Danny interviews Lee Haslam
1 Danny D:
Ok Mr Haslam tell us how old you are and some thing about yourself?
Lee Haslam:
I’m 29, single and I’ve been DJing for nearly 8 years. I joined tidy in 1997 and now hold the role of label manager. Before joining tidy I used to be a nursery school teacher of all jobs! Quite career change!
2 Danny D:
How did you get started working with Tidy? Did djing become before or after starting with Tidy?
Lee Haslam:
I was DJing at my local residency in my home town of Doncaster in 1997 and was introduced to Andy Pickles (One Of The Tidy Boys and MD to Tidy). We became good friends and he used to DJ with me on a regular basis. He then offered me a job working for Mastermix which is another sub company to the Music Factory Entertainment Group. I used to do jive bunny mixes and commercial megamixes for them for a year before joining tidy and becoming club Promotions manager in early 1998.
3 Danny D:
A day in a life of Lee Haslam. What happens? Is it all rock and roll in the office and in the studio?
Lee Haslam:
Every day is different; I have no set routine as it depends on what I am working on for the label at that time but my job is quite an intense one and not so rock and roll. My main role as label manager is to over look and co-ordinate everything that goes on with tidy from its 3 vinyl releases a month to its albums, which usually run at 6 a year and are released globally. On all fronts my involvement starts from the very beginning of each project from initial costing, to the licensing ( in and out ), manufacturing, marketing, and distribution. Tidy’s worldwide presence is still developing with several label deals already in place with people such as Avex in Japan, Hi – Note in South East Asia and Dreams in Spain. I maintain regular communications with these partners and continue develop the brand musically in these areas.
Another string to Tidy’s bow is that we have a lot of the key producing talent in the UK on our books. My role here is to manage them for remix work and also from an A & R prospective. A & R is actually a role I have increasingly got more involved with over recent months and it is something I would like to develop still further. Tidy’s sound has had to change with the times covering several genres which keeps us at the forefront of our scene. Recently my role has been to develop, along with my colleagues, the labels digital presence which I will talk about later. In this testing market it has increasingly become harder and harder to sell records through the normal channels and a big part of my time has been looking at the new business model which we are launching in November, along with my General Manager Russell Pate. Tidy have always embraced the new technology around us and this has been proved with the development of our superb website tidy.com which is now arguably the biggest and best dance music portal in our scene. Tidy.com was first launched in 2000 and since then has clocked up millions of users averaging around 6 million hits a month. My involvement with the site is an obvious one as tidy the label is sold within its online store which not only sells our vinyl and albums but also releases from labels worldwide. The website is a superb platform to advertise everything that we do here from our DJ Management company, our superb events, ring tones and our all new weekly radio show which is broadcast across the Galaxy network. The show’s programming is co-ordinated by me and hosted by the tidy boys with regular guest mixes and competitions for the listeners. This, like tidy.com, is another outstanding achievement for the label as we currently get around 6 million listeners to the show in the UK and giving us yet another promotion tool to tell all about the label and of course the brand.
After doing all this I also DJ every weekend and also produce for tidy. I usually DJ 2 to 3 gigs a weekend all over the UK and sometimes worldwide for the likes of Slinky, Polysexual, Sundissential, Twisted, Frantic and Tall Trees. I am also the labels resident DJ for there events like the Weekenders and Magna which I won an award for in 2003.
The production side of things is usually left until night time through the week and usually takes place a few times a month depending on what work I have on in terms of remixes etc. I aim to release two singles a year for the label so a lot of my time is spent developing ideas to ensure every track I do is a belter!
4 Danny D:
I hear that Tidy are going to merge Tidy Trax and tidy 2 into one label: Tidy , why is this?
