Session Transcript:
Larry Heard
Red Bull Music Academy, Seattle 2005

The video stream for this lecture can be watched here.

It’s a clichè but this time it´s really appropriate to say: Meet the man behind the myth. Many things have been circulating about Larry Heard - the man who we owe the meaning of ’deep’ in house music. He is responsible for numerous classics and deserves to be fanatically worshipped by music lovers all around the world. This time the legend himself talks about his true history, how he changed his drums for machines, and how he listened to the radio and finally got into the club circuit of the blossoming house scene in Chicago of the mid-'80s. Doing his ’research’ - as Larry Heard puts it with the thoroughness of a wholehearted musician - he met soulmates like Robert Owens with whom he gave birth to Fingers Inc.. Up to this day the self-proclaimed ’late bloomer’ has stayed a decent, soulful and still productive mastermind amidst the turbulent history of house. You’ll feel it.

RBMA: »And we have a very, very special guest here and it’s my pleasure to announce him. A man who shouldn’t need an introduction, who was maybe not solely responsible for house music but certainly put deepness into it and taught the machines some soul – Mr. Larry Heard.«

(applause / cheers)

Larry Heard: »Thank you. «

RBMA: »Welcome. So, Larry, you told me last night, while you were recording a great radio show for us here, that your time as a child and as a teenager was very important for you in terms of music. How did you come to music?«

Larry Heard: »Well, that were just the formative years for me, just where I started to appreciate music and started to... well, the way I approach music when I do my original music was all formed during these years of maybe from about 1968 to 1978. It covers a lot of styles of music also.«

RBMA: »You were listening to radio a lot back then, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, that’s pretty much all you really had. Back in those days and even the '60s, I don’t think FM radio had really blossomed at that time, so it was kind of AM radio, two or three minute singles. But the good thing about it was, it was a wide range of style so I can see where in doing some research as far as looking back to be able to say something. I didn’t notice this crazy spectrum of things I was hearing all the time.«

RBMA: »So, it was not one kind of music that caught your attention?«

Larry Heard: »No, like blues, rock, jazz, soul, gospel, I think were the essential ones. And reggae started to come into the picture during my teen years when I started, you know, got to the point where I started seeking out music that I can be related to, that maybe wasn’t on the radio.«

RBMA: »And you also brought the first record that you ever bought with you.«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, saved my lunch money. We had this custom to go to this record store with my mother and father and see them buy records and, you know, how kids tend to be, you want to do what you see your parents do, so I saved my lunch money and asked my mother when are we going to the record stores so I can buy me a record too, you know? And this is the record that I bought right here. Actually the main song is Hot Fun In The Summertime, which people probably already know is a big hit for Sly & The Family Stone, but it was the b-side that I was more into. I turn it up. Is it loud enough?«

(music: Sly & The Family Stone - Everybody Is A Star)

»So, that’s the basic essence of the song.«

RBMA: »And were Sly & The Family Stone role models for you in terms of songwriting? «

Larry Heard: »I was too young to have role models other than my parents at this time because I was about nine or ten years old. But I did take notice of the music to the point where I made a mental note and wanted to get this 45. And of course, since I have one 45, you take great pride in that, you just play it over and over and that’s what I did, how kids do. «

RBMA: »And when did you start to learn an instrument?«

Larry Heard: »That would be a lot of years later. I was kind of a late bloomer out of the siblings in my family. I have four brothers and all four of them were playing guitar and things like that when they were like 10 or 11-years old. So my parents always cultivated having some level of coacher injected into our upbringing, so we had a piano in the house, and they would always buy us the toy versions of different instruments, of bongos, guitars, drums, things like that. And my brothers started to really get more into it before I did, I was about 17-years old when I was motivated to pursue learning the drums.«

RBMA: »And did your parents play instruments too?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, they both played piano, they had piano lessons in their upbringing, and they both sang.«

RBMA: »And why drums?«

Larry Heard: »I just thought, it was cool. I took guitar as my instrument in school. We had to take two instruments, well, we had to take two: a flute or recorder and then a second instrument, and I chose guitar for that, because I figured if my brothers would do it, I could do it too. That’s what I did for my grade. But in the process of that going on I was kind of exposed to people playing other instruments, then kind of started paying attention to the drummer’s role in the rhythm section, and felt like that would be a good place for me.«

RBMA: »And you started playing in bands back then already?«

Larry Heard: »Yes, I started right away. Because actually there was a man in the neighbourhood by the name of Kevin Lacey, and he said he was putting a band together. He said he was looking for a drummer and I said: ”Oh, I play drums.“ And I hadn’t started playing drums yet. You know, I was just kind of thinking about it. So I had to escalate the process of getting some drums and hide out from this guy until I kind of learned how to do something. But I found out that I had a natural aptitude for doing it, and as things turned out, I didn’t end up in a band with this guy but in a band with some older guys who were playing r&b covers and things like that.«

RBMA: »How long did you play with them?«

Larry Heard: »I can’t really remember because pretty much all the things I did on drums spanned about a seven year period with me on jam bands, r&b cover bands, art rock bands, reggae bands, contemporary jazz, kind of set-ups, you know?«

RBMA: »And you mentioned 1977 as the year you picked up the drums.«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, that’s when I started, sort like that period between ’77 and ’84 where I kind of stumbled into the whole blossoming of kind of house music scene or movement or whatever you want to call it.«

RBMA: »Because 1977 was to my knowledge also the year when Robert Williams opened the Warehouse and brought Frankie Knuckles to Chicago.«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, that was the year? I didn’t realize that.«

