E-Man Interview

Since bursting on to the world music scene with the hugely influential “It’s Yours”, E-Man has become a worldwide sensation, introducing the unfamiliar to a whole new spectrum of music and experience. Before this watershed however, he was a cult figure in New York, hosting the legendary “Bang The Party” with Lorie Caval, one of the most successful and long-running true underground house music events in the world, where he is also a resident. Writer, Producer, Lyricist, Promoter, Actor, Director, Singer, DJ and party animal, E-Man has done, and continues to do all. Here he talks exclusively to Deep House Network about the changing house music scene in his native New York, the right way to start your own event and the action hero career that never was ...

DHN - Before becoming a DJ and vocalist, you were a bouncer for a variety of New York clubs. Did your experience give you any insight into what kind of crowd can produce a good atmosphere, and what did it teach you about club-going people in general?

E-Man - Actually, being a bouncer has taught me a lot about the people I serve now, and basically, you have to remember that first and foremost, most people come to clubs to have a good time. If you’re doing security at a club, you’re there to control the environment a little, so that everyone can have a safe time. It doesn’t mean that you have to be a Nazi, and enforce all of these ridiculous rules, it just means that you have to remember that the people you’re dealing with are drinking. So you have to be tactful when you talk to people and you’ve got to realise that there are situations. Some people can be a little drunk, so you have to give them some recuperation time. I’ve got a lot more tolerance with my crowd just because I did security.

DHN - I was amused to hear that you had a cameo role in Die Hard 3 – Die Hard With A Vengeance. Did you enjoy the experience, and was acting anything you were ever seriously looking into?

E-Man - I spent five years in television and movies. I did production, I was a PA, and eventually I started to assist in directing music videos and stuff like that. Yeah, it’s something I still do now as a sideline because I’m basically directing and co-producing our documentary film about Bang The Party, which will probably be out some time this year. It’s two careers that I kind of juggle at the same time. The one thing that I found about working in production commercially from different directors and producers that I have met is that it’s better to do your own thing. Instead of being a PA with your name on no credits, it’s better to do something independently and have your name on it, so people have an idea of what you’re reflect and the vision that you’re trying to project. I’ve done both. I haven’t really pursued acting in the last year. Every now and again people ask me to do different roles, and do different kinds of work like that, and if the opportunity made itself available, I’d do it sometimes, but it’s nothing I really pursue as much as music.

DHN - So where can we freeze our DVDs and see you in Die Hard 3?

E-Man - Haha. I’m in the scene at the beginning of the movie, where Bruce Willis is walkin’ through Harlem with a sign that says “I Hate N****rs”, and he runs across me and my compadres. I’m in the scene with him and Sam Jackson, it’s the scene that puts Sam Jackson and Bruce together for the rest of the movie, basically. So it’s kind of like a pivotal scene. I’m in the scene where we chase his ass out of Harlem, and that’s when shit starts blowing up!

DHN - Another project you were involved in was helping to make music videos. Do videos generally supplement of detract from the music itself in your opinion, and can you ever see the day where more videos are made for more deep house tracks?

E-Man - I think that the American music video market doesn’t really pay attention to deep house music. Thank God for Europe, because they’ve basically embraced dance music across the board. If I had the opportunity to do a video, I’m sure I would break it in Europe first, and see if it would come back to America, but I think that it would be a pivotal plus for deep house music if it was more visual. People could really connect more to the artist through the videos, because look at what it’s done for hip-hop and other genres.

DHN - Is that necessarily a good thing though?

E-Man - Oh, it’s absolutely a good thing, because I remember the time hip-hop was underground just the way house is, and that was 10, 15 years ago. It’s allowed itself to become more marketable and viable, just through its visibility. I think that’s important. I think that now house music is at a crossroads. It was very cute and chic in the 70’s and 80’s to be underground, and have people trying to seek you out. But the whole party mystique, at least in New York where I live, is gone. So I think that now something has to compensate for that. It needs visibility, and I think that video would help with that.

DHN - Did the idea for a video for “It’s Yours” ever come up?

E-Man - Ya, when we were at the height of the success, being that I had a film background, I did want to do a video for “It’s Yours”. I approached Neil [Aline] who owns Chez, about it, and y’know, Neil doesn’t have the money to do a video, and he didn’t sound too serious about it at the time, so I didn’t pursue it. I would have loved to have done a video for “It’s Yours”, or maybe “The Brooklyn Track” I did with Kerri [Chandler] , the Louis Vega track “I Am The Road”, or even “Respect The Music” I did with Romain. The delivery would be so much more powerful if it was visual also. But there’s such a big money factor, man, it’s just what it takes to make them. Even cheap videos cost five or ten grand, that’s a low budget video, but that’s still an impossible amount of money to raise for deep house music, when the money generated isn’t even that.