Lee Haslam:
The decision was made for a number of reasons but the main one being our recent step to becoming fully self distributed. We are going online only for two releases a month from November 04 which means if you want to buy these records you can only get them on tidy.com. The third release for that month will be going through the normal retail outlets and high street chains. This release will be promoted as the big tidy release for that month ( This track will be designated as the big release for the month on DJ & Press feedback and of course feedback from the dance floors ) making it that much more special and exclusive, giving stores a bit more room for each release. From feedback that we have had a lot of stores felt that A) the musical differences between the two labels ( Tidy & Tidytwo ) were becoming blurred as the hard house sounds now have really intermingled and
that we currently released material too often and didn’t give them time to sell our records through properly. By doing things This way we can work with shops more and give our bigger releases more edge in a saturated market. More often than not, the big tidy release ( if we kept things the way they are ) would be a Tidytwo release as obviously Tidytwo releases tend to be less underground, more crossover and have wider customer appeal. We didn’t want this to happen, we wanted the 'tidy' name to be the big focus in independent shops and high street stores across the globe not just the Tidytwo name so we have taken the step of bringing all the labels under one umbrella name of 'Tidy'. This then keeps pushing the tidy name and brand in store and also brings fusion to everything that we do as a group now. Tidy.com / Tidy digital / Tidy events / Tidy the label. Synapse and tidy white will continue and all these labels will also be releasing material at some juncture through all retail channels.
Danny D:
In edition to this I heard you are also in line to shake up the download market with Tidy Digital this must tie in with the question before, will this be exclusively for tidy artist, how will it all work?
Lee Haslam:
Tidy Digital will be launched in November along with the new site and the label changes that I have just mentioned. Digital is something we have been looking at for some time and with the market beginning to turn we had to make our move. Tidy have always been at the forefront of embracing new technology. Tidy.com has become one of the biggest dance music portals on the planet so in most respects we already have a head start on a lot of the other download sites as we already have considerable traffic coming to us on a daily basis. We have over 30,000 regular and unique users!
On the tidy digital site there will be every single tidy record on there since the labels launch in 1995. This is a huge move as a lot of the material has been deleted for so long so it’s a great opportunity for people to get the tracks that they have missed out on. We are also offering the best possible quality mp3’s on the site at 320 KPM which is the first time anyone has done this. Every tidy record in the future will be available on mp3 format and will be released at the same time as the vinyl is online. We will also be releasing some exclusive download only releases to from myself, Maddox and Guyver. These are exciting times for the brand.
5 Danny D:
I play a hell of a lot of Tidy stuff on the radio and I am always surprised by the new names that always pop up on a regular basis, names that have been really doing it for me are Wid & Ben, Kernzy & Klemenza and Builtproof, where do you find them? Do they send demos to you they hand them over in a club how do you find these artists?
Lee Haslam:
We have and always will push and develop new talent. We have the best producers signed exclusively to the label in Guyver, Maddox, Ingo, Colin Barratt & Lee Pasch. These guys are the heart of the label and were signed mostly from them sending in demos. They work very closely with numerous artists most of which are signed to the labels DJ agency.. For instance Guyver is my engineer and has been for over three years now and in that time we have developed a great understanding in the studio and become great friends. The same goes for Wid & Ben with there engineer Lee Pasch. Ben from Wid & Ben is actually our art guy who designs all the sleeves and album covers. Paul Maddox works with Shaun M, Amber D, Glazby and Tara Reynolds. Kernzy & Klemenza, Caroline Banx, Guffy all work with Ingo and so on. You can see that it is very important for our guys to get into the production side of things and both myself and Amadeus work with them all to get the be possible track out of them for the label cause at the end of the day it is this that will promote them as artists and as DJ’s which we obviously have an interest in.
6 Danny d:
In the last 2 years both Guyver and Paul Maddox reputations have grown in to huge forces to be reckoned with both as producers and djs, who do you see following in there foot steps from the Tidy camp?
Lee Haslam:
Colin Barratt & Ingo have had a superb year; both have had numerous releases on tidy and other labels and they are coming on leaps and bounds. Next year they will have both matured more with them looking at writing some different material. With so many producers on the books its simple maths that we can’t release everything that they do, so therefore it’s important to channel their energy into something different. Guy, Paul, Lee, Colin & Ingo are in the middle of writing an album together which will be more experimental and prodigy esq. Creatively these guys have to kept on their toes so they don’t get too bogged down with writing just one style of music. They are all extremely talented in their own right and are more than capable of collectively writing some amazing music.
Other names to look out for are Chris Hoff & Technikal. I have been working closely with these guys over recent months and both have just had tracks signed to tidy so expect more from them.
7 Danny D:
At Creamfields Paul Maddox had done a live set how did it go? And do you believe like me there is a huge hole for new live acts to step in to and take over from some act that seem to be have been going round in circles for years without releasing any new tracks or pushing there sound forward?
