Part 1

Name: Ralph Lawson
Occupation: DJ, producer
Nationality: British
Recent release: Ralph Lawson's Exit Planet Earth collection is out via 20/20 Vision.
Recommendations: Following our AI chat in this interview, where we only touched on the tip of the iceberg – I have been reading this book which is fascinating and a great way to start thinking about it all: Stuart Russell - Human Compatible. AI and the problem of control
And while we’re talking about the convergence of art and AI, how about checking Yoshi Sodeoka and his collaborations with musicians exploring art, music and AI generative pieces.  

If you enjoyed this interview with Ralph Lawson and would like to stay up to date with his music and current live dates, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, and twitter.

Can you talk a bit about your interest in or fascination for DJing? Which DJs, clubs or experiences captured your imagination in the beginning?

Before I was a DJ I was a raver in the late 80s and fortunate to find myself on the dancefloor at warehouse parties in London with DJ Harvey playing. To this day Harvey is still one of my favourite DJs and has been a huge inspiration over the years. I dropped lucky with my teacher.

When I started DJing myself in the early 1990s I was further inspired by the artists and musicians coming out of Detroit City. Alongside the Belleville Three pioneering techno was Eddie ‘Flashing’ Fowlkes. I read an interview with Eddie where he described the buzz of DJ mixing to be the creation of ‘the third track’ – the unique piece of music created when two tracks are perfectly aligned with beats and music working harmoniously together. That always stayed with me and even today, over 30 years later, I still search for the third track as the goal of a perfect mix. It’s such a pleasure to find that third track and know you have created something unique and original that wouldn’t have existed without you.

It also happens in a fleeting moment. Imagine how many killer third tracks have made people scream on a dancefloor before fading away forever …

What made it appealing to you to DJ yourself? What was it that you wanted to express and what, did you feel, did you have to add artistically?

From my teen years I always wanted to be in a band and I ended up playing the drums in a few. So, I was attracted first and foremost to beats and rhythms and of course DJing is all about the beats. There was much more space to be a DJ when I started out and I guess having played the drums for years was an advantage as I understood the rhythms quicker than most. Looking back maybe DJing was a way for the drummer to come out from behind the back of the band and be the centre of attention!  

Also, with the benefit of hindsight, DJing is appealing as you are able to be the whole band yourself. You can play a record with every single musician playing all at once. I'm also a bit of a showoff and enjoyed getting loose and going crazy behind the decks - it's a great release of energy for me.

Artistically I've never been that confident, I never really saw myself as an ‘artiste’ but being a DJ looked to be a far easier way for someone with very little talent to be able to perform on stage. And I’ve been following that belief ever since …

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to DJing? Do you see yourself as part of a certain tradition or lineage?

Although in my later years I've tried hard to rid myself of arrogance and ego, I would be lying if I said I didn't aspire to be a part of the long lineage of DJs stretching right back to the very start of it all. I'm really into DJ history so have read a lot of different stories leading right back to the MCs and DJs of the Jamaican Soundsystems in the 1960s,into the early disco scene in New York through to Chicago house music, the rave scene, techno, electro, breaks and beyond. Really anyone who enters the arena as a DJ is part of that tradition whether they realise it or not.

As far as my own DJ approach, I certainly have many individual artists to thank, including many of the great American DJs from New York, Chicago and Detroit such as Frankie Knuckles, Masters at Work, Junior Vasquez, Danny Tenaglia, Derrick Carter, Chez Damier, Stacey Pullen, Mark Farina among others.

[Read our Louie Vega of Masters at Work interview]

I was fortunate to see them all spin during my formative years. They taught me how a DJ could work a crowd and learn to be in complete control of a dancefloor - taking people on a journey over sets that would last all night.

I still love the programming great DJs can inject into the clubbing experience.

Clubs are still the natural home for DJing. What makes the club experience unique? Which clubs you've played or danced at are perfect for realising your vision – and why?

That's a nice question because I was indeed very much a dancer before I was a DJ. I was just enjoying myself and experiencing clubs, raves and festivals from the dance floor perspective. I think it's something that's never left me and the main reason I still dance around like an idiot behind the decks to this day. I’ve been lucky to have gone to some of the very best clubs around the world over many years.

I do enjoy the spectacle of the big clubs - the sound systems and light shows available now are truly mind blowing but personally I’m happiest in a small club environment. Give me a dark room with incredible sound listening and a great DJ playing a long set.

If we are talking about the best small clubs that have delivered over the longest time then you have to mention The Sub Club in Glasgow, Robert Johnson in Frankfurt and of course Panorama Bar. I was fortunate to play at all those places, but we also have to mention back to basics in Leeds where I was a resident DJ for 30 years - we had some really great times there as well for sure. All in all, I worked out I played there over 600 times and we played long too.

There is a long tradition of cross-pollination between DJing and producing. Can you talk a bit about how this manifests itself in your own work?

