You might remember Danny Wolfers (aka Legowelt aka House Of Jezebel aka Smackos aka Polarius aka… well, we could go on) from last year’s epic Love And Happiness rework, which made everyone think that Rush Hour had just unearthed some 80s deep house gem and re-released it, such was its pure analogue skill.
Or perhaps you go back a bit further, in which case you’ll recall his breakout hit for Cocoon in 2002, the still-heavy electro classic Disco Rout? Whatever the case, you’ll realise that there’s nothing predictable about Mr Wolfers, a man who’s never been one for taking the easy option…
But just who is the artist popularly known as Legowelt? Well, he was a late 90s protégé of Dutch label Bunker Records, whose multi-faceted approach to music has been compared by many to that of Detroit’s UR. Here Danny – who approached the label after becoming obsessed with one of their acts, seminal Netheralnds electronic outfit Unit Moebius – was mentored by Dutch originators like I-f and Pametex, who introduced the young Chicago house and Detroit techno fan to ‘early electro and the obscure pre-1983 Italian disco’, which in turn lead to his first release on Bunker, 1998’s six-track Italo / Chi-town sounding Pimpshifter, which was re-released last year on blood red vinyl.
Since then he’s been playing live for over a decade with a synth and drum set-up that can resemble a small showroom, plus producing various sounds under various aliases and set up the much beloved Strange Life imprint, home to all things nautical, mysterious and experimental. There’s the ambient-sounding Smackos, the darkly brooding Salamandos, the funk-influenced Nacho Patrol ... and that doesn’t even scratch the surface. But with Legowelt lined up to play at the amazing Bloc weekender this March, we caught up with him for a chat about what makes him tick.
How has being from The Hague influenced your music? The Hague has Bunker, the Hotmix conglomeration, I-f, Unit Moebius etc. I guess that was huge influence music scene-wise. As a city itself, it’s on the sea; there is a lot of nature and I live right next to the sand dunes, I guess that inspires me somehow.
So you’ve never felt tempted to leave Holland and move to Berlin, like so many artists within our scene? For God’s sake, no! I never understood what the big deal with that city is... I guess the rent is cheap there but I tend to get instantly depressed from the grim, boring atmosphere. I guess there are clubs and stuff and you can party, but for making music...you can do that anywhere else, if you can't make music in a little dinky town, then you probably also can't in Berlin. I would rather move to Palm Springs in the Californian desert or Juneau, the capital of Alaska.
You make a lot of different styles of music – can you pick a favourite genre, or do you love them all too much? (And do you have a favourite alias?) No, I don’t really have a favorite genre, I really like off-the-map old ghetto soul stuff and a lot of stuff from Africa because it’s so raw and comes from a different angle than most western music. My favorite alias is Legowelt, I guess.
Which clubs have been influences on you musically? I really don’t get my influences from clubs, but maybe seeing some DJs like Trax from Chicago, but I really don’t know in what clubs that was. I always forget the name of clubs. There’s the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (DEMF) maybe or something like that…
Aside from music, what do you like doing? I really don’t have much time for hobbies, but sometimes I like to muck about with my Commodore 64, programming games. I’m completely useless but it’s very…. uhm…. relaxing and Zen to do, it clears the mind. I’ve got a ZX Spectrum coming in soon and want to try to enter into the comp.sys Sinclair Crap Games competition where you have to make the worst game possible, stuff like Lawnmower Simulator and you get extra points for bad programming and stuff. Maybe I will make an ‘Aspiring DJ/ Producer moves to Berlin and tries to survive’ game ha ha ha…
If you could go back in time to any great club, which would it be and why? I guess it probably would be the legendary Music Box or something else in Chicago…
Who are your musical heroes? (Living, dead, whatever…) James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Prince, All those Chicago and Detroit people and a lot more.
We’ve heard you still use the same Amiga from 1988 for working on? Is it showing any signs of dying? What other equipment do you use? I’ve got 2 Amiga 1200's from the mid 90s, they are working fine, one of them is pretty beaten up because I used to tour and play live with it. I use a lot of stuff, I got all these synthesizers and stuff like a Roland Super JX10 and a bunch of Jupiters, the 8 and 4, Juno's, a Minimoog, Sequential Circuits stuff, all those old Korg MS modular and shitloads more.
Well, finally, how did your cover of First Choice / Ron Hardy’s Love & Happiness come to happen? How did you tackle a classic for Rush Hour? I heard the original and thought ‘Well that’s a really cool song’, but it was so tape-saturated that somehow I thought I should remake it. I already knew where the sounds were coming from when I was listening to it. Of course when I made it, it was in a completely different key and sounds kind of different. I was never planning to release it since it was a pretty clichéd cover of a cover of cover etc. But then Voyage Direct Rush Hour asked me and I thought, ‘Well ok, that’s cool, why not do it under a new name?’ And so House of Jezebel was born. They are gonna do another record I think, also with a little bit of off-the-map house stuff.
Check out Legowelt's Resurrection Megamix for the soon-to-be-released Virgo Four box set.