Lee Haslam:
Totally… we have to push the boundaries these days otherwise people are going to get bored and in some respects I think that has happened. Music production has got so good now but people seem to be running out of ideas. It’s far too easy for people to produce music these days, anyone can buy a computer and some software and off you go. Now, I am not saying that people shouldn’t do this… We signed all of our producers because they followed this course but these guys are naturally song writers and don’t produce hard house by numbers which is what a lot of the material is like these days. A track can take a few hours to write and become a classic. “Music Is the Drug” which to date has sold over 17,000 copies took me 5 hours but most of the material these days is done in the same amount of time and to be fair is very poor. There seems to be no real thought and no real plot in records today. The classics are classics because they are memorable, they have a hook. Most of the tracks around now, for me personally, are too techy and have no real element that makes you go “Christ what is that! I must have it” It is that reaction that we look for in a record and it’s that reaction that makes a track a classic and gives it longevity. Dance music these days seems to be a lot more disposable than yesteryear which is a great shame but that’s the way the market has gone and we have to react to that and push new talent innovatively and live acts is a great platform in which to do that.
8 danny D:
The Tidy boys! Your bosses seem like fun guys and they really impressed the Dutch crowd that went over to the UK for the Tidy Summer Camp, I have people asking me for there mix cds every time I pass by Groove Connection, but what get I asked when are there next records coming out what’s going on with the boys any news on forthcoming records, remixes, any gossip?
Lee Haslam:
The boys are very busy with the label so their production days are extremely limited. However the boys are going into the studio in a few weeks with BK to write a double A side release for tidy which will be out in the spring of 2005
8 Danny D:
Right now we are going get deep in to it, I saw your performance at the Tidy Summer Camp in July it was epic because you where the first dj to a proper hard dance essential mix for radio 1 which is a huge achievement for you and Tidy. How much preparation goes in to it? How long did you work on it?
Lee Haslam:
I worked on it for weeks mate. Collecting tracks etc but in the end I just went with what I thought best on the day and react to the crowd. It was a great atmosphere in there and I have to admit I was the more nervous I have ever been. It's quite scary thinking that over 30 million people worldwide are listening to you but a few stiff drinks helped and the set went perfect. It's great that the hard house sound is finally getting recognised now by the likes of radio one. It is arguably the biggest supported scene in the UK in terms of record sales and even attendance but until recently was the most neglected by the press and radio. But its because of Tidy’s superb events, label and website that people are now starting to take us more seriously as a force to be reckoned with. The brand has expanded so much since I joined in 1997 and with the plans we have in place I can see it becoming even bigger.
9 Danny D:
Because what I sense is that in the Uk especially from the media (mixmag/radio1) in the last 12 months there attitudes have changed towards harder music and counties to do so with Lisa lashes do an essential mix as well very soon. In the past I got the feeling some people look down on the harder scene in general, why is this and what is making people change there mind over there in UK?
I think the music has more to do with it as it has certainly become significantly more intelligent. A lot looked at hard house and thought off beat cartoon music as they used to call it but the fact is our music has matured so much and brings in so many different elements from other genres its become considerably accepted. I also think that when you have a brand that is selling out its events month after month, a label which has been one of the biggest selling dance music labels for over 5 years and has the an award winning website its not going to be too long before people take notice. At the end of the day we always do the best we can with everything we do. Be it an event and album or a 12” record. It’s this philosophy which has made us what we are today. We are not some faceless organisation. We are very community led and are always talking to our fans and it’s this ethos which has made tidy the brand it is today. We want people to feel a part of what we do and have a laugh with it as we do, we never take ourselves too seriously.
9 Danny D:
Right to round it up, it will be your first time back at HQ in a year what can we expect from you at HQ then mate? Going to drop bombs on the HQ crew?
Yes I am really excited to be back at HQ again. It’s been a while. My sets these days are quite eclectic, I do love my hard trance but quite recently some hard house has been catching my attention and has been getting a few airings. I always like to move my sets around so you don’t know what's going to come next. Needless to say I will be getting fully involved with firing the crowd up too.
As for material I will be playing, I have a new single which I did with Guyver under our joint Euphony guise called Euphonism which is coming
Bron: www.udc.nl
1 Danny D:
Ok Mr Haslam tell us how old you are and some thing about yourself?
