Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade or so, you’ve probably heard – or at least heard of – Dave Seaman. As a top-tier international DJ, he’s been playing the best parties the world has to offer since before most of today’s generation were old enough to get into those parties. As owner of the respected label Audiotherapy, which turns five this year, he’s been responsible for bringing some of dance music’s most innovative and unique productions to the masses. He’s just released his latest compilation, This is Audiotherapy, to celebrate this five year milestone, and he recently took some time of his busy schedule to catch up with ITM and tell us about it.
ITM: Hello from sunny Australia, Dave. What can you tell us about your latest release, This is Audiotherapy?
Dave Seaman: Well, the idea was that as a label, Audiotherapy was five years old, and so we had a lot of quality unreleased material that we’d always hoped to find an outlet for. We also had signed a number of new singles for release, and we wanted to put both the older unreleased material and the newer singles in to a nice package that made a statement of where Audiotherapy is after five years – sort of a “this is what we do and how we mean to carry on” type of thing, to show listeners the entire spectrum of things that we do. I wanted to see variety – some house tracks, some more progressive tracks, and some deeper tracks as well. Early on, we decided that we’d go with a two-disc format, with one CD a mix, and the other a collection of unmixed tracks, with an additional vinyl sampler release as well and also on vinyl.
ITM: Your style has been described over the years as house, progressive, tech-house, and many other genres and sub-genres. How would you describe your present sound, and how do you think it differs from what you’ve been playing in the past?
Dave Seaman: I’ve never put too much thought into genres as such. I don’t even know what half of them mean any more, and I’m not certain I’d be able to tell the difference between them. I think a lot of it’s just made up for record sales to be honest. It’s getting to the point that it’s a bit silly. I mean lets be honest – it’s all electronic house music really. This one track over here might be harder, this one slightly deeper, but otherwise if we carry on like this we’re going to end up looking at records described as Swedish lesbian acid two step, you know? Everyone has different ideas about what defines a genre, but for my sound to be described as progressive house… to me it’s more a spirit than a sound. From where I stand, Danny Tenaglia just as good as Timo Mass or Christian Smith – it’s all progressive house to me. I think it can be quite detrimental to tag people with genres, since DJs are so much more than that.
ITM: Your live sets and mixed CDs often cover a wide range of styles, and tend to suggest that you’ve got a rather wide-ranging taste in music. When behind the decks, is it entirely “Dave’s Choice”, or do you find yourself with a lot of records that you’d like to be able to play but aren’t able to?
Dave Seaman: First and foremost, I’m paid to do a job. There’s no easy way to drop a 90bpm track in the main room at 3AM. I do your job first, and that means that to a certain extent I have to do what’s expected. If it’s a warm up or a back room that I’m in, then I’ve got a lot more choices, but it does come down to expectations, I think. If I can twist and bend the rules within that, great, but entertainment is first and foremost. As far as what I actually play, well, I get sent a lot of different kinds of stuff, lots of stuff from friends that gets passed on to me. I listen to everything. If it’s good, it’s good, and I don’t try to categorise it. I really enjoy mixing between styles, twisting and turning through a bunch of different tracks, sometimes into something more aggressive, then into something softer, and so on. My ideal set is one where I can cover all the bases. When someone talks about a DJ’s set as a musical journey, that’s what I mean, really. As a DJ, you need to cover all these aspects. I don’t hone in on a specific sound, but on what sounds good to me, whatever it is. That’s the challenge, getting from one style to another in a way that works on the dancefloor.
ITM: This Is Audiotherapy has a second disc of unmixed material, with the suggestion that this provides some quality material for CD-playing DJs. What are your thoughts on the sale of unmixed CD material for DJ use?
Dave Seaman: I’m not convinced there is much of an opportunity for Audiotherapy with CD singles, really. They’re quite costly to manufacture and distribute, and Audiotherapy is a small label. So for us, the best way to get the material into DJ’s CD players is to do it as a package like this, at least in the short term. Hopefully digital downloads will start to take off and provide us with another option for distribution.