DHN - Your DJing career took off when you launched “Bang The Party”. Given the cliquish nature of most house music scenes in particular, do you think this is the best, possibly the only avenue open to upcoming DJs who want to make a name and a buck for themselves in a hurry?

E-Man - I felt that I was only going to get a DJ gig if I create it for myself, which I did. I say that to all people who want to do their own thing. If you work in some capacity where you can generate between 150 – 200 people for yourself, then do something. They don’t have to be into what you’re into; all they have to be is your friends. It’s important for you to cultivate your audience not to be all the same. You should really try to find people who aren’t househeads; you should find a diverse audience of people – some old, some young, some into House music, some not into House music. You can build a community like the world, where everybody’s not the same. Then once people just become more interested in the environment you’re creating, they become more accepting of the music. Everybody develops a general interest in going to the one place, but their interest is not all derived from the same thing.

When I first decided to do a House music party, I heard about all the rules about what you can and cannot do. There was this whole guideline of rules and protocol that I was supposed to follow. Like “Oh, you can’t do House music in a small venue”, and “ You can’t have two DJs play the same night” because the DJ had to be the feature DJ; all this shit. I didn’t even fathom it! I didn’t ask the House community to do a party. I never wanted or asked them to donate any money to help me do a party. I decided I was going to do a party in a small venue, have other people be guest residents, have a guest DJ every week, and it wasn’t going to be the same person. So I guess that was what Bang The Party would be responsible for – actually allowing DJs to know that they can play together. They can do their on music in small venues, they can stop making excuses and get on with whatever they want to get on with, if they commit to it. It became serious, because Bang The Party in a small venue started to do things. We were being judged with Body And Soul! In a venue that didn’t hold half the people, we were getting the rep of these larger clubs! People who didn’t know, from Europe, they just thought that Bang was in a big place, just on what they heard about the party. They assumed it was in a big venue.

DHN - That was certainly the image I had of it until recently…

E-Man - Ya, and it’s so intimate and it’s so small. In July, we’ll be six years old, and six years ago people acted like they couldn’t hear these things. I think if we taught people anything, it was that if you believe enough in what you’re doing, you’re committed to it; you can just make it happen.

DHN - “Bang The Party” has been very much a successor of The Loft and Paradise Garage. Yet as new generations of DJs and promoters emerge, who never experienced those clubs, can you see this vibe and underground ethos eventually eroding?

E-Man - It already has, trust me. We touch on it a lot in the movie because we interviewed a lot of people who are my age, who are in their 40’s, and we have some people who are in their 20’s. We have young dancers who connect with the older dancers, and they appreciate being embraced by these people who have lived The Paradise Garage. Some people’s attitude in the beginning was like, “You’ve never lived it, so you’ll never know what it’s like”. The stance, me and the people I know have taken is,

“You might not have been old enough to be there, but there’s no reason why you can’t experience what we experienced in these other venues. We can give you the bread of our knowledge to keep this scene going, and the best things about this scene we can teach you. We can tell you all what kind of lessons to embrace”.

The Paradise Garage was more than just a venue, it was the people who went there, they way they interacted, the way gay, straight, black, white and all people came to that venue, put music first and built a community. That’s basically what we do with Bang The Party. We had no idea that when we first started that we were building a community. We know six years later that we did because our community is very nurturing and embraces all. We don’t chastise young kids, we try to bring them into our family so the scene can survive and go on to the next generation. We need to survive, and we can’t survive being closed because hell, people are dieing off, you know what I mean? You have to have another generation of people who are interested, concerned and have the determination to keep it going. We got a lot of testimony in the documentary from kids who were looking for a dance community and really couldn’t find what they were looking for in Hip-Hop, if it was a little too thuggish, or too into material status. When they found something like Bang or Together In Spirit or BKNY, they found a sense of community where the old and new come together and we’re just embracing a whole new generation of kids, man. That’s what it’s really all about. The Shelter also, I think; everyone is coming into knowledge that to survive, we must diversify.

DHN - “Bang The Party” could be seen as a more intimate version of Body And Soul in New York. Are you concerned that its hiatus be seen as a sign of the beginning of a decline of the New York house scene?

