2011 was the year Eric Estornel, aka Maceo Plex, aka Maetrik, went supersonic.
His deep, dark, melancholy house captured perfectly the mood on the dancefloors,
and, riding the euphoric wave of the 2011 house revolution, Maceo Plex was the
name on everybody's lips.
His work as Maetrik is darker: heavy, cavernous
techno. But it seemed that his releases as Maceo Plex – lighter, groovier,
soul-infused and apparently “for the girls” – were what really drove people
crazy.
His 2011 long-player, 'Life Index', on the innovative and
impeccable Crosstown Rebels imprint, was a perfectly timed, soul-steeped
stunner. This was followed by the epic, hook-laden nine-minute belter 'Can't
Leave You' - further displaying his versatility. The love – and the hits - just
kept on flowing. He launched his own label,
Ellum Audio, with the addictive 'High and Sexy' EP – deep,
dark house music at its most hypnotic.
I had a chat with Eric before his
set this Friday at
Return to The Future.
So the last year has been
insanely big for your Maceo Plex moniker. Has it been fairly dizzying becoming
so massive so quickly?It's kind of been dizzying, I was used to
gigging and making music but not at this pace. It was just all of a sudden I had
to get really busy – work really hard, do a lot of touring. It was kind of
dizzying but a nice feeling – it's just been really perfect
actually.
House was totally the London vibe in 2011. It was an
amazing year in house and your sound seemed to catch the mood perfectly. Did you
have a sense of that happening at the time and did it influence you as you were
producing?Yeah I kind of did. I know that a few years ago it
was a different type of house – that Mannheim thing was taking over and before
that the whole minimal thing. I felt that at the beginning of 2011 there was a
major shift going on with the help of Jamie [Jones] and all the Visionquest
guys. I was trying to make a newer, fresher, futuristic type of house with a lot
of romance but with a lot of new sounds you don’t normally hear in house. As I
was releasing I could see the reaction of the fans: they were getting really
into it really fast. You could almost see it happening right before your
eyes.
At parties I was playing – the Hot Natured and Visionquest and of
course the Crosstown parties as well – you could see that each party was better
than the last, each release was better than the last. And now we just have to
keep it up.
Your music, although soulful, has undertones of darkness and a real air
of sadness at times...are you making it intentionally sad?
Yeah
it's pretty intentional. I really like playing a lot of types of house music:
happy and darker stuff, but I lean toward a melancholy sound that can be
uplifting but is also a little sad. I know that Art Department – I couldn’t say
for them if it's intentional – but they were some of the first people to make a
really melancholy, deep house sound. At the same time I was working on stuff and
I thought it was a really good idea. It's my own take on house: a little bit
melancholy but still pretty uplifting and really groovy.
I'd like
to ask about the construction of 'Can't Leave
You'. There is so much going on, but each hook is given room to breathe. How
did you start that tune? What came first? And how did it all come
together?That was written pretty fast because it was written
for another group. I've made music for other artists that I’m not gonna mention,
but I was making it for another group. And it was coming together perfectly. And
– this is a little known thing – I sent it to them and they didn’t want it. So I
thought, OK I’ll release it myself. I added the vocals afterwards and changed it
round a bit to make it slightly more discoey, slightly more housey. But
basically it was something I wrote in a couple of days – I thought it was really
cool – but I never thought it was going to be a hit or anything like
that.
Your 'High and Sexy' EP kicked off your label Ellum Audio –
is this a good example of the sound you're aiming to showcase?
Yeah, that's why I released it first. But it's not the only sound. I thought it
was pretty fitting to follow up 'Can't Leave You' and 'Stop Your Hate' with
something a little darker and a little deeper. The ultimate goal is for Ellum to
be dark and deep house but, in the end, if it's something cool that I get, we're
just gonna put it out. We're not gonna think too much about having a certain
theme or vision. Certain labels want to have a great disco sound, others want to
have a great pop sound – we're just releasing stuff we think is
cool.
Are there any young new house hotshots that you’ve got your
eye on?
Yeh there's a new group – they're actually friends of
mine out of Philly. I did some vocals for them on their new record coming out on
Ellum - it's called 'Fame' and they’re called Odd Parents. It's a very similar
style to me and we work together on the music. It fits perfectly with the sound
we want to put out on Ellum. Very deep and dark, futuristic house, with my
vocals.
There's also a new talented artist out of London that sent me a
really amazing demo. He goes by the name of Eric Volta – I think he plays with
the Loki crew. He sent me a really awesome demo. Every now and then you get a
demo that sticks out, and he continues to send me really good music so we're
going to release some of that. I think he's gonna rise up pretty fast this
year.
And then there's my friends – the
My Favourite Robot
crew, of course
Tale
Of Us and all of them are continuing to raise the bar on what we can do with
the sound that we're coming up with right now.
What would you be
doing if you hadn't made it in music? What was your plan B?
I
never had one. I've been making house and techno for 15 or 16 years, 'cause I'm
kind of old now. I'm not gonna tell you how old but since I was in high school
I've been making house and techno music. I never thought about plan B. I just
worked really crappy jobs until I could live off it. I never cared about getting
into any other kind of career. I was either gonna be a waiter for the rest of my
life or I was gonna be a music artist. There’s nothing else that makes me happy.
I have to be honest, I think other people have more glamorous alternative
plans.
Who are your musical heroes, dead or
alive?
Obviously everybody says Michael Jackson. That was when I
was a little kid. It wasn’t until I discovered new wave: New Order, Joy
Division, the Smiths that I really found my musical heroes. In the past 20 years
my musical heroes have been mostly DJs. Laurent Garnier, and in the late '90s I
was really into the London tech house sound – Bushwacka, Terry Francis. They’re
still kind of heroes of mine. I think they make amazing music. And they
influenced me greatly.
What's going on with the house scene in
the US? Is it as big as ever?
I think it's sporadic – it's
spread out, there's still a lot of really good American style house music –
people like Brett Johnson and JT Donaldson making really cool tracks, but as far
as pushing the envelope and pushing forward it's few and far between. I don't
want to say anything bad about the US 'cause its where I'm from but at the same
time in the club scene it's so difficult at the moment.
A lot of people
are coming up with really innovative stuff that is maybe kind of over our heads,
that we can't understand at the moment. And then there’s people making house
music we can play now with a more classic sound that's not necessarily pushing
the envelope.
The guys from Detroit, they have their thing going on, then
there's the San Francisco crew, Dirtybird making their own sound, but really for
a country of 300 million people there's not that much coming out of there. There
should be a lot more.
OK so final question. The dancefloor is
flagging, what's your failsafe tune to rev it up?
A couple of
tunes I've been playing lately are this tune from the late 90s called 'Not
Reggae' by the Idjut Boys and another new tune
remixed by Pezzner. It's a remix of Roy Davis Jnr 'About
Love'. And that is it right there. As soon as it starts coming in it works. I
don't think people know it but it's got an amazing beat and an amazing vocal.
It's a really perfect tune.