RBMA: »Were you aware of that whole club [scene]?«

Larry Heard: »No, I wasn’t because I was involved in the live music scene, so the clubs I was familiar with were more the live music venues. So I was kind of late bloomer with regards to club music also because I was just doing something totally different at that time.«

RBMA: »And when did you get on the club circuit then?«

Larry Heard: »Well, ’84, when I got to the point in the bands that I have dealing with were not really receptive to my creative ideas, me being the drummer. I don’t think it’s really customary for the drummer to have creative ideas, they just play the beat. So I left the last band that I was in and bought myself a synthesizer and a drummachine to keep the time, so I could kind of experiment with the sounds I have been hearing. The keyboard players kind of use in the bands, that I have been in, I found it intriguing because of new technology, these Arp synthesizers, Moog’s, Oberheim’s, all those things, I was really drawn to it.«

RBMA: »And do you remember the first synthesizer and the first drummachine?«

Larry Heard: »I bought a Roland TR-707 for the drummachine, the keyboard was a Roland Jupiter 6.«

RBMA: »Do you still have them?«

Larry Heard: »No, I don’t have it because after a certain amount of time with gathering and buying instruments as I was able to, I found myself with a whole lot of equipment, kind of crowding myself out of my place, so I was trying to condense down and I sold it to someone.«

RBMA: »And you knew about the club scene back then as you bought your drummachine and your synthesizer?«

Larry Heard: »Not really. Like I was saying, I was on the live club side of things. And one of the guys on the block, I let him hear the stuff that I was kind of playing around with, he said that it sounded like the music that they play at the Warehouse. And once I got that piece of information and I had to start doing some research and find out: "OK, what does this Warehouse place? Maybe I can be somewhere where I can maybe to be able to test out what I’m doing, seeing if it relates to anything that’s going on, see if anybody likes it."«

RBMA: »And you paid the Warehouse then a visit?«

Larry Heard: »No, actually, I ended up being a little late for the Warehouse and even though when I did find out where it was located, it turned out that it was like a few blocks from where I worked. I think it was a transition time for them where Frankie Knuckles - was it Frankie Knuckles at the Warehouse? Yeah, they were transitioning to the next place Frankie Knuckles played at, which was called The Power Plant. So that’s where I come into full exposure, if you would say, to kind of the club setting, the dance club setting.«

RBMA: »And what was the first song you showed to the friend of yours who said it sounds like Warehouse music?«

Larry Heard: »It was Mystery Of Love, the original version of it.«

RBMA: »You have that with you, right, we can listening to it?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, I do, I will try to find it (looks in his CD case). We may talk while I try to find it.«

RBMA: »This was also the record you released then, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yes. (continues to looks for the song, the moderator helps )«

RBMA: »Should be also on... «

Larry Heard: »That wouldn’t be that version. That’s the third version.«

RBMA: »So how many versions are there of Mystery Of Love?«

Larry Heard: »There was an original version, well, my personal prototype that I had done, that I had a copy of. I made three acetates, I kept a copy, I gave one to Frankie Knuckles and I gave the other one to Ron Hardy and since then I’ve heard they exchanged hands a whole lot of times. I think one of the acetates was in Larry Levan’s posession when he died and from that point I don’t know where it went to. But you can ask me something else while I’m trying to track down this. We got digital music meltdown here. So much stuff.«

RBMA: »You mentioned Ron Hardy, he was probably the other most influential DJ Chicago had back then, right? He was playing at the Music Box.«

Larry Heard: »Yes.«

RBMA: »And you went to the Music Box then?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, I went to it. I think my personal preference, my personality kind of being more a laid back person into that being Frankie Knuckles, me being kind of a serious-natured person and things like that I was more comfortable in what felt more like a serious environment. Whereas Ron Hardy was kind of like real upbeat, real kind of wild for me, but I went to it. And then I went to a lot of events that Ron Hardy played and actually heard him played in different styles that I never have heard before, so I was surprised to find out more about his level of ability.«

RBMA: »So what were the main differences between Frankie Knuckles as a DJ and Ron Hardy?«

Larry Heard: »Well, I couldn’t tell you any in technical terms, but it just felt like Ron Hardy was more aiming for the younger, more energetic crowd. And Frankie Knuckles was kind of doing more the next age bracket up I think, who don’t want to get out and hurt their knees when they are dancing on the dancefloor but do want to get out, and socialize, and hear good music.«

RBMA: »So one being the house punk and one being the soul gentleman or something like that?«

Larry Heard: »(still looking for the CD) Kind of something like that, yeah. I’m still trying to track this out, so I’m down while we are talking though.«

RBMA: »So, what were the reactions to Mystery Of Love then?«

Larry Heard: »Oh, the reactions were great. They were actually so great it was to the point that Ron Hardy claimed that he made the song, and Frankie Knuckles claimed that he made the song (laughter). And I kind of show up on the scene and kind of foil everything for both of them, when people who knew me saying this was the guy who made the Mystery Of Love track. So that kind of put a little tension in the relationship between myself and Frankie and Ron Hardy. Not from my perspective but I think they maybe always felt like I would harbour some resentment for them, but to me it was more of a compliment. I mean, who would claim something that they feel is crap? So it confirmed for me that I was at something, that I was onto something and people could relate to.«

RBMA: »So was this always a big thing in Chicago that copyrights...? «

Larry Heard: »The scene we are talking about isn’t that like a massive scene, we are not talking about a half million people, you know, we are talking about like maybe a few thousand kids maybe, which is healthy enough to survive but it’s not like the following 50 Cent has or Guns n’ Roses and things like that but enough to kind of survive.«