E-Man - No, not at all, because John Davis, Danny Krivit, Francois K and Joe [Claussell] all have their own parties that are branching out. No, they don’t have a big venue any more, but I’m telling you, small clubs are taking over. Smaller venues are taking over from the bigger clubs in New York; I don’t care what any person from a big club tells you. They won’t admit it, they might feel like they’re in power because they’ve got a larger venue, but they’re not.

DHN - The recent demise of Twilo could indicate that…

E-Man - Yes, exactly. The smaller venues and the more intimate parties, at least in the deep house music scene, are the ones that I feel are thriving. Danny’s 718 Sessions are doing very well now, Deep Space with Francois is a beautiful party, John Davis is doing a party in Sweet 16, and that’s wonderful. Everybody’s getting more focused now. It’s coming back to a time period in New York now where there’s no dominant party. It’s just a lot of good music going on. Whereas before you just went to Body And Soul, now there’s like eight parties going on every Sunday night, and you’re thinking, “how am I going to hit all of these parties?” It’s that kind of situation now, and it’s a good thing, you know? Sure, it divides the community and a lot of people don’t like it, but hey – what can you going to do? Competition is good; it keeps everybody on their toes. It makes you keep your game up and doesn’t allow you to be lazy. It’s all about improving. John Davis had the whole pie, he doesn’t have the whole pie now - if he has a quarter he’s lucky. He’s got, like, a sixteenth of the pie now, man…

DHN - Many club nights start out brightly, but tend to fade after a year or so and yet “Bang The Party” has been going since 1997, albeit with some changes of venue. To what do you attribute this success, and what are the most common mistakes do you feel that most clubs make that prevent them from going the distance?

E-Man - First of all, I think the biggest mistake that people make is to think that it’s easy to throw a party. If you decide to do an event, you have to be ready for your worst day, not your best day. Or, you might have a bad month, not just one bad party. You have to commit to it; you have to decide whether you can stick around for the days to turn. When John Davis started Body And Soul he had to endure a year where Vinyl was half-empty to get the success that he finally had. He was determined to ride it out, because he knew the tide would change. That’s something that most people who consider these things should think about. If you’re thinking, “Oh, I’m going to do it, and if I run out of money, I’m going to quit”, then your party will last for about a month. That’s how it always is. The cream rises, and everything else just sinks. People who really commit to it most of the time end up doing really well. Some think, “ We know all the people they know, so we can do this”, but it takes more than that. You have to build your own community, away from the existing community. I think that’s real important. You cannot depend solely on the traditional Househeads, because they are a community divided. Those people have to divide themselves, on any given night, they can’t come to your venue all night, every night. You have to take that into consideration when you do a party. You have to ready to have some other people to compensate for when they have to leave and have their people coming in, so you have to have the strategy planned out for failure, not for success.

DHN - Bang The Party has had an impressive roster of guest DJs (Slam Mode, DJ Camacho), and they seem to be carefully selected in terms of suitability to the club’s music policy than commercial considerations. What factors do you consider when selecting guest DJs, and is there anyone you’d like to have in that hasn’t appeared already?

E-Man - I haven’t had Kevin Hedge from Blaze, but then there’s a good chance I’m going to get him. I haven’t had Spinner yet, but we’re friends, so I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen. Those two come to mind right away. Most people who have been booked by me know me. There’s a couple of things that you just have to get over immediately if you’re going to play Bang The Party. If you’re playing here to get a payday, you’re basically not going to play it. We don’t have the budget to pay for it, we don’t fly DJs in. Despite this, we still have an impressive roster of DJs who want to play the party. The reason we’ve had such an impressive roster of DJs who played the party like Tommy Musto, all these different people came to the party, looked at it and said “Damn! I like this shit! When can I get up in here?!?” If you can have someone like John "Jellybean" Benitez as your resident just because he likes the vibe of your party, you’re doing the right thing. That’s how I book most of my DJs – I allow them to see what we’re doing, and seeing that feeling that we generate. If you like that and you want to be a part of it, you’ll do what it takes to do that. There’s no screening process. If a million dollar DJ can take $100, that means everybody can take $100. On the same token, you don’t have to be a world-famous DJ to play Bang The Party, if there’s something that I feel about the way you play. I mean, there’s a bunch of new DJs like Soul G, who works at King Street, Neff Nuñez is another upcoming guy, MR. V who works with MAW, Alex Alvarez, who’s making noise as a producer now also. All these cats have played Bang and they were happy to do it. They felt, “If I play Bang, then I’m getting on the map, because I know these people are true to this music”. It works for the All-Star DJs as well as those who are coming up the ranks who want to establish themselves, and I think that’s why we’ve had the success.