ITM: Where do you see digital downloads and CDs in comparison to vinyl – and how’s your vinyl collection doing these days?
Dave Seaman: All my vinyl is in the garage at the moment, still in boxes from when we moved house last year. I haven’t had a chance to get it all out – I’d love to, but it’s a matter of getting organized I suppose. I am certainly still buying vinyl. I’ll record it to CD and take the CD with me, just because it’s easier to carry and travel with, and if I lose the CDs I can easily replace them. CDs are also able to do loops and tricks that vinyl you can’t do. I’m a big fan of Pioneer’s CDJ1000 in particular in that regard. I still do buy a lot of vinyl and a lot gets sent to me. Not all of the music that is out there is available on CD or for digital download. It’s a good way to give back, to buy vinyl, as lots of people are reliant on that buying and that whole process.
ITM: What are your thoughts on the use of computers in a live DJing situation, and of software packages such as Ableton Live?
Dave Seaman: (Laughs) Well to start, there’s something definitely wrong about DJing with a mouse. There’s a big rant on this up on my website at the moment, actually. I don’t trust computers generally, and in a nightclub especially, but more importantly at the moment CDs are enough for me. With a DJ playing CDs, you actually get to see someone doing something physical, and CDs are a lot safer in the smoky sweaty environment that is the average dance club.
ITM: You’ve earned respect in the industry for having a number of rare and unusual records across a wide variety of genres. Does the popularity of file sharing and the ease with which tracks can be digitally duplicated spell the end of the elusive, exclusive or rare track?
Dave Seaman: There’s always been an appeal to digging through those dusty crates in a second hard record shop to find the perfect forgotten track. For me, it’s a bit like going out in public wearing a pair of fake Nikes, or sporting a fake Louis Vitton bag. It’s not the real thing, it’s a fake, there’s a removal of exclusivity, of that special thing that you had that no one else had. It’s not so easy to keep things from being circulated, but I suppose really that music is meant to be a shared experience. As far as exclusivity goes, technology has also made it much easier for DJs to make their own edits and different versions of tracks – so as a DJ you’ve still got the capacity to have your own exclusive version of a track. You’ve just got to go about getting it a bit differently.
ITM: Let’s talk for a moment about your performance behind the decks from a technical perspective. You’re certainly quite comfortable blending tracks from different genres into one another, seemingly effortlessly, and often matching together the songs you mix so that they work together musically. Do you plan which songs to play by the key that they are in?
Dave Seaman: I mark the key on all my records, of course I do. It takes the guesswork out of things, and it opens up a world of possibilities in terms of which track will work with which in a way that you couldn’t possibly discover otherwise. It’s also very pleasant on the ear. I don’t always mix in key, mind you. Sometimes you can use that out-of-key dissonance intentionally, to wake people up if you’re able to do it in the right manner. Sometimes you want to be woken up from your slumber, you need something dissonant that gives you that bit of a punk attitude and gets people’s attention. But generally, I’m a big believer in putting that effort in. It also lets me play things blind that I’ve just been handed, and put it into a set immediately in a way that I can be confident will work.
ITM: You’ve partnered with some of Australia’s finest up-and-coming producers and DJs – Phil K, Luke Chable, and now Dan Mangan and Sean Quinn. You even chose to do your Global Underground CD based on your time in Melbourne. How would you describe your experience with Australia’s production and DJ scene?
Dave Seaman: I’m a big fan of Australia, actually. I absolutely love Melbourne. I looked for a house there one time, and I’ve made a lot of friends there – really talented friends, Anthony Pappa and Phil K in particular, I’ve helped them get their foot in the door. I’ve also signed a lot of Australians to various Audiotherapy projects. When friends are making great music it’s a natural thing to want to help them.
ITM: Any plans to return to Australia any time soon?
Dave Seaman: Nothing 100% firm as of yet, but I can assure you that it won’t be long – and that I’m very much looking forward to it.
‘This is Audiotherapy’, featuring an exclusive DJ mix from Dave Seaman, is out now through Therapy Music/Stomp.