RBMA: »But competition was fierce nonetheless?«

Larry Heard: »Yes, of course. All of the local DJs, even if you are dealing with like a thousand people who may regularly go out and party, that may be divided between seven or eight DJs who were doing different events and residencies around the city so that number is kind of reduced as far as a certain amount are going to Frankie Knuckles, a certain amount to Ron Hardy, a certain amount going to Wayne Williams and André Hatchet and those other guys, who were around at the time but just less known.«

RBMA: »And this is also manifested in the two main labels back at the time in Chicago: Trax Records on the one hand and DJ International on the other?«

Larry Heard: »I’m not sure I understand where you are coming from.«

RBMA: »The competition thing, you know?«

Larry Heard: »Oh, it was always competition in business. I mean, if I’m selling shirts and you are selling shirts, we are automatically in a competition, so that’s just a natural part of it. But actually, the funny thing about DJ International and Trax is, they started off as a partnership. And they couldn’t keep from betraying each other. And that’s why it turned into two labels. All those storys we heard over the years about the craftyness and some of the business tactics of those guys, they started doing those things to each other and that is what kind of a separated them into two labels. Because actually Rocky Jones, who ran DJ International, he was doing the label and Larry Sherman had the pressing plant, so he was doing the pressing for him. And Larry Sherman would bootleg Rocky’s records before they even got out on the street and undercut him, so that’s how it turned into two labels. So the warning signs were there right from the beginning, but we didn’t know the inner workings of what was going on until years later.«

RBMA: »So you didn’t get really all the royalties you should have, right?«

Larry Heard: »No, the things I did on Trax and DJ International, we got good amounts from him. It is a far cry from what producers and artists can look forward to receive right now. Because I definitely got numerous tens of thousands of Dollars from Larry Sherman for one song. But these days you are lucky if you get $100 as an advance for a release, so we didn’t come out of it in the poor house, no.«

RBMA: »So all those stories about the shady business tactics of Larry Sherman are...?«

Larry Heard: »The stories are true, they can be blown out of proportion. Because it’s not like even like right now, I still have the advantage, of where I’m still doing releases and DJ International is not. And I’m still doing releases and who cares about what Trax is doing in 2005? Their whole legacy is like 1986, 1987 and that’s what they have to survive on. Because nobody would trust them with any real good music. They’ll give them their throw away material. Just to kind of do something with the label, just for the sake of doing it.«

RBMA: »But you put Mystery Of Love originally out on your own label, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, that came out on Alleviated, that was Alleviated’s first release.«

RBMA: »And then you licenced it to DJ International.«

Larry Heard: »No, I didn’t, I re-recorded it. It ended up being a totally different version, because the thing I did, it was done at home on - I don’t know if it was a reel to reel or a cassette or something like that, but it was something very low budget, very ’nuts and bolts’-kind of a thing, and so I don’t think the recording quality was up to what they were trying to release, so we went into a studio and did another rendition of it. And the third time I included Robert [Owens] on it doing the spoken part at the beginning and the singing at the end.«

RBMA: »So maybe we should listen to the other version then if you...?«

Larry Heard: »Yes, I totally forgot about the other one.«

RBMA: »If you can find it.«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, it’s so hard to find everything in here, it’s so much music. What song am I looking for?«

RBMA: »Mystery Of Love.«

Larry Heard: »I just don’t know if it’s going to be the right version or the initial version, it will be one of them.«

RBMA: »Any version is fine.«

Larry Heard: »But the first one is just special for me, it just holds the essence of what I was doing, what just naturally flowed out of me. The next one has ended up being more rehearsed. So I don’t really feel the same intensity in those versions but that’s showbiz, I guess.«

(music: Larry Heard - Mystery Of Love)

»This is the DJ International version, which is like the third rendition.«

(music: Larry Heard - Mystery Of Love / applause)

RBMA: »When did this version of this timeless piece of house music come out ?«

Larry Heard: »About 1986, yeah, that was the DJ International release.«

RBMA: »And that was also the version that came to the most prominence, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, because DJ International wanted a thing that I kind of rationalized out for myself. Me doing Alleviated, I just basically had records in the trunk of my car. And I could take them to the local record stores that I knew, but I didn’t have a plan as far as giving you outside of the boundaries of Chicago. So that’s what I say when Robert Owens and Harry Dennis were actually the ones who knew something about DJ International and Trax, and took me to meetings with those guys and I felt that at least they can get it outside of the boundaries of the city. I just didn’t really think that far ahead, it was just me coming from being a drummer to being thrust into the position of a label CEO, it wasn’t really what I was expecting. It’s just what happened at the time, so I didn’t have any plan. That’s where DJ International and Trax did help me out, despite of all the horror stories, you know, I did something get out of it that I wanted.«

RBMA: »You just mentioned Robert Owens and Harry Dennis, how did you get in touch with those guys?«