DHN - You’ve been working on a documentary on “Bang The Party” recently. How is this work going, and what are you hoping it will achieve? Will there be any music released to coincide with it?

E-Man - We’re doing a compilation LP that’s coming out in July, and the documentary should be finished some time this year. I don’t know exactly when, we’re just starting to edit now, and this could be a year-long process. I think the documentary and LP will complement each other well, but I think what the film will achieve will be to show people who know nothing about house music this wonderful community that we’re a part of, and perhaps we’ll get some good people out of it. We define in the movie the connection between community, art, music, media and dance as one. These elements and the people who are involved in them all come together at Bang The Party. We have people with modern dance backgrounds teaming up with street dancers, people who were Hip-Hop dancers spinning on their head, all learning techniques from one another. I have martial artists in the mix, I have Jackson Brown, who is a wonderful artist, who creates these beautiful murals in the venue, and Julian Bevan, one of my residents, who is a graphic artist also. So we have all of these elements, connected, and that’s when it becomes a community, when the beautiful things happen. All of these people take all of their energy, all of that wonderful creative energy and start to explore it. They remove themselves from what’s safe with them and stretch out into something that’s not so safe. It’s beautiful, you know? That’s when it comes together nicely.

DHN - Here in Ireland, a complete ban on smoking in pubs and clubs looks similar to that in New York, like coming into force next year. Is this a good idea in your opinion, and has this had any tangible effect on New York club culture and attendances yet?

E-Man - No, it’s not a good idea I think. It’s going to happen anyway, but I don’t condone it. It’s already had its share of problems in New York, one of our friends already got killed…

DHN - Oh, did you know him?

E-Man - Yeah, may he rest in peace. I just think that if you enforce laws like that, you should have some kind of plan to implement them, so things like this don’t happen. Bouncers don’t have to die. It’s not like the guy was doing heroin in the club and was thrown out, he was smoking a cigarette. I feel that if these laws put security people in harm’s way, then the police should help to enforce it. Why should you make the bouncer the bad guy? That bouncer probably smoked cigarettes! He had to work at this place, he couldn’t smoke, these patrons, they couldn’t smoke, they wanted to smoke, they gave him all sorts of problems, he asks them to leave and then he winds up dead. That’s why I don’t understand this rule. I’ve worked in clubs all of my life, so I know all about second-hand smoke and I’m sure I’ve sucked up my share of it. But I’ve accepted that this is what I’ve chosen for my life, just like everybody chooses their careers, and basically it’s understood that working conditions are not always perfect in some circumstances. I don’t know, I think if anything could lead to the new Mayor’s downfall this new law could be it. Maybe he’s not too worried about it now, but I’m telling you, around election time, he’ll know how big an issue this really is. If he chooses to seek re-election or not, this could decide if he becomes Mayor or not.

DHN - He couldn’t be worse than Guilliani surely?

E-Man - Well ya, the lesser of two evils, but they’re both still evil you know? This crazy cabaret shit, that’s his legacy man. He’ll always be known as the man who killed the club scene.

DHN - It reputedly only took you 20 minutes to come up with the lyrics for “It’s Yours”. Is this true, and did you tell Jon Cutler at the time?

E-Man - It did ya, actually it took 20 minutes to write because Jon had a date with three chicks that night, and that’s the truth of the story right there. Jon had a date with these three chicks, and he was like, “You gotta come in quickly and lay this down”. I had another idea in mind for the track, he heard it, and he was like, “Nah, I don’t like that shit”. My original idea he blew out of the water, so he was like, “E, I know you can give me what I want – just tell a story, a beginning, a middle and an ending”. So that’s how “It’s Yours” happened. I threw it down in 20 minutes, he went on his date. True story.

DHN - When did you first realise that “It’s Yours” would become such a worldwide phenomenon?

E-Man - The numbers just started coming in. Neil [Aline (Chez Music)] was like, “Oh my God, he’s bangin’ it”, “It’s up to this”, “It’s up to that”, and the number just kept growing to the point where we were like, “Ahh, it can’t do more than that”, but it just kept growing! We just thought it was funny. Jon would call me and tell me someone else had just licensed the track – it was just crazy. We had no idea man, no idea. We’re all thankful for it though, it’s all good.

