Deep Attitude - Kerri Chandler

Few artists in the music business reach the level of accomplishment and status that Kerri Chandler has achieved. He is known throughout the universe as one of the original creators of the deep house sound and his "basslines" are now legendary. Kerri grew up in the New Jersey area during the days of the infamous Zanzibar club with resident DJ Tony Humphries. Kerri's father was a DJ as well, which gave Kerri a rich background in the origins of the New York Underground Sound (known also as "Garage" music). He made his DJ debut at the Rally Record Club in East Orange, New Jersey at the tender age of thirteen.

Kerri eventually found himself intrigued with the production element in dance music and soon began to create his own grooves on his one man label, Express Records. In 1991, Atlantic Records signed his debut single, "SuperLover/Get It Off" and the rest is House Music History. Despite his success, Kerri Chandler has always remained true to the spirit of the underground. When listening to tracks such as the "Atmosphere E.P." on Shelter Records and the seminal, "A Basement, Redlight and A Feeling" album on Madhouse, one has to marvel at Kerri's ability to not compromise his unique sound for commercial gain.

Kerri Chandler is a vortex where tradition and innovation meet. Tradition as in the soulful roots of Jersey house, innovation as in the treamlined, sparse arrangements and shrewd use of technology. Kerri masters rhythm and space.

Kerri prays before making a record, and injects his free spirit into his productions. With a solid education in Garage grooves, Kerri takes vocals, rhythms and instruments and with uncanny precision pieces them together, delivering beautiful, monster jams. In the expanses of his breaks the odd counter rhythm will inexplicably appear for a second and then disappear, creating fleshy excitement, not mechanical repetition. His basslines go from heavy and heady to playful and quirky-always deliriously intoxicating. His hooks are loving details like horn hits, washes of synthesizer or catchy choruses that emerge to create songs from a maddening bulldozer of brutal drive. Here the dreamer takes hold, transporting us into a dimension of seemingly endless travel....

Kerri is sure to continue to startle us as he has from the very beginning as with his first remix, the now-classic scratch on "Get It Off". His fusions, clamped to the beat of his unique, thundering kick drum, redefine house music at every turn.

No doubt, if you hardly see a DJ spinning in a club without being a producer nowadays, being a good DJ doesn't necessarily mean being a good producer and vice versa. Thus seeing those who do both of'em fairly well being like relative exceptions, and even more if you happen adding to this the art of singing, writing, composing + the know how of sound engineering… Those being both of Kerri Chandler's talents at the same time. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. !

Trends sound alike from one to another with their inevitable cohorts of opportunists ready to do anything they can in order to get the favors of the crowd, should they be ephemeral. In other words, as depicted on a famous French proverb, "dogs are barking while the caravan is passing by"… A caravan symbolizing the course of History and a History to which Kerri Chandler has heavily taken part since the release of his early works some 15 years ago till his latest productions to date, making him one of the true ambassadors of the groove, seminally speaking. Dogs are barking while Kerri's passing by, leaving this impression of fluency which is nothing but the sign of the sole big talents. This said, don't get us wrong, as easiness doesn't signify offhandedness. No way folks, as this impression is hardly anything else but the result of thousands of working hours spent with the aim of defining a proper art before having a sound on its own. A sound made of blending influences either jazzy (inherited from his dad who was a musician), soul, funk and gospel, particularly predominant in that State of New Jersey where he'd spent most of his life.