Larry Heard: »Actually, it was the same guy in my neighbourhood, who told me about the Warehouse, actually introduced me to a DJ named Toni Harris who lived around the corner from where my mother lived. So I met him and kind of was talking with him and was asking about some of the parties going on around town, that were playing like at that time disco music, it was kind of at the end of the disco era, and started to go to some events and just do my research and find out what was going on. Because prior to that all I was really familiar with was like the biggest hits like the Bee Gees and Donna Summer and that kind of thing, Chic, those kind of groups. And the clubs, of course, were taking it a lot of steps further and maybe not even just one, so I had to go out and see what was going on. I ended up meeting Robert Owens at one of the parties that I went to. Toni Harris introduced me to him, and we started talking, he was telling me about him being a vocalist and things like that and we just exchanged information and just kind of coordinated getting together. And when we did that on that first day we recorded our prototype to A Path. Because I think he was kind of in a similar situation as myself where his creative ideas were being stifled because he had a lot of people who were telling him that he couldn’t sing, that he never would amount to anything and things like that. And for me being that drummer in the band and the other musicians not being receptive to the ideas we just had all of these bottled up ideas so it was a perfect coming together of like-minded individuals and that’s why it just took off so quickly. I had tons of ideas and he had tons of ideas and we put our ideas together.«

RBMA: »And you formed Fingers Inc. then, right?«

Larry Heard: »The name thing is another tricky issue, because it started off as Loose Fingers, my little brothers made up this whole Loose Fingers thing. It just goes back to my tendency to grab an instrument and start faking like I knew how to play it, get on the piano and fake like I’m playing something. So I always move my fingers fast and they started saying this Loose Fingers thing and it went I put a record out and that’s what I ended up using for the artist name. I didn’t know what the response was going to this stuff, it’s off the wall, it’s I don’t know anything about the music business other than I hear records and I buy them, that’s pretty much the extent of what I knew. And that’s why I used this name like a safety net. If it turned out to be a total embarassment, I can actually hide and say I don’t know who that Loose Fingers is. And it was modified to Mr. Fingers within one release, really. And then modified to Fingers Inc., you know, when I teamed up with Robert.«

RBMA: »Were you also a DJ back then already?«

Larry Heard: »No, I was kind of new to the whole culture I think and I started to pay more attention, because we had disco music and early electronic music that was already on the radio. But it just made me focus a litttle bit more or intentionally pay attention and – what was the question?«

RBMA: »If you were a DJ back then.«

Larry Heard: »No, I wasn’t a DJ. But the mixes, I think, was the thing that got me curious about how that worked, the principle behind blending the two records together. Me being a drummer, I played in bands with two drummers, it was like: "OK, it’s got to be just like that." So I think I can do it if I get my hands on some turntables, get all the tools I need, and it turned out that that was true. Once I got my hands on them and I could figure it out, and I just started doing it from that point for my own fun. In my research, of course, I was starting to buy 12“ records, stuff I was hearing in the mixes. I recorded the mix and get my walkman and get down to the record store and ask the guys what’s this and what’s this and what’s this and buy things and I would come home and do my experimentation and see, can I do what Farley Jackmaster Funk does and all these guys on the radio? So that’s where that started.«

RBMA: »Farley Jackmaster Funk and the radio, this was WBMX, right? Maybe you can talk a little bit about the importance of radio in Chicago back then.«

Larry Heard: »Radio was just as important then as it is now. If you want people to hear what you are doing, they have to have a form where they have access to it. I think that timing has played a key role in the willingness to kind of put on music that was a little outside of the norm or the acceptable standard at the time because FM [radio] was kind of new. So they would typically play like whole album sides on FM radio, because you got stereo now as opposed to AM, and you play a whole rock album, a whole jazz album and things like that, you play the whole 16 minute version of Donna Summer and things like that. So it was more the kind of audiofile place to hear music. And they were competing against AM, which was the standard at the time and people were just so accustomed to their transistor radio, they just had AM on, they didn’t have FM. So they had liberty to take all kinds of chances back then and they were the ones that in response to some of the college stations in Chicago who had these mixed shows on with guys who not known but doing the same things as Farley and Frankie Knuckles and Hot Mix 5 guys. And they had the things that they were doing on the college station, and all of the stations started to notice on certain days at certain times that all of their audience would disappear and they would go to these college stations. And so FM radio was the one who decided: ”OK, we need to get some guys who do this on our station,“ which was brave at the time. And that’s where the whole Hot Mix 5 concept originated.«

RBMA: »Hot Mix 5 were Ralph Rosario, Farley Jackmaster Funk, and who else?«

Larry Heard: »Mickey ’Mixin’ Oliver, Scott ’Smokin’ Seals, that’s four.«

RBMA: »Yeah. Who’s the fifth?«

Larry Heard: »I’m not remembering. It’s probably easy but I’m just not remembering who the fifth person is right now.«

RBMA: »And those were mix shows with nothing else but what was being called house music already in Chicago.«

Larry Heard: »It wasn’t being called house music, that didn’t start until later the media got a hold of it and it has to have some identifying title when they get it. We were just listening to these cool records from all around the world, we hadn’t dubbed it anything at the time. It was just the show where they played all those records and you tape it and you run to the record store the next day to find the things you want to get.«

RBMA: »Do you have something with you that is some sort of classic WBMX disco song?«

Larry Heard: »Classic WBMX, well, (looks in his folder), wow.«

(music: One Way - Music)

RBMA: »So, those three tracks are pretty much some sort of essence of what was going on in Chicago back then?«

Larry Heard: »Yes, they are incomplete, because there was a lot of stuff that was coming out of like Belgium, Spain, Holland, Germany, those were actually the predecessors of what has started to happen in Chicago, in Detroit, and New York, of course, always had its own kind of thing going on because of the amount of distance, us being in the Midwest and them being on the East Coast, they had their own kind of approach.«

RBMA: »So we just listened to Chip E - Time To Jack, right? The other one was Savage Progress, - Hot Speaking To Beat and the last one was One Way - Music, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah.«

RBMA: »And you mentioned Italo disco and all that kind of stuff and this was much more important for Chicago than it was for, for instance, New York. And do you know why?«