Lee Haslam:
I’m 29, single and I’ve been DJing for nearly 8 years. I joined tidy in 1997 and now hold the role of label manager. Before joining tidy I used to be a nursery school teacher of all jobs! Quite career change!
2 Danny D:
How did you get started working with Tidy? Did djing become before or after starting with Tidy?
Lee Haslam:
I was DJing at my local residency in my home town of Doncaster in 1997 and was introduced to Andy Pickles (One Of The Tidy Boys and MD to Tidy). We became good friends and he used to DJ with me on a regular basis. He then offered me a job working for Mastermix which is another sub company to the Music Factory Entertainment Group. I used to do jive bunny mixes and commercial megamixes for them for a year before joining tidy and becoming club Promotions manager in early 1998.
3 Danny D:
A day in a life of Lee Haslam. What happens? Is it all rock and roll in the office and in the studio?
Lee Haslam:
Every day is different; I have no set routine as it depends on what I am working on for the label at that time but my job is quite an intense one and not so rock and roll. My main role as label manager is to over look and co-ordinate everything that goes on with tidy from its 3 vinyl releases a month to its albums, which usually run at 6 a year and are released globally. On all fronts my involvement starts from the very beginning of each project from initial costing, to the licensing ( in and out ), manufacturing, marketing, and distribution. Tidy’s worldwide presence is still developing with several label deals already in place with people such as Avex in Japan, Hi – Note in South East Asia and Dreams in Spain. I maintain regular communications with these partners and continue develop the brand musically in these areas.
Another string to Tidy’s bow is that we have a lot of the key producing talent in the UK on our books. My role here is to manage them for remix work and also from an A & R prospective. A & R is actually a role I have increasingly got more involved with over recent months and it is something I would like to develop still further. Tidy’s sound has had to change with the times covering several genres which keeps us at the forefront of our scene. Recently my role has been to develop, along with my colleagues, the labels digital presence which I will talk about later. In this testing market it has increasingly become harder and harder to sell records through the normal channels and a big part of my time has been looking at the new business model which we are launching in November, along with my General Manager Russell Pate. Tidy have always embraced the new technology around us and this has been proved with the development of our superb website tidy.com which is now arguably the biggest and best dance music portal in our scene. Tidy.com was first launched in 2000 and since then has clocked up millions of users averaging around 6 million hits a month. My involvement with the site is an obvious one as tidy the label is sold within its online store which not only sells our vinyl and albums but also releases from labels worldwide. The website is a superb platform to advertise everything that we do here from our DJ Management company, our superb events, ring tones and our all new weekly radio show which is broadcast across the Galaxy network. The show’s programming is co-ordinated by me and hosted by the tidy boys with regular guest mixes and competitions for the listeners. This, like tidy.com, is another outstanding achievement for the label as we currently get around 6 million listeners to the show in the UK and giving us yet another promotion tool to tell all about the label and of course the brand.
After doing all this I also DJ every weekend and also produce for tidy. I usually DJ 2 to 3 gigs a weekend all over the UK and sometimes worldwide for the likes of Slinky, Polysexual, Sundissential, Twisted, Frantic and Tall Trees. I am also the labels resident DJ for there events like the Weekenders and Magna which I won an award for in 2003.
The production side of things is usually left until night time through the week and usually takes place a few times a month depending on what work I have on in terms of remixes etc. I aim to release two singles a year for the label so a lot of my time is spent developing ideas to ensure every track I do is a belter!
4 Danny D:
I hear that Tidy are going to merge Tidy Trax and tidy 2 into one label: Tidy , why is this?
