Armand Van Helden interview

Armand Van Helden interview

12 July, 2007 | 5.29AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News:

Armand Van Helden may be a house music superstar DJ, an accomplished producer and an in-demand remixer for mega pop stars but he isn’t finished. “When I go to a wedding and I hear ‘We Are Family’ by Sister Sledge I think to myself ‘I didn’t turn that in’,” says Armand, speaking exclusively to Beatportal from his Manhattan apartment.

Like a true artist, Armand Van Helden yearns for recognition and a place in the history books.

Forget his remix of Tori Amos ‘Professional Widow’ or his hit singles ‘U Don’t Know Me’, ‘The Funk Phenomena’ or ‘My My My’.

Armand just wants one hit pop anthem, the kind of record that is played at big life-changing events. He wants a song that is played at weddings.

“I’ve still got work to do as a musician, because I haven’t made a ‘We Are Family’,” he says.

Armand Van Helden has just released his new album ‘Ghettoblaster’ (check it out in the player below), and although it’s filled with perfectly good dancefloor-destroyers and future house anthems, it is unlikely any of the tracks will get your auntie Geraldine shaking her ass.

Jaded

“I always seem to turn in house music, but I’m actually pretty jaded of the house scene,” reveals Armand.

“I’ve been around it so much, I don’t really get it anymore.

“I don’t go to house clubs – see I still call them house clubs which shows how old I am, but I don’t like the word ‘electronic’ there are too many syllables.”

To you and me, Armand Van Helden is a superstar house DJ through-and-through (he’s one of the headliners of Global Gathering festival in England on Saturday 28th July), capable of drawing in crowds of thousands.

“But it’s not in my personality,” says Armand.

“I’m not a real DJ like Roger Sanchez who will play six hours and then play an afterparty for free just because he’s in the zone.

“DJing is not my passion, I’m passionate about making music.

“I could never do that whole tour around the world for six months thing that he does.

“I love my home life too much, my downtime in New York.

“Everyday there’s something going on.

“I have coffees with my buddies, hang out at after-work and industry parties.

“The last time I was in a house club on the dancefloor it was 1998.

“I’ve been a poser ever since.”

A wolf

It’s a brutally honest assertion, and one that sums up Armand as a whole – he does what he wants and says what he thinks, even if the house fans that are reading this get pissed off that one of their heroes doesn’t really give a shit.

“I’m a wolf for sure,” he says.

“About 99% of the world are sheep, you know, told to live and act a certain way, but I’m lucky to be the master of my own creative field.

“My parents never say ‘when are you gonna get a real job?’ or ‘when are you gonna get married?’, I’m very lucky that they were always very supportive of my career and still are fascinated by my world.”

Some may brush off Armand’s sharp dialogue as arrogance, but he is in fact very aware of the PR nightmare that he can sometimes cause by being one of house music’s most prolific producers who is also totally disinterested in the scene.

“Like now that ‘Ghettoblaster’ is out my agent wants me to do a tour, play lots of DJ gigs and do all these interviews but that isn’t me,” says Armand.

“I turn into a sissy girl if I’m forced to do these promotional things because I feel like I’m a victim of my own clown. I feel trapped.

“But I understand that I have to do it - I call it ‘screwing on the clown nose’.”

‘Ghettoblaster’

For someone who hasn’t visited a house club since 1998, Armand shows an incredible understanding of what is required to rock a modern dancefloor on ‘Ghettoblaster’.

By blending old-skool samples with fresh house beats and modern electro basslines, he manages to sound both old and fresh at the same time.

The album is a part of what Armand Van Helden calls his “legacy”; a small chapter in his house music heritage.

“The most important thing to me as a producer is ‘do I matter?’,” says Armand.

“I’m still pretty young to be talking about a legacy, but all I care about is having an impact.

“I want to matter, it’s all got to matter.

“I need to still be relevant, and I think I am because when I play DJ gigs now, there are all these 20-year-old kids who know ‘My My My’, but when I drop ‘The Funk Phenomena’ they don’t know it.

“I can hear them saying to each other – ‘hey, who is this Armand Van Helden guy? Oh, he’s new!’”

And so the cycle begins again.

For some, Armand Van Helden is an old-skool house hero, a pioneering producer who brought speed garage to the masses with his remix of Sneaker Pimps ‘Spin Spin Sugar’ in 1996.

For a new generation of clubbers, Armand is a cool New York house DJ with a hot new album filled with rap-led electro house.

But when Armand Van Helden looks in the mirror, all he sees is a producer who has yet to write that elusive track, the one that will be played at weddings.

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