Larry Heard: »Well, that’s what we were hearing. It was not like we were the ones, you know, telling the radio what to play, that’s what was being placed before us. So, that was someone else’s decision, people, program directors at the stations and in our region, so maybe in Detroit the program directors just had different ideas.«

RBMA: »I’m just asking because some of these Italo tracks have pretty strange lyrics to English ears because the lyrics don’t always make sense, right?«

Larry Heard: »Is that a question?«

RBMA: »Yeah, that is a question. Why it was like that.«

Larry Heard: »Oh, I don’t know, that would be a question for the artist to answer.«

RBMA: »No, why people responded to that kind of stuff.«

Larry Heard: »Well, the music, the rhythmic stuff that was going on, it was in the melodies and things like that, you know? Because we just responded on a primal level, just like when I was a little kid. I mean, it’s not like I knew anything about chords and scales and progressions and things like that, all I knew was, I like it or I don’t. So the same thing applies to the masses, they don’t have any musical knowledge but they know what they like when they hear it. And that was the case with those records we were hearing.«

RBMA: »And in respects to your own career, what went on after Mystery Of Love? «

Larry Heard: »It was a pretty quick progress because by the time Mystery Of Love was on the streets and Robert and I had worked up tons and tons of other things, and we were trying to figure out ways of getting those things out on the street. So hence comes some of the alter ego names in, you know, I was starting to get different projects out on the street as Gherkin Jerks and The It and House Factor, all these different names I started making up at the time, which is inspired by George Clinton, because I saw him doing that, so it was like: ”That could work.“«

RBMA: »So, that’s the explanation for all the different monikers you used? George Clinton?«

Larry Heard: »Yes, there is nothing complicated or a deep philosophical thing, it’s just a way of giving more things out because I had a whole lot of material.«

RBMA: »And during the end of the '80s and the beginning of the '90s you also got a major record deal with MCA?«

Larry Heard: »Think probably around ’88, which is pretty quick once again, because from the scene really kind of taking off and blossoming in Chicago in ’86, and of course New York is a hop, a skip and a jump away and Miami, so those were the three spots where I was really starting to take off. Of course, the label started to notice, when like for myself, I have Mystery Of Love is on the charts right next to What Have You Done For Me Lately. And A&M notices, you know, what is this song? I’m sure they took a great offense to it because there was a much larger investment involved in getting these big name artists on these charts, and the next thing you know, these guys making songs in their basements and they are on the charts right alongside of them. So, they tried to come. And I think actually the first artist to get signed was Adeva out of New York. I think, Blaze was pretty quick right near the beginnings of that. And Jovonn, even though an album didn’t come out, he got signed by Warner Brothers and it kind of went in little increments like that, whereas the next one being like Ten City with Atlantic. And then, of course, I was always kind of this misunderstood character, where people were like: "Can we even approach this guy? Because it’s like we did never see him, he doesn’t really talk a whole lot to people, he just kind of more observes everything that’s going on." So I had some people kind of stand-offish about me, and Sony Music was interested and they were calling around and saying: ”What’s this guy like? Is he one of these fanatical artist people where he won’t do what we want him to do because of this whole artistic thing?“ And Capitol and Warner Brothers, of course each one of them had a different concept about the changes they were already going to start to make. Because Warner Brothers was going to replace Ron Wilson with Arnold Jarvis. Which would have been cool, but I didn’t feel all that comfortable with them all coming in and changing a person that I picked to be in the project that I kind of originated, so I didn’t really like that. So it took a minute for somebody to come around who kind of understood what I wanted to do, and I also wanted continue doing the label thing that I started doing a few years earlier, and so MCA was the one that said: ”We will do a label deal in addition to the artist deal.“ And the Introduction album was already recorded, so it was just a matter of giving the master mixes to them and them getting it out.«

RBMA: »And do you have an example with you of one of the songs of Introduction? Because it was a step further for you, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, this will be maybe about five years into kind of developing my composition skills and production skills. I think something is on here. No, not my version, let’s see, OK.«

(music: Mr. Fingers - What About This Love)

RBMA: »So this song was completely done by you in terms of lyrics, vocals?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, actually, it was actually a milestone for me, the first song that I sang the lead vocals to. But actually there is an interesting story behind it because David Hollister was the one who was planned to sing the song. And he didn’t show up at the studio that day and so I just ended up laying down a rough vocal track, so I can remember the basic melody for the lyrics. And pretty much everybody that was present at the studio that day was saying that they liked what I had done and thought I should probably keep it that way. To my good fortune I took the advice and we actually released this as a single. Even before the MCA deal because this was done, this dated back to 1989 when I did this one, which is a couple of years before I did the MCA deal and actually started a bidding war because this one ended up on the chart tight next to Been Around The World and stuff like that. And so all these labels are wondering once again: ”Here are these guys, these basement guys, come and getting right on the chart next to our big artist that we put a million dollars behind.“ So companies started coming with bids at that point, you know?«

RBMA: »What were your final experiences with dealing with a major label?«

Larry Heard: »I didn’t like it because you kind of turn into an employee when you’re a signed artist to a label as opposed to this capacity that I gotten used to. Even though I stumbled into it, I was getting accustomed to the idea of having control over when releases come out, what releases come out, what they sound like, and I didn’t have anybody telling me: "Well, do this, do that, make it sound like Teddy Riley or make it sound like this or something like that," you know? So I enjoyed having that freedom, and I started to see myself losing that with the major labels.«

RBMA: »So you would always suggest to a young kid when getting into music and releasing music to start his own label?«

