Charles Webster Interview

Extract of an Interview with Charles Webster

Words: Paul Johnston (Keep On Magazine)

Charles Webster has been at the leading edge of emotive house music for over a decade. As well as releasing countless twelves, under a variety of aliases, he was also the man behind Presence, whose All Systems Gone LP stands out as one of deep house’s highlights. Last years Born on the 24th of July achieved blanket praise from both the critics and the record buying public. Charles has also proved that he can be as rocking in his productions as he can be deep; just check his recent dub of Nutty featuring Daddy Mdali or his mix of Alexi Delano’s Round and Round for recent evidence. We spoke to him about his current projects, his thoughts on the state of the music and the secret of his longevity.

You’ve been in the industry a long time - what do you think of the current house scene? The media don’t seem to cover it much these days, but musically it’s thriving...

I’m very pleased, in many ways, that they don’t write about it. Once they start writing about something, they try to create a scene, and then it just disappears. If something’s trendy and you’re attached to that scene, when the trend’s gone, you go with it. That’s why house music’s been around for so long. Because it’s evolved, it’s hard to pin down.

Do you make a conscious effort to avoid being ‘trendy’?

It’s something that’s just happened, but I do help it along in some ways. I think it’s vital to do that; there were so many people in the nineties who were the latest ‘hot new thing’ and then you never hear from them again. It’s important to cut your own little niche.

Do you think there are any trends within house music at the moment?

I like the way it’s quite open now, there aren’t really any trends, so people can be more experimental - even on bigger labels. In some ways it just gets better, even if no one’s making any money. The records getting made are a non-stop stream of good music; sometimes you have to look a little harder, but it’s all there. Every couple of weeks you find a really good record. I go shopping most days and trawl through the new releases, although most of it’s crap...

That’s the same in any genre though isn’t it?

Oh yeah, I think it’s a double-edged sword, technology has made making music easier. It allows everyone to make music but also floods the market with a load of crap - as with punk.

Many people have said that it’s a bad time for the record industry right now.

It’s a bad time globally for any business. People talk about a downturn in clubbing, but hopefully that’s just the superclubs dying out; you can’t pack out a 3000 capacity venue every Saturday night. Hopefully it will filter out some of the crap and leave the people who are in it for the right reasons - medium-sized clubs, no crazy DJ fees, no crazy remix fees. For want of a better term, keeping it a bit more underground, more real.

Tell us something about your current projects...

I’m working on the next Presence album at the moment.

How does the stuff you do as Presence differ from the Peacefrog album you did under your own name?

The Presence project is more tied down to specific singers. It’s more house, although having said that it’ll be half downtempo.

When you write albums, presumably the creative process is different to when you do remixes or singles? Singles are for clubs and albums are for home listening right?

Definitely. I’m not a big fan of house albums; there aren’t many good ones. Motorbass did it, I think theirs was a great house-based album, Martin’s [Atjazz] first album… Moodyman, although it’s debatable whether you could call that house or not - it’s kind of out on its own.

Are people limited by the fact that they’re known for doing banging club tunes, so they feel compelled to make an album of dancefloor tracks, but then it doesn’t really work as an album?

Yeah, it’s a “you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. But for me it’s more about the songs, and I don’t really care what people think it is. I’ve made enough house records for people to know that I can do house. It certainly affects the way people perceive you, when I get offered gigs and remixes, people are like, “You’re not going to DJ like that are you?!” as if I’m going to play something like the Peacefrog album [laughing]. If it’s a new promoter, and as that’s the only record I’ve made under my own name, they might not know that I’ve made over a hundred other records under different names… so, my answer is just to do what you want to do, see what happens, not try to over-think it. If I want to do a house record on an album, I’ll do it, if I want to do an ambient track I’ll do it; I think the sign of a good album is if it lasts beyond 6 months of buying it.

So what’s the key to longevity?

Just do your own thing, have your own sound that no-one else can do, not make a fool of yourself, not just do something for the money, be honest with yourself. I think people can hear in the music if it’s honest or not, if people can believe in

it - that’s what they want from music. It’s about letting your personality come out, doing it for the right reasons. That’s what I’m trying to do with the next Presence album.

The first Presence album sold very well.

Yes, fantastically well for something with no advertising budget and no hit singles. The Peacefrog album sold well too, with no promotion or anything.

It was a word-of-mouth success then?

Yeah, I think quality shines through. I’m not boasting or anything, but it does.

That album’s quite curious in that it initially seems a bit odd, but the more you listen to it, the more you like it.

Yeah, a lot of people have said that, which I think is the sign of a good album. A lot of the stuff I listen to at home is like that. I remember the second Blue Nile album, thinking, “God, this is awful!” I almost took it back, but now it’s obviously the best thing they’ve ever done... at the time it took me a long time to get into it.

Is that basically the difference between singles and albums, in a DJ set, the tunes have to work immediately or people aren’t going to dance?

Yeah, obviously as a DJ you need them to work pretty quickly... it’s a very different method of enjoying music, being in a club rather than being at home. You want energy, you don’t want to be too challenged, but at home perhaps you do want that.

You can read the remainder of this interview in Keep On Magazine Issue 1. www.keeponmagazine.com