New York DJ/producer Roger Sanchez has a serious crush on model-cum-actress Angelina Jolie, celebrated for her sensuous trademark bee-stung lips. “Oh, she’s just beautiful, that’s all,” The S-Man says – sounding unusually meek. “You know what it is, my girlfriend herself, she has a very unique, very kind of piercing, dark look. I think it’s probably like the eyes and lips things, you know? It is very much in that type of vein, and it’s a very mysterious character. It’s funny, I’ve seen movies over the years and the type of character she has is very kinda unique. I appreciate that unique individuality in people.”
Sanchez may be the most instantly recognisable figure in house music, but, regardless of the many feature stories on him over the years, he, too, has always surrounded himself in mystery. Some of that is dispelled with his new album, First Contact, which, he admits, cuts “close to the bone”.
Indeed, after any number of delays, Sanchez has finally delivered his highly-anticipated debut. Already First Contact has spawned two hit singles, ‘I Never Knew’ and ‘Another Chance’, issued some two years apart, while ‘You Can’t Change Me’ is currently blowing up in clubland.
First Contact was conceived as a diverse set, taking in everything from electro and hip-hop to salsa, yet Sanchez decided it was “cluttered and unfocussed and too long,” as he informed Jockey Slut, so he edited it. (“I just streamlined it a bit.”) Above all, Sanchez wanted First Contact to be more about his current sensibilities than a retrospective of influences. This process, coupled with a label switch, accounts for the wait. “There came a point where it just felt right, and I’m very much always the type of person where if something feels right, then I go with it – the album felt right after a while, it just felt like it was the right flow, the right vibe.”
First Contact is an intimate album with ‘songs’ like ‘You Can’t Change Me’ – co-produced with fellow Mongoloid Armand Van Helden – and ‘Leavin’’, documenting the breakdown of Sanchez’s longtime relationship with girlfriend Karen, who managed his earlier label, Narcotic. (After they split he launched R-Senal.) Roger penned the lyrics either himself or in collaboration with guest artists (such as N’Dea Davenport and Angie Johnson) – and, yes, for all his playboy braggadocio and salacious preoccupation with beautiful women (his current faves are Angelina Jolie and Christina Ricci), the American did momentarily feel self-conscious about revealing so much of his emotional life. “It’s a decision I had to make when I was doing the album – how close to the bone was I willing to get? I just realised if you’re gonna be an artist, then you have to be willing to bare a lot of yourself.”
Over the last decade The S-Man has risen as one of the most iconic DJs in house, a credible playa with his immaculate facial patterning (which he actually shapes himself), designer shades and Kangol cap, worn backwards, in the style of a b-boy. Sanchez is likewise a respected producer/remixer.
As a DJ, Roger concedes that he is “quite bored” with the filtered disco sound ushered in by Daft Punk. He’s currently championing a new underground style he calls ‘fuck house’. “The way I describe it is very sensual and sexually orientated house music; it’s very tribal; it’s very dark.” It is also an ethos Sanchez associates with his early days of clubbing at venues like the Paradise Garage. “There was a very sensual slant to music where basically you’d be dancing with someone and it used to get hot and heated, and there’s a certain type of house music that’s very conducive to that – and that’s kinda where I’m at musically. I play very emotional music, and that’s one of the emotions that I play to.”
As it happens, Roger finds the Canadian crowds especially open to ‘fuck house’. “Australia tends to be open-minded to it, but I think it’s a different type of vibe,” he says diplomatically. So is Roger suggesting Australians are more repressed? “I wouldn’t say repressed,” he counters cautiously, “I’d just say… tamer, but, I mean, there’s pretty of wild audiences in Australia as well.”
The single ‘Another Chance’, which has been widely compared to Daft Punk, samples the seasoned rock band Toto, not an old disco platter. Roger chose Toto’s ‘I Won’t Hold You Back’ “totally by accident”. “The record happened to be sitting on the floor of my studio when I was working on my album and I just was listening to different tracks to get inspiration to do something and I just came across that record and it had a line in it that basically I could relate to and that spoke to me.”
Sanchez was born into a middle-class Dominican family in Queens, NY. Growing up Roger immersed himself in the city’s hip-hop underground. A friend talked Roger, just 13 at the time, into filling in as the DJ at a house party. After that, Roger, intrigued by the turntables, was drawn towards NY’s seminal clubs where he was exposed to not just garage, but also the nascent house music. Sanchez promoted his own club night and disseminated mix-tapes and inevitably gave up college (he was studying architecture) to DJ professionally – luckily with the blessing of his father, an engineer. In 1990 Sanchez made his production debut with ‘Luv Dancin’’ as Underground Solution.
Sanchez appeared as the very embodiment of the superstar DJ in the Canadian turntable movie documentary Hang The DJ, while Fatboy Slim sampled his deep and sexy voice from a radio program for his track ‘Song For Shelter’ on Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars. Now, with the euphoric ‘Another Chance’ debuting at number one on the British charts, The S-Man is officially a pop star. “I haven’t internalised it,” he says of his recent success, “but it does feel good to have a record that’s done so well – more than anything because it’s touched a wider audience.”
First Contact is out through Sony.