So, this is something that has bothered me for a long period of time, because when I first started DJs were DJs and producers were producers - there wasn't really the DJ Producer. Of course, they're connected but fundamentally they have very different skill sets and very different people can be good at one or the other but very few are great at both.

I remember when DJ Producers first started emerging and we started to book producers at the club, who we really admired but they’d come to the club and be awful DJs. It takes a certain character to stand up in front of people and make them dance and many great producers are introverted and far more comfortable in a studio.

It was really interesting to see DJs emerge again that could play at the top of the international scene without being DJ Producers such as Ben UFO, Antal, Raresh and a good few other notable selectors. Still, they are few and far between and still seems you need to be a producer to get gigs in today's clubbing environment - which I find sad as there are some really great DJs that just don't enjoy the studio environment and vice versa.

I never really saw myself as an artist or producer, I'm decent in a studio and I've been involved in some great productions, but they were always collaborations. When I’ve enjoyed studio time recently it's when I've been able to express myself as a DJ. I have a small basement studio but it's set up primarily to DJ and you have to stand up to use it. I do have some nice drum machines that I can plug in to create original music but it's all performed as a DJ would play live.

I have always enjoyed making versions, dubs and edits and they are something that I have been returning to recently. Maybe that will open the door for me going back in the studio to collaborate as a producer but for now I'm focused on being a DJ in my music time.

What role does digging for music still play for your work as a DJ? Tell me a bit about what kind of music you will look for and the balance between picking material which a) excites you, b) which will please the audience and c) fulfill certain functions within your DJ set.   

The role of digging for a DJ is even more vital today than it was in the past because your job is to mute the noise and there is so much more noise now. The DJ becomes a filter with people trusting your taste and selections. That’s what makes them want to come and see you spin - more so even than your technical skills. For me the real skill is the selection and blend of music. When a DJ is in the zone people shouldn’t want to leave the dance floor to get a drink or even take a piss.

There are so many places and ways of digging available for DJs now. Perhaps one of the reasons vinyl has endured for so long is that the very best place to dig for music is still the record store. There's no better way than blowing the dust off vintage vinyl nestled in crates at a good store.

Even more important are the people that work in those record stores. You can spend an entire day digging online, which is often a painful process involving listening to thousands of low-quality short clips that tend to buffer slowly, but you can walk into a record store where you know and trust the taste of the staff and walk away with some incredible music in an a couple of hours. In the same way DJs act as filters, the folk who work in record stores supply another essential part of the process.

An unwritten rule I've always lived by as a DJ is simply –

“If I'm not feeling it, I'm not playing it”.

There is no way I will buy a tune I don't like just to please an audience, it’s just not happening. Maybe that is why I never became a superstar DJ, hahahaha. However, I have been guilty of playing functional music. I remember having to have a word with myself because listening back to a set I’d played sounded too functional. It is an easy thing to slip into because at the end of the day a DJ is being paid to make a crowd dance and you know there are certain records that can function as part of that process with the right drop or whatever.

I found the pandemic to be a liberating experience as a DJ because the relationship between DJ and crowd disapperared overnight, yet I was free to still go into the studio and play exactly what I wanted to play, without having to make anyone else dance. Those sessions became the basis of the Exit Planet Earth shows I recorded over three series for OpenLab radio. I think they surprised quite a few people because I've been known as a house DJ for so long and these shows were based around electro, beats and experimentation. But I felt freedom and a real sense of peace and purpose going into the studio to record a show every week.

The challenge now becomes how can I take this new found freedom into the clubs and still make people dance - I'm still in that part of the process and it’s work in development.

I've always wondered: How is it possible for DJs to memorise so many tracks? How do you store tracks in your mind – traditionally as grooves + melodies + harmonies or as colours, energy levels, shapes?

There are two types of DJs – A) those with photographic memories and B) those without. I'm Type B. It can be pretty embarrassing when I'm in a discussion with a fellow DJ and they're asking me about a record I've played, and I don't even remember it. It's not something I'm proud of it's just that I have a terrible memory.

Back when it was all vinyl, I knew which one to play because it was; the pink one or the green one or the black one. When digital came along, I had to get more organised and probably remember far more of the artist names and titles now from writing the names down.

When you're in the zone the next track to play subconsciously pops into your brain. The zone we all seek to be in. It’s when you've managed to relax, feel comfortable and mixing becomes effortless. The harder you think about what to play the harder it becomes to find the right track.

I've heard it's the same for musicians too, perhaps one way of thinking about it is ‘call and response’ – the track you’re playing has the ‘call’ melody or rhythm and there is often space for the ‘response’ in the next piece of music. Once you’re relaxed thjat response riff from another record just suddenly appears in your head. Frustratingly for me the riff I want to find often comes into my head but I’ve forgotten who it’s by, as I mentioned!