Few cities in the world can lay claim to having as vibrant and diverse a community of DJs and dance music personalities as Melbourne – and among Melbourne’s DJs and dance music personalities, few have stood the test of time quite like Sean Quinn. It’s been more than fifteen years since he first came to the world’s attention as part of the production team behind one of dance music’s most memorable anthems, Quench with Dreams, and nearly a decade since he put together the inaugural Balance compilation, launching what has come to be regarded as one of the finest compilation series in the world.

To say that he’s been busy since then would of course be an understatement. In the years between, he’s held down more residencies that most DJs have had hot breakfasts, has climbed behind the controls in clubs all over the world, from the street festivals of Europe to the sun-soaked beaches of Ibiza and most points in between, and has introduced more than one generation of clubgoer to his unique blend of melodic beats. But as ITM catches up with Sean, his mind hasn’t been filled with music at all – in fact, it’s been filled with… tennis! It seems that our Sean, a lifelong tennis fan, has spent the past two days glued courtside at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club, watching some of the world’s best tennis players battle it out. “Yeah, I’m a mad keen tennis fan,” Sean confesses with a chuckle. “It’s been a pretty good past few days.”

While best known to a generation of Australian clubgoers as a DJ, in recent years Sean Quinn has increasingly returned his attention to making music. “I’m concentrating a lot more on the production technology side of things these days,” Sean explains. “I’ve set up a business recently concentrating on support and troubleshooting for Macintosh computers on corporate networks to keep me busy during the day, using the skillset I’ve picked up using Macs to write music over the past ten or twelve years.”

“I’m not really a musical purist,” Sean acknowledges. “Having DJed for so many years the rhythm and groove aspects came naturally, but in terms of chords I more taught myself as I went along, and so I’ve always been interested in the bleeding edge of still-in-beta plug-ins and softsynths that could do some of that work for me.”

On the production front, 2009 is shaping up to be a very busy year for Sean. “I’ve just signed a tune that’s a cover of an old Manchester band James. The song is called Getting Away With It, and I’ve done it with a very close mate of mine Gus Cullen. We’ve got Danny Bonnici from NuBreed and Manuel from Infusion to do the vocals on it, and that’s just been signed off to Vicious – it should be out very shortly, and it’ll be performed live at Kiss My Grass on Australia day.”

From his vantage point as one of Australia’s most accomplished DJs, Sean has seen a steady stream of technological improvements significantly reshape the face of dance music over the years – both in terms of what’s possible and in terms of what’s perceived by the everyday clubgoer. “There are an infinite number of ways for DJs and producers to use today’s technology in their productions and sets,” Sean observes.
Never the less, as Sean sees it, Australian clubgoers have been particularly hesitant to completely embrace the sight of new technology in the DJ booth. “Up until six months ago I was still getting people coming up to the console while I was playing that would go ‘ooh, you’re playing off CDs, that’s cheating!’ It’s been a strange case of the technology having to take one step forward and two steps back to accommodate the punters’ desire to actually see the physical dollars they paid on their ticket price coming out of the pores of the guy using the equipment that’s entertaining them, and it’s been deemed worthy of a refund if the guy looks like he’s on Facebook,” he says.

“There are a lot of guys who have made their names with production,” Sean continues, “that have realized that a hit record might pay for a little while, but that in order to keep current and on the tips of peoples’ tongues, they’re going to need to do that whole DJ thing. There are a lot of guys touring the world with Traktor and Ableton with control surfaces that had never intended on being DJs to begin with, but that have found that it’s a great supplement to their income in between records. It’s an interesting time, because you get to see those guys who have never really known what it is to walk into a room, assess a dancefloor, work out of the last DJs atmosphere and vibe and really build a set – to bridge it, to crown it, and to trail it off in a way that leaves people with something to remember it by, all the while moving the crowd around the club.”

As an attentive observer of Melbourne’s dance music scene, Sean has noticed dance music’s recently reduced emphasis on melody. “It’s as if the only way to command the attention of a dancefloor in Melbourne at the moment is to smash people about the ears – and I don’t think that needs to be the case,” he explains. “There are a lot of records being played in mainstream clubs right now that are just so blatantly aggressive and angry. Where I think this becomes a real problem is that it shortens the lifecycle of the scene. I see things now as a tumble-dryer of sorts, where people go bang-bang-bang for two years, and then fall out of it because there isn’t the diversity there could be. For first time clubbers walking into a big superclub hearing these huge, same-sounding records, it’s amazing at first – but I don’t think it’s helping to build a community of smaller niche nights and crews as well as it could.”

As Sean sees it, a reduced emphasis on melody and musicality has left proper in-key mixing something of a lost art. “For so long here in Melbourne our music was an inch and a half away from what was working in the UK, and we were every progressive DJ’s first stop internationally. The audiences that we played to at the time benefited at the time from the fact that there were some guys – Anthony Pappa, Kasey Taylor, myself and a few other guys that would spend hours and hours and hours keying our records and making sure everything flowed as well as it could to deliver a seamless set, working hard to make everything work musically, so there weren’t key-clashes and so that the chord progressions worked together.” To Sean’s ears, recent years have seen a move away from such attention to detail. “These days, the emphasis seems to be so far away from that – so much so that if there is a horrific key clash mid-set, the dance floor is likely to erupt,” he says with a chuckle.

The future of Melbourne dance music can be seen in the smaller crews that focus on the quality, rather than the size of their party, Sean believes. “As people get spat out of the mainstream tumble-dryer scene, they’re starting to look for something more,” he observes. “There are some really good little niche parties that are quite healthy, rolling along doing their thing, playing what moves them and doing what it is that they believe in – and I think those smaller scenes are really, really important.”

When selecting what gigs he’ll play, Sean explains that he’s careful not to sign up for gigs where he’ll be required to play music he doesn’t believe in. “I’ve never walked out of a gig feeling like I’ve sold my soul,” he says, “and I’ve shied away from moving in that direction.” Similarly, Sean acknowledges that while his popularity has had its peaks and troughs over the years, he’s always been true to his ear and his heart, and that he’d rather be forced to pick up a day job than be forced to shed his musical identity.

“Sure, for some my DJing may have been more palatable in the past than it is now, but I don’t believe there was ever a huge swing in direction for me. It’s not like I ever said ‘ok, this isn’t working, I need to put food on the table, lets re-invent myself towards what’s big right now’. Some guys can do that I guess, but for me it’s never been an option – much to the chagrin of my parents, and my girlfriend, and my dog, who might not get fed everyday,” he adds with a laugh. “I have to be true to what moves me, and as long as there are enough people who are in to what I do to make it worth my while, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing.”

Sean Quinn mixed the new Kiss Summer 2009 CD and it’s out now through Stomp, catch him commanding the stage at Melbourne’s mighty Kiss My Grass at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Australia Day, Sunday 25th January.