game now.”

Or perhaps we can look at things in another sense; without this avenue of extremely vast amounts of information, we may have not of even heard of Stacey Pullen. “The scene now, the noticeable changes have been the overall response of different genres of music, whatever you have…Trance, Breakbeat, whatever. You have something for everybody now, with the internet now it’s so accessible for these people who love music to get access to different genres of music.”

Almost every DJ that you speak to that gets a chance to visit Eastern Europe and play to the people there, always seem to have the same things to say. “These people just want to party.” Stacey continues to explain the affect of war and human turmoil on the way these people let loose on the dance floors. “Well this is what I like when I travel to Eastern European countries, they have been oppressed for so long with war and there is a lot of personal and political turmoil and when I play over there – they like whatever. When I was there I played the most grooviest up-tempo techno tracks and I could finish with a really soft Sade song. The people who live in those countries they haven’t been influenced and infiltrated with the knowledge from the magazines, these bias magazines, so that also has had a lot to do with it.”

When Stacey Pullen is in front of you, propped behind the decks and going through over 6 hours of the most diverse range of music, you have to wonder what exactly he enjoys listening too whilst cruising in his jeep or sitting at home on the couch. “My favourite artist for the past year and half, two years is the Neptunes. I have still been grooving off the N.E.R.D cd for the last year and a half, which is in constant rotation in my jeep.” Him and the rest of the world! Stacey carries on with his list of tastes and preferences. “Besides that I listen to a lot of the west London broken beat stuff. I love the guys like IG Culture, Domu, 4-Hero, Joey Dark – those guys and that movement, sort of brings together to me, our whole artistic mind form, because they are doing it strictly for the love of music and its not about selling ten thousand or twenty thousand or fifty thousand records, its about making a difference, and that’s what I look at in artists when I listen to them, its not just because I like their music, it’s the whole aura, the movement that they are standing for.”

On the topic of the Neptunes the conversation turns to hip hop and its parallel universe with the techno world. As hip hop continues to gain popularity in its home country and around the world, and having always made a personal link between techno and hip hop, the crossover seems so evident. To some it’s as clear as crystal but to others the two are worlds apart. Are the hip hop kids in Detroit much like the ones here in Australia? Nobody listens to techno. “A lot of people who like rap and rnb would not be able to get electronic music, because it has no lyrics, or the beat is too fast for them to catch or they don’t get the whole concept of the music because its not a nursery rhyme.”

Stacey is one of those djs that know exactly how to give the party people something new, catching them unaware, throwing them into the deep unknown of new sounds and making them lick their lips with satisfaction, only to respond with requests of more. “It has to be given to them in the right way though, that’s all it is. The kids here in Detroit trust me, they have grown up with the Ghetto Booty tech that’s been here since the early 80’s, and the thing about that is that a lot of Detroit artists have their music played by these Detroit djs to play at these clubs, and you hear it on the radio. On any given day you can here Technicolor or Cybotron and at the same time they play the DJ Godfather stuff and the ghetto tech stuff as well and people don’t realise its all the same family.”

Stacey is ready to let you into his world and get deeper into his gamut of sound. “When I do come down to Australia I put together something special, because it’s the only place I can come and I know that I am guaranteed to play minimum of five or six hours. I approach it differently to any of my other gigs because of course I am getting a little bit more deeper into my repertoire of music that I love and I get a chance to play such a variety of things. Its fulfilling to me to have people react and respond the way that they do because it makes it worthwhile travelling a whole 24 hours to get there.”

Are you ready to spend an evening with Stacey? Can you keep up with the twist and turns of his dj sets? 6 hours? It’s a fairly long time. So are you?

Stacey Pullen plays the following dates around Australia:
In Melbourne @ New & Used on Friday 27th June
In Perth @ Sonik on Saturday 28th June
In Sydney @ New & Used vs Sounds on Sunday on Sunday 29th June

Check ITM whatson in your city for further details.