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“I’m not trying to get the message across to the general public, we’re more interested in reaching the industry; the message being; let’s try and do something different with nightclub compilations. Millions of pounds and Euros are being spent on compilations, and they’re all virtually the same.”
Chatting down the line from his Ibiza headquarters, Pacha marketing director Danny Whittle admits he’s enthusiastic about the superclub’s latest idea; specially commissioned artist albums themed around his club.
“I was reading about the way classical composers like Beethoven and Schubert used to work, how they would be commissioned by Royalty or Governments to write a symphony for their up and coming ball when I thought, ‘why don’t we take a DJ/producer and ask them to write an album for us; one that’s totally representative of our dance floor?’,” he explains.
“It needed to be someone we had real faith it, a DJ that’s played Pacha and understands it, we were working with Wally Lopez and it just seemed ideal that Wally would be the first one to undertake it.”
12 months down the line, the artist concept is nearing fruition, with a worldwide release schedule penciled in, for summer.
“Wally has been working on the tracks since last year and I’ve been saying nothing to anybody, because obviously I wanted to make sure that the music being fed back to me by Wally was good enough, as did Wally. Having heard nine tracks so far I have to tell you that everybody who’s heard them thinks they are absolutely awesome,” says Danny.
“It gives the whole project genuine credibility, the fact that he’s risen to the challenge and actually come up with a scorching set of music. What it’s also done, I suppose, is facilitated, or helped, Wally. If Wally was to release his first artist album in the current market independently, he’d probably sell around 5000 copies whereas this way, he will probably sell more like 50,000 copies because we’re branding it as a ‘Perception of Pacha’ CD. Though in a way, it’s Wally’s perception of Pacha, of exactly how he thinks the music should sound on our dance floor.”
“For us as a club, it gives us a very exclusive compilation, nobody else will have those tracks on their compilation,” he continues. “I see the Amnesia albums, the El Davino’s, the Space’s, the Eden’s, and so many of them, even ours, have the same three, four or five tracks on them. I think it will be really interesting to see one of our albums out there being completely exclusive.”
Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Pacha has different nights for different musical style, stylistically, what’s the album like?
Pacha (Danny): “Wally has played on most nights at the club from spinning with Morillo to Tong to the Def Mix Boys and he also plays a monthly residency for us and all the time over the last two years that he has been playing for us, he’s been watching the dance floor. He knows exactly what ignites Pacha and what doesn’t. I have to say the style is obviously house music, but it does start with one or two tracks that are slow-ish, funky kind of warm up tracks, the same sort as he’d play at the club.”
Skrufff: I did some research on Beethoven, and he discovered that for a period he received a small annual income from the Archduke Rudolph, though on condition that he never left Vienna, have you placed any similar restrictions on Wally?
Pacha (Danny): “ “No. To be honest we understand that for Wally it’s about his career as an individual artist, and we’ve all got to be careful that when he does his second album he’s able to reach the 40 or 50 thousand people that buy this initial album. He’s going to put all his energy into making and promoting this first album but he then has to carry on from that as a solo artist. So the only condition really is that he gives this album his undivided attention now until it’s released and the tours and everything else have died down. But after that he’s got to follow that up with something very good that will be purely Wally Lopez and we’ve got to think about it together. We have discussed it together. The concept is that we provide a great platform for an artist to get his initial music out there, to get it listened to by lots of people and sold in high numbers. After that they do have to be ready to do the next one on their own.”
Skrufff: Are you still going to be doing regular mix Pacha branded CDs?
Pacha (Danny): “Yeah we do five albums a year, we’ve just released one which is called Winter Sessions, which features our two residents DJs in the winter, then we have another one coming out with Renaissance soon, a triple CD done by Jade Jagger, Trevor Nelson and one other DJ. Jade’s doing a very Back To Mine style disc, she sent me the track listing and it’s got a Rolling Stones track on there. We’ve asked permission to use it and I’ve been told that if we manage to get permission it will be the first time a Rolling Stones track has ever been used on a compilation. That will be quite interesting as well.”
Skrufff: Is Wally going to be performing his album live as well?
Pacha (Danny): “Exactly. He’ll be spinning with Pete Tong on three or four occasions during the summer and he’ll probably do a set with Eric Morrillo as well as two or three performances with live PAs.”
Skrufff: Following the recent fuss over Prince Harry’s decision to dress up as a Nazi, much was made of young people’s ignorance over history, do you have any concerns that this concept might come across as a bit highbrow?
Pacha (Danny): “I’m not trying to get the message across to the public, we’re more interested in getting the message across to the industry; the message being let’s try and do something different with nightclub compilations.We’re pretty certain that the album will sell very predictably, like our club compilations do, it will only sell more if the general public do pick up on the concepts, love the tracks and it gets spoken about in the right way, then it will sell more. Initially the whole concept was really almost to give the dance industry a bit of a kick to say ‘we can do compilations in a different way, we can tour DJs and musicians as part of a club tour, just to give that whole thing a bit more of a live mix and a bit more of a spectacular. It’s a message really as much to the dance industry as it is to the general public.”
Wally Lopez’s Perceptions Of Pacha will be released later this year.
http://www.pacha.com
Interview By: Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
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