Lee Haslam:
The decision was made for a number of reasons but the main one being our recent step to becoming fully self distributed. We are going online only for two releases a month from November 04 which means if you want to buy these records you can only get them on tidy.com. The third release for that month will be going through the normal retail outlets and high street chains. This release will be promoted as the big tidy release for that month ( This track will be designated as the big release for the month on DJ & Press feedback and of course feedback from the dance floors ) making it that much more special and exclusive, giving stores a bit more room for each release. From feedback that we have had a lot of stores felt that A) the musical differences between the two labels ( Tidy & Tidytwo ) were becoming blurred as the hard house sounds now have really intermingled and
that we currently released material too often and didn’t give them time to sell our records through properly. By doing things This way we can work with shops more and give our bigger releases more edge in a saturated market. More often than not, the big tidy release ( if we kept things the way they are ) would be a Tidytwo release as obviously Tidytwo releases tend to be less underground, more crossover and have wider customer appeal. We didn’t want this to happen, we wanted the 'tidy' name to be the big focus in independent shops and high street stores across the globe not just the Tidytwo name so we have taken the step of bringing all the labels under one umbrella name of 'Tidy'. This then keeps pushing the tidy name and brand in store and also brings fusion to everything that we do as a group now. Tidy.com / Tidy digital / Tidy events / Tidy the label. Synapse and tidy white will continue and all these labels will also be releasing material at some juncture through all retail channels.Danny D:
In edition to this I heard you are also in line to shake up the download market with Tidy Digital this must tie in with the question before, will this be exclusively for tidy artist, how will it all work?
Lee Haslam:
Tidy Digital will be launched in November along with the new site and the label changes that I have just mentioned. Digital is something we have been looking at for some time and with the market beginning to turn we had to make our move. Tidy have always been at the forefront of embracing new technology. Tidy.com has become one of the biggest dance music portals on the planet so in most respects we already have a head start on a lot of the other download sites as we already have considerable traffic coming to us on a daily basis. We have over 30,000 regular and unique users!
On the tidy digital site there will be every single tidy record on there since the labels launch in 1995. This is a huge move as a lot of the material has been deleted for so long so it’s a great opportunity for people to get the tracks that they have missed out on. We are also offering the best possible quality mp3’s on the site at 320 KPM which is the first time anyone has done this. Every tidy record in the future will be available on mp3 format and will be released at the same time as the vinyl is online. We will also be releasing some exclusive download only releases to from myself, Maddox and Guyver. These are exciting times for the brand.
5 Danny D:
I play a hell of a lot of Tidy stuff on the radio and I am always surprised by the new names that always pop up on a regular basis, names that have been really doing it for me are Wid & Ben, Kernzy & Klemenza and Builtproof, where do you find them? Do they send demos to you they hand them over in a club how do you find these artists?
Lee Haslam:
We have and always will push and develop new talent. We have the best producers signed exclusively to the label in Guyver, Maddox, Ingo, Colin Barratt & Lee Pasch. These guys are the heart of the label and were signed mostly from them sending in demos. They work very closely with numerous artists most of which are signed to the labels DJ agency.. For instance Guyver is my engineer and has been for over three years now and in that time we have developed a great understanding in the studio and become great friends. The same goes for Wid & Ben with there engineer Lee Pasch. Ben from Wid & Ben is actually our art guy who designs all the sleeves and album covers. Paul Maddox works with Shaun M, Amber D, Glazby and Tara Reynolds. Kernzy & Klemenza, Caroline Banx, Guffy all work with Ingo and so on. You can see that it is very important for our guys to get into the production side of things and both myself and Amadeus work with them all to get the be possible track out of them for the label cause at the end of the day it is this that will promote them as artists and as DJ’s which we obviously have an interest in.
6 Danny d:
In the last 2 years both Guyver and Paul Maddox reputations have grown in to huge forces to be reckoned with both as producers and djs, who do you see following in there foot steps from the Tidy camp?
Lee Haslam:
Colin Barratt & Ingo have had a superb year; both have had numerous releases on tidy and other labels and they are coming on leaps and bounds. Next year they will have both matured more with them looking at writing some different material. With so many producers on the books its simple maths that we can’t release everything that they do, so therefore it’s important to channel their energy into something different. Guy, Paul, Lee, Colin & Ingo are in the middle of writing an album together which will be more experimental and prodigy esq. Creatively these guys have to kept on their toes so they don’t get too bogged down with writing just one style of music. They are all extremely talented in their own right and are more than capable of collectively writing some amazing music.
Other names to look out for are Chris Hoff & Technikal. I have been working closely with these guys over recent months and both have just had tracks signed to tidy so expect more from them.
7 Danny D:
At Creamfields Paul Maddox had done a live set how did it go? And do you believe like me there is a huge hole for new live acts to step in to and take over from some act that seem to be have been going round in circles for years without releasing any new tracks or pushing there sound forward?