DHN - To what do you attribute this success?

E-Man - It was just Jon’s music was hauntingly familiar to people. Luckily, I connected to that music and wrote basically what he projected in the song. Jillian, who sang the hook, wrote a beautiful chorus to what I wrote, so I think everything just came together. Those elements are what made the record wonderful. We tried it again and truly, we didn’t have the success we had doing that record. “It’s Yours” was just a moment, you know? It wasn’t hard to do, it came together very easily, we didn’t have to think about it or anything, it just happened. That’s how great projects come about – when they’re not forced, something just happens, it clicks and everything just comes together.

DHN - The success of “It’s Yours” has given you the opportunity to tour the world. In what way has this changed your career as both a DJ and producer?

E-Man - After “It’s Yours”, people had more to talk about my name than just Bang the Party. Before that, it was like, “E-Man’s the guy who does Bang The Party in New York”, then “It’s Yours” just put another slant on it. It actually helped me, because to be an international DJ, you must have music out. So once that record was so successful, I could legitimacy go to people here [in Europe] and say, “I have a hit record out”, so I could validate getting a gig. It can be a Catch 22, because then some people were like, “OK, we know you’re from ‘It’s Yours’, but we don’t know you as a DJ. So now you’re a DJ huh?” But with the two together, it kind of solidified everything. Louis Vega something very important to me after “It’s Yours” came out. He said, “Yo man, you got a hit record out, so from this point on, every time you do a record, you shouldn’t try to do a record worse than that. You should go into the studio with that in mind – is it as good as everyone remembers?” and that’s been very true. Even though that doesn’t happen all of the time, I always go into production trying to do the best that I possibly can. I’m very critical of the way things sound, and I get that from Louis, he’s such an aficionado, and he really wants to do perfect things. The more successful producers I know like him and Jellybean and people like that, are sticklers on what they hear, what they feel and how an instrument be the difference between an OK record and a great record. Those are the things I take into it, I always go in feeling that I can do a record better than “It’s Yours” and I really strive to every time I go in.

DHN - Your tracks seem to be predominantly based on or inspired by your spontaneous MCing style. Is this true of all your tracks, or do you ever spend a few hours agonising over lyrics?

E-Man - Yes, I do agonise. Thank God for Lorie Caval, the person who does Bang the Party with me, she is also my writing partner. She’s the person who wrote “I Am The Road” that Louis Vega put out, we collaborated on that, and we just did another record called “I’m A Lot Like You”, that’s getting ready to come out. She’s a writer by trade, and she does lyrics and poetry. She has given me the discipline to become a better writer, and I talk to her about lyrics all the time, and now that I’ve started to become more aware of my production, and wanting to become more create a whole record musically and lyrically. Yeah, I do toil over lyrics now, and I wait for lyrics to come to me in certain ways. Sometimes music inspires me, some times an event will inspire me.

DHN - Your tracks are generally released on labels owned by recognised, old school producers like Kerri Chandler, Masters At Work and Francois K. Is this born out of a conscious desire to work with labels that have kindred spirits at the helm, or is it just that you would tend to be in contact with them more and they would be more aware of what you’re doing?

E-Man - First of all, I wanted to work with Kerri, without a doubt, because he is one of my favourite producers. Once I did “I Am The Road” in Sweden, I thought the way it sounded, it was designed for "Little Louie" Vega. When we listened to “Musical Prayer” we said, “This is a record for Francois and Wave would want”. All of those records were designed for the people who got them. At least, we listened to the completed records and thought, “I think this person will want that”. Knowing them helped get the record to them, but we just had a good feeling about it. Once I create these records, I get a feeling that a certain person could best represent it.

DHN - Finally, what can we look forward to from E-Man in the coming months?

E-Man - The Bang The Party compilation LP and the documentary are coming out soon. We have a six-year anniversary party coming up this summer that we’ll most likely do outside a July 4th. I’ve got some records coming out, “I’m Just Like You”, with DJ Kemal and DJ Doze, “Slangin’” with Jon Cutler and myself again, and a new tune, “Just Like Before”.

For more information, check out www.bangtheparty.com. All photos courtesy of Muema/BounceFM www.bouncefm.com. Artwork by Jackson Brown.

Interview with thanks to "El Baz", plus Denis and all the staff at Club One, Cork. Interview by Ken Rooney, ken@deephousenetwork.com