Larry Heard: »I mean, if you have the means to do that, if you have money to invest in manufacturing your 12“s or CDs or whatever medium you chose to put out, if you can do that, it’s a great learning experience as far as the innerworkings of selling recorded music. But if you want to just go right straight to the like Eminem thing or Destiny’s Child thing, I guess you will do have to do deal with the majors because you will need their influence as far as radio and television and things like that. So, I enjoy the freedom as opposed to the large financial game personally.«

RBMA: »Speaking of Eminem, what probably most people don’t know is that you have also done a few hip hop beats in your life.«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, I have done a lot actually. I had so many closed calls with people where they would thinking about connecting with me to do something but for some reason this cloud has always hung over me that where people think I’m inaccessable and so they say: ”Oh, we want to work with this guy but who knows how to get in touch with him, he’s so mysterious,“ you know? And actually Common Sense was one of those guys, Crucial Confllict, Tongue Twista, some of those early guys. And some of the people, that were doing some kind of support work for them, were students of mine, where I took a couple of people under my wing and kind of teach them a little bit about different production styles and it would help me at the same time. While they are asking me questions, then I have a reason to learn it so I can give them an answer. So it was kind of a two way thing where I learn something and I share something and some of them work with some of the artists out of Chicago.«

RBMA: »And Common Sense is known as?«

Larry Heard: »Mmh?«

RBMA: »As Common today, right? Common Sense, you mentioned him, is known as Common today.«

Larry Heard: »Yeah.«

RBMA: »And you brought some of those hip hop beats with you, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah. I’ve got a few here. They are old, you know, this is maybe about ten years back now. I really took some time, did my experimenting around with doing some hip hop kind of demos for some guys.«

(music: Larry Heard - unknown)

»That kind of would have been more like a Premier kind of flavour.«

RBMA: »It sounded pretty Pete Rock-ish to me.«

(music: Larry Heard - unknown)

Larry Heard: »It’s another guy who I just thought had a really cool voice, he called himself Don One. I don’t know if he had done anything, but this is what I did.«

(music fades out / applause)

RBMA: »So, it’s so hard in this hip hop business, is this one of the reasons why this stuff never saw the light of the day? It was all unreleased, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yes, it’s unreleased. I was just doing really a demo for these guys because they were trying to pursue their thing. Chicago had its kind of blossoming, well, it had a hip hop scene. So there were people there, of course they were inspired by the things they were hearing, what people do in other parts of the country. But just like the guys said in the label: no Russell’s, no Puff Daddy’s and stuff like that in Chicago. So, they were pretty much on their own, you know? And a lot of people didn’t end up achieving much of anything yet.«

RBMA: »And I have to get back to the '80s in Chicago once again because what is your take on the term house music? There are so many different stories about this. How did it come up?«

Larry Heard: »Oh, really I have no take. I know what it is, for what it is. It’s just the term that is coined to kind of incapsulate this thing that we are talking about. Just as we like to refer to tomatoes and lettuce as vegetables, we kind of put titles on things to help people get a handle on what it is what we are discussing.«

RBMA: »And it came from the Warehouse then, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah. So that whole Warehouse, that ’house’-part of it was kind of adapted for the name of the style.«

RBMA: »We are talking about terms. Who is ’Jack’ and what is he all about?«

Larry Heard: »Who ’Jack’ is? (laughs, audience joins in) ’Jack’ is a fictional character some guys made up. I don’t know who he is.«

RBMA: »But you don’t know how this came up?«

Larry Heard: »No, I don’t know. That kind of goes back to some of the Hot Mix 5 things on the radio, where in addition to beat mixing records they would sometimes play acapellas and things on top of records, and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Angela Davis were popular once for DJs to play. And this particular guy, Chuck Roberts I think, just made up this speech. It was very reminiscent of a Cinnamon thing, I think, something that was on Jive Records, I can’t really recall the title of it in my head, and that was his little speech that became legendary. But there is no real person ’Jack’ to my knowledge.«

RBMA: »And someone took this speech and put it on a track of yours?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, he put in on top of Can You Feel It among others but that was the one that ended up coming out in various bootlegs and things like that.«

(music: Fingers Inc. - Can You Feel It)

RBMA: »Do you remember the day you produced Can You Feel It?«

Larry Heard: »I just remember that it was in the winter and at that time I was living in this apartment that had these really big windows, kind of a loft place and I had a view of downtown Chicago and it was snowing. All of my friends that were over that night, they all remember that visual of the snow falling and this music playing. And actually a friend of mine gave the song it’s title, because I couldn’t think of what to call it. That actually happened a lot that I asked friends to name the song for me. So, sometime in the winter of ’85.«

RBMA: »Makes sense to me. And this song also characterizes maybe the Summer Of Love on a little island called England in the late '80s and did you experience that too? Because I think you toured Europe with Fingers Inc. back then, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, but I don’t know if we were getting ’round to all of the parties that were going on. And of course, us just coming over for a couple of weeks, we wouldn’t be able to experience what they are experiencing year around. So I can’t say that I fully experienced it.«

RBMA: »But you played at places like the Hacienda in Manchester, right?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, and Hippodrome, The Fridge and some of those old clubs. I don’t know if they are still around now.«

RBMA: »And how did you feel about that coming from Chicago, flying over to Europe and seeing all those kids totally losing it to your music?«

