STEREO Q & A with CHEZ DAMIER

You’re responsible for some of the most classiest and sensual house
music. The body of your work is an amalgamation of influences coming
out from Detroit, New York and Chicago, yet you stay true to your own
sound. Who were your mentors when you first got started?
Did you start DJ’ing before producing?

I humbly thank you for those powerful words. Concerning which came
first, I guess they both really started at the same time. Most of my
inspiration to play and make music came from Frankie Knuckles. The
inspiration to pursue it came from Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and
Derrick May. The motivation to give it my all came from Dave Morales,
Timmy Registford, Tony Humphries, Paul Simpson and Boyd Jarvis.

It was easy to assume that you ran the Chez Music imprint, a
common misconception perhaps? After working on KMS with Kevin
Saunderson, and Prescription with Ron Trent, you do in fact run
Balance Alliance. Can you tell us a bit about your upcoming Chez
Damier projects?

There are so many projects I’d like to do... Completing an album,
doing live shows, and helping to develop new talent. But with Chez,
things change quite a bit, who really knows until it happens.

You, Chris Carrier and Jeff K collaborated on a project called The
Gathering and wound up with a little gem entitled, “In My System”.
This was probably one of the biggest records to be released in 2010.
How did this collective come about? Did you anticipate this record to
be as widely received as it did?

I spent a month in Paris and Jef, a longtime friend, wanted to do a
project. He introduced me to Chris and we all agreed to collaborate.
I stared the track, just ideas at the time, and left it with Jef and
Chris to work on. When it was time for all of us to do the session,
we wrote a hook to it and that was it. I have been producing music
for 22 years, so you never anticipate what a record will do. I am
always happy when the world reacts positively with something I have
done or been a part of. So to be honest, I do what I do, feel what I
feel and if people like it, then it’s a good reward. But this has never
been the reason I do music. Chris and I have stared working on the
follow up, we are expecting nothing.

Chez Damier / secretsundaze NYE at The Red Gallery / 31.12.2010 from Kojun / selective pressure on Vimeo.

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Ostrich
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