What is this Kerri called Chandler ? Surely one of the – if not THE – most talented DJ's in the world for all the reasons given above. But first of all, some guy who's never forgotten that he's a human being before being the artist he is, this enabling him to grow spiritually while meeting all sorts of people, sharing all kinds of things with them, with the sole aim of spreading happiness around him. Could also pretty well be one of the reasons why he is able to work on so many different projects at the same time, as demonstrated during our last face to face conv, last summer at Sunslice Festival in Toulon, when I was asking him to tell us a bit more about his forthcoming album projects at the time…

Which album do you want us to talk about ? he answered at the time with a large smile on his face… Coz' there's this Trionsiphere Live In Tokyo which I've just put the final touches to and some other works in the pipeline, thinking about that ol' organic album project we'd already talked about in the past. I've finally managed to gather the budget, he enthuses. I'd really love to have these guys who've written the history before us, quoting names like Johnny Hammond and Lonnie Liston-Smith. Not to mention the third installment of his A Basement, Red Light & A Feeling series which he's now firmly working on… Right now I have just finished the other thing for Linda (Linda Perone of Downtown 161), he explains. I went to deephousepage.com and put a post up so that people could help me pick out artist that they would think I would work well with, on this project.

So far, I can say I met Mustafa and he was real cool to work with. Kenny Bobien, Arnold Jarvis and Michael Watford are family to me. So that was most of the guys everyone picked. I just got the contacts for Amp Fiddler and Sarah Devine. The only person left is Donger. For the rest, it's mainly a question of sharing vibes and ideas with friends popping around at home, as you've already experienced this when I was recording the Trionisphere album for King Street. People eventually would come and have a dinner at my place, we talk and end up downstairs in my studio ! When not doing the same kind of experience behind the decks, as best remembered during the two first editions of the Sunslice Festival in Toulon where he ended up doing his set, directing guest musicians and other DJ's met over there… Sunslice has been one of my all time favorite events to do. I love to just keep things fun and make it fum with my friends just a get down and jam session street level.

Hopefully, there are still good releases nowadays, although probably more obscure, he explains while being asked about the current context in terms of production. As for the rest, what we easily find is more or less the same kind of thing, with those people ready to do everything they can to get the jackpot. The whole record industry tends to consider that what is reputedly deep has no chance to fulfill the crowd's expectations although I exactly think the opposite way. Not because it's conceptually deep, but because it makes people think lyrically speaking. Depth, as it's what we're talking about, doesn't apply to a typical genre ; a trance track can be deep…

Concerning the reasons why house music doesn't get the same media coverage like say R&B, Kerri has also his explanations… One talks more often about tracks than songs and gotta say that house music is more of a DJ story. At the beginning, you was able to identify to a certain amount of people like CeCe Peniston, Crystal Waters and the likes and if some of'em are still around like CeCe Rogers or Byron Stingily, they're are to be considered as exceptions. Can't really talk about artists nowadays. It's mainly those things like featuring X, Y or Z and that's it, prior giving us his thoughts about what should be done to increase the potential of house worldwide… Well, write more songs, leave the space to the artists and get the producers back to their as opposed to what's happening nowadays. In other words, what could somehow be taken as a sort of "songwritingxploitation… Yeah. Myself, got the chance to be able to sing, compose and produce so that it enables me to go to the very end of what I want to achieve. And I'm trying to act exactly the same, regarding the ones I'm workin' with. I'll first take the time to hear them in order to be able to work around them after. I'm not that kind of people tellin'em : Okay, you're gonna do this or that for me and that's it. And that's about the same when I'm behind the desks… I mean you have to feel the vibe yourself, feel the pleasure in order to be able to transmit it to the crowd…

As today's environment sees a relatively big amount of dedicated people more or less starving due to the lack of media support, we end up our conversation wondering how our man has never been tempted if not to stop, at least to go for something reputedly more juiceful, the way Paul Oakenfold and say Boy George do in UK or to a lesser extend, David Morales and Erick Morillo Stateside…Something we may call the ransom of the glory regarding them and there's nothing to say about this. Myself, I like to listen to some music that puts me upside down. I like a music that makes you like to get into, lyrics that you want to sing… Some of the people you've mentioned are friends of mine and I'm happy to see where they've achieved to be, but it's simply not me. Could do some "easy" things, as I've done some in the past for the major companies but I've never felt happy about it. I issued "Show Me Love" for instance and everybody was after me asking for some more of it. Was simply not for me, thank U. I just wanna keep on vibrate every time I'm doing music. That's what I call happiness.