Larry Heard: »Well, of course it is very encouraging to see that happening. But everything was happening so fast because between me getting my handle on operating a label and acting in that capacity and composing and producing stuff and kind of helping Robert Owens out with the live shows and things like that, there were just so many things going on and you didn’t really have time to sit back and just think about everything. We were so busy doing things that we had no time to think until after you finished all the things that were going on. So I didn’t really have any conscious thoughts other than it being cool to me and just getting a glimpse into what guys like the Jackson 5 had experienced and things like that, that was very cool, but for me it wasn’t really what my goal was as an individual. I think Robert was more the person who was interested in being out front, and me I’m kind of a support person. Like the characteristic of my decision to play drums in the band where I am a integral part but I’m in the background. I wasn’t really interested in being in the front. But it’s a cool experience to go and kind of set the tone for all of the people who started to travel internationally after that. Because we were a kind of England’s first encounter with neighbourhoods. Because prior to us coming the caliber of artists that had been over there, was like Curtis Mayfield, The Temptations, Earth, Wind and Fire, you know, these big artists. So they had a certain amount of apprehension, and I had people down right scared of me because of movies like Menace II Society and Boyz 'N The Hood and all this stuff was out there, giving them an impression of what especially black youth were like in America. So we had a lot of people, they were very stand-offish, I got called raggamuffin a whole lot and had to find out what that meant, it was like ’troublemaker’ ( chuckles).«

RBMA: »But you are not really a menace to society?«

Larry Heard: »No, no, I’m cool, I’m a peaceful person here.«

Participant: »The bassline from Can You Feel It, what synth did you use, and what preset, what’s the secret to that fat sound?«

Larry Heard: »The Roland Juno 2, I think. Yeah, Juno 2. It wasn’t even a MIDI-keyboard, it was just kind of an old school synthesizer.«

Participant: »You had to play it?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, play it by hand.«

Participant: »Respect!«

RBMA: »And did you know back then that you created a timeless classic piece of dance music?«

Larry Heard: »Oh no, there is no way to know it upfront if you are doing something. You just really aim to do something that people like, and get something that has a longevity to it, that’s great. But you can’t really plan that upfront or everybody’s record would be a timeless classic. If you could just orchestrate that yourself. It’s something that the people listening to it decide. I couldn’t decide it.«

RBMA: »So how is your approach to songwriting then?«

Larry Heard: »Free flow, very organic. I don’t really go in the studio trying to do anything in particular. I go in there, say I’m going to do something, and if it works out, cool, if it doesn’t, cool too. I will just try again tomorrow. Because that’s pretty much what I do when I’m at home, I’m in the studio every day of the week. So I have plenty of opportunities to kind of sit there and come up with an idea.«

RBMA: »So you relocated during the mid-'90s or during the end of the '90s from Chicago to Memphis, Tennessee. So what were your reasons for that leaving one of the centers [of house music]?«

Larry Heard: »I just needed to get away, I needed a different backdrop. Once again my personality type comes into play, where me being kind of a low-key laidback person and now I’m thrusted into this stuff. This kind of to me feels like it’s spinning out of control, because first of all it wasn’t planned but even though it’s happening, I’m trying to keep pace with it and keep my sanity at the same time. I felt myself losing it. I can definitely understand Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and these people [who] cured it with drugs. I had to do something before I self-destructed, I had to get away and get somewhere peaceful where I could think and take stock of what was going on in my own personal goals.«

RBMA: »And you are pretty much busy to this day with making and releasing music, because I remembered during the mid-'90s or so, there were all these stories circulating around you that Mr. Fingers has stopped making music and doesn’t want to be related to music anymore?«

Larry Heard: »Well, that is just another one of those instances of the media taking a statement and overblowing it. It’s like a person who works as a teacher or garbage man or doctor, they take a break, they take what’s called a vacation and that’s what I was trying to do. I guess my mistake was mentioning that at all, that probably would have solved everything, but it’s just a classic example of one of the reasons why I tend to be stand-offish when it comes to the media because they never convey what you were actually conveying.«

Participant: »If I go to a family get-together and an uncle of me asks what I’m doing, what I’m playing or what I’m making, it’s hard to tell, it’s hard to call it house music or disco, electro, it’s hard to give a name. It’s just dance music for my part. So, what would you have said in 1984 when the house music was not really born as house music. What did you say?«

Larry Heard: »I would have said I make some music. I make my own little music track here, but the thing that kind of allows the person who is listening to have their freedom is to let them just hear it. Let them decide what it is, you know, for their own practical uses.«

Participant: »Was it dance music from the beginning?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, it was dance music, that’s the purpose of the simplistic four-on-the-floor drumbeat. That’s the easiest universal one for the people to understand; very elementary and anybody can get it and get on the beat and dance.«

Participant: »The sample use in your hip hop productions is pretty obvious.«

Larry Heard: »The what?«

RBMA: »The use of samples. The Al Green drumbreak, for instance. Do you use any samples in your house productions too?«

Larry Heard: »Not typically, it will be more things that... Say, I have like a chorus or something that I need repeated but I don’t really feel up to sing it the numerous different times, I sample stuff like that in places where it needs to be in the track. But as far as sampling other people’s tracks or things like that, I’m not really into that thing. I think it’s disrespectful. Personally, with my kind of background going into playing music and trying to attain a certain level of proficiency on an instrument, you would know what people go through learning an instrument. You can understand Chick Corea, how much time he had to put in, and Stanley Clarke and Al Di Meola, these great legendary people. And I don’t feel comfortable doing that and I take a great deal of pride knowing that I created something from nothing, which is what the definition of creating is. And you can be creative with samples but creating is taking nothing and making something.«