Lee Haslam:
Totally… we have to push the boundaries these days otherwise people are going to get bored and in some respects I think that has happened. Music production has got so good now but people seem to be running out of ideas. It’s far too easy for people to produce music these days, anyone can buy a computer and some software and off you go. Now, I am not saying that people shouldn’t do this… We signed all of our producers because they followed this course but these guys are naturally song writers and don’t produce hard house by numbers which is what a lot of the material is like these days. A track can take a few hours to write and become a classic. “Music Is the Drug” which to date has sold over 17,000 copies took me 5 hours but most of the material these days is done in the same amount of time and to be fair is very poor. There seems to be no real thought and no real plot in records today. The classics are classics because they are memorable, they have a hook. Most of the tracks around now, for me personally, are too techy and have no real element that makes you go “Christ what is that! I must have it” It is that reaction that we look for in a record and it’s that reaction that makes a track a classic and gives it longevity. Dance music these days seems to be a lot more disposable than yesteryear which is a great shame but that’s the way the market has gone and we have to react to that and push new talent innovatively and live acts is a great platform in which to do that.
8 danny D:
The Tidy boys! Your bosses seem like fun guys and they really impressed the Dutch crowd that went over to the UK for the Tidy Summer Camp, I have people asking me for there mix cds every time I pass by Groove Connection, but what get I asked when are there next records coming out what’s going on with the boys any news on forthcoming records, remixes, any gossip?
Lee Haslam:
The boys are very busy with the label so their production days are extremely limited. However the boys are going into the studio in a few weeks with BK to write a double A side release for tidy which will be out in the spring of 2005
8 Danny D:
Right now we are going get deep in to it, I saw your performance at the Tidy Summer Camp in July it was epic because you where the first dj to a proper hard dance essential mix for radio 1 which is a huge achievement for you and Tidy. How much preparation goes in to it? How long did you work on it?
Lee Haslam:
I worked on it for weeks mate. Collecting tracks etc but in the end I just went with what I thought best on the day and react to the crowd. It was a great atmosphere in there and I have to admit I was the more nervous I have ever been. It's quite scary thinking that over 30 million people worldwide are listening to you but a few stiff drinks helped and the set went perfect. It's great that the hard house sound is finally getting recognised now by the likes of radio one. It is arguably the biggest supported scene in the UK in terms of record sales and even attendance but until recently was the most neglected by the press and radio. But its because of Tidy’s superb events, label and website that people are now starting to take us more seriously as a force to be reckoned with. The brand has expanded so much since I joined in 1997 and with the plans we have in place I can see it becoming even bigger.
9 Danny D:
Because what I sense is that in the Uk especially from the media (mixmag/radio1) in the last 12 months there attitudes have changed towards harder music and counties to do so with Lisa lashes do an essential mix as well very soon. In the past I got the feeling some people look down on the harder scene in general, why is this and what is making people change there mind over there in UK?
I think the music has more to do with it as it has certainly become significantly more intelligent. A lot looked at hard house and thought off beat cartoon music as they used to call it but the fact is our music has matured so much and brings in so many different elements from other genres its become considerably accepted. I also think that when you have a brand that is selling out its events month after month, a label which has been one of the biggest selling dance music labels for over 5 years and has the an award winning website its not going to be too long before people take notice. At the end of the day we always do the best we can with everything we do. Be it an event and album or a 12” record. It’s this philosophy which has made us what we are today. We are not some faceless organisation. We are very community led and are always talking to our fans and it’s this ethos which has made tidy the brand it is today. We want people to feel a part of what we do and have a laugh with it as we do, we never take ourselves too seriously.
9 Danny D:
Right to round it up, it will be your first time back at HQ in a year what can we expect from you at HQ then mate? Going to drop bombs on the HQ crew?
Yes I am really excited to be back at HQ again. It’s been a while. My sets these days are quite eclectic, I do love my hard trance but quite recently some hard house has been catching my attention and has been getting a few airings. I always like to move my sets around so you don’t know what's going to come next. Needless to say I will be getting fully involved with firing the crowd up too.
As for material I will be playing, I have a new single which I did with Guyver under our joint Euphony guise called Euphonism which is coming
Bron: www.udc.nl