Participant: »Thank you.«

Larry Heard: »Still trying to find this song, let’s see.«

Participant: »Hi, Larry. I wanted to ask you, because when I hear your songs, one thing that always gets me about them is they are just so warm and emotive like the strings are very emotive. Maybe they sound like an old soul record somehow but it’s all electronic, and I just wondered if – I know it’s pretty hard sometimes to explain how you did that – and maybe I don’t even know if you know how you did that. But if there is any way you can impart on some of how you got that richness into it.«

Larry Heard: »I don’t really can say that I have a technical way that I approach it but I do kind of find my sound, it’s kind of near what I want or what I think in my head or picturing in my head, and I actually alter the sounds. A lot of the sounds that you hear on the records I do, they are not the factory sounds that come out of these units. I gave them modify to kind of really fit into the architecture of what I’m trying to do. Actually, the sounds kind of direct me as far as you know what’s going to happen, and then I just modify until it really fits better in my humble opinion into what I’m doing.«

Participant: »It’s just because I’m trying to imagine how you would start writing something. I can’t imagine how you sit there and actually write those songs, do you see what I mean?«

Larry Heard: »I’m the butt of a lot of jokes among the people who know me because they know the way I work, and there is no structure to it. Even some of the guys that we were with upstairs doing some sessions yesterday, they may have got a glimpse into it like: ”It doesn’t seem like this guy does anything intentionally, he just gets on the equipment and just starts doing something.“ And that’s just actually what I do.«

Participant: »So, do you just switch off the thinking a bit and just go?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, I hate to have to think too much because then it turns into work. And I want the music to be a pleasurable experience and I think even on a primal level that’s conveyed to people. You have a component of our being called intuition. I think people pick up on the tension or that kind of thing in music. And it can either attract or repel you.«

Participant: »When you are writing those songs as well, I mean, would it be something that - you would have all the equipment set up, OK, would you kind of have to have the whole song done in one take kind of thing, dropped off on to a perfect mix the first time? Or were you able to multitrack and go back and correct mistakes?«

Larry Heard: »Well, at the beginning it was all just before DATs and all those other new digital mediums, so I was doing things on cassette tapes and reel to reels and there wasn’t much room for doing any overdubs. So I would maybe do one part on the reel and capture the bassline and the basic chords. Like, for a song like Can You Feel It, I captured the drumpattern that I programmed and the bassline and the chords and in the end some of the other stuff that is on top, I dubbed to a cassette, which was the only thing I had as far as recording, and put the other little lines on the top. And that cassette was the master recording of that song (chuckling).«

Participant: »So, Can You Feel It is just two tracks in a way?«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, Bring Down The Walls is actually a one tape thing and Never No More Lonely, some of those things because me and Robert just got together and just kind of have fun with music. And every once in a while we would just capture something where we just press the record button and something good came out like Bring Down The Walls and we had captured it and we didn’t even attempt to go in and refine it or anything like that. It was like: ”No, this is the track.“«

Participant: »Was it the kind of ’the first cut is the deepest’-mentality, I mean a bit like reggae? It was kind of like: you are in the studio, you jammed it out and then you tried to leave it.«

Larry Heard: »Yeah, it was like the James Brown way of doing things, just go in the studio and jam and what we end up hearing is like a edited down portion of those jam sessions. And we were kind of doing the same thing with very little structure.«

Participant: »And I guess it’s kind of a last one for me, but how do you feel when you hear tracks that kind of rip off Can You Feel It or some of the other really big classics in a very blatant way?«

Larry Heard: »Well, it’s hard to be impressed. I’m more impressed when I hear somebody’s original material and it gives me a connection with them. A lot of times, even if you have a song that is sampled, I have a tendency to where my attention will focus on that original artist and then I don’t really have a connection with the new person. I’m into the Marvin Gaye sample or whoever it may be. So it has a tendency to work in reverse for me.«

RBMA: »Speaking of Robert Owens, are you still in touch with him and making music with him?«

Larry Heard: »We haven’t been able doing any music, my living in Memphis and him living in London makes that a pretty big challenge, but I talk to him all the time. I talked to him a couple of weeks ago, we always stay in touch. I mean, we have a lot of songs that we control jointly, so we do a lot of business together and have to stay in communication and make sure everything is done to each individual satisfaction, you know?«

RBMA: »And it would be really nice to hear the song you did with him on the same day as Bring Down The Walls. If you can dig it up?«

Larry Heard: »(scans his folders) If I had a better system, as far as finding these things, it wouldn’t take us so long here. OK, there it is.«

(music: Fingers Inc. - untitled)

RBMA: »So when will this come out then?«

Larry Heard: »When will it come out? (laughs) I don’t know, because this is like say, we did this on the same day as Bring Down The Walls, which is like in 1986, where we just kind of were fooling around and living and just recording the session, so I couldn’t tell you, I couldn’t even guess. We are trying, we are trying our best. But since I fund the label out of my own pocket, and I’m not Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey or someone like that, there are limitations to what I’m able to do and I have to pace myself where I don’t bankrupt myself, where the whole thing has to end. So, hopefully, I’ll try but I can’t tell you when.«

RBMA: »Fingers crossed. So it’s not easy to run your own label these days and make a living out of it?«

Larry Heard: »It’s not easy, but it can be done. I mean, as I am living proof of it and a whole lot of people who run small labels, it’s just how you approach things, how realistic you are about how much you can invest and making a product people will be able to comprehend and receive and want to buy. You just have to be real with yourself.«

RBMA: »OK, do we have any other questions? No? Then I would like to thank Larry Heard very much.«