While most 14 year olds were out causing ruckus, James "Jimbo" Cayzer started to making dance music and has since worked with top labels like Vapour, Ministry of Sound and Supplement Facts to name but a few. He has started his own label, Red Seven Records which primarily releases his own productions however with his ever growing popularity, it is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with.
Higherfrequency talked with this rising star on a recent tour and asked him about his label, his mix of sounds, and what's in store for the future.
> Interview : Ryo Tsutsui(HigherFrequency)_Introduction : Len Iima(HigherFrequency)
HigherFrequency (HRFQ) : How was your show at ageHa?
Jaytech : It was excellent, very enjoyable, really cool crowd and the club itself is just amazing. It’s really cool to see a venue with so many different little hiding places, a beach, and a swimming pool, I wasn’t used to seeing that. It was a really good crowd to work and because it was such a comfortable environment to play in, and with the help of the sound and the lighting system that ageHa has I think it went down pretty well.
HRFQ : You mentioned that Japan was number one on your list of places to visit, what kind of interesting experiences have you had here?
Jaytech : It was a bit of a culture shock at first, the city I live in has 400,000 people, so it’s very small and not as densely populated so I didn’t really know what to expect coming here. While I’ve been here, I can really only say I’ve seen Shibuya, I haven’t seen outside of here but even just walking around and getting lost in this place has been really amazing! It’s true what they say, Japan is definitely five years ahead of everyone else, it’s like coming to the future!
HRFQ : Your music has a tight sound and a colorful melody, which artists have influenced you?
Jaytech : Well I started listening to dance music in about 1996, and I was buying lots of Paul Van Dyk CD’s and lots of trance. Between 96 and 2000 lots and lots of trance, I went to my first dance event in 1999, and as soon as I been out and seen it all in action I wanted to go out and write trance music, but over the next five years I got opened up to artists like Andy Paige, BT, Hybrid and things like that, people who were just really pushing the sound back then, really pushing the boundaries. I think Andy Paige is one artist I have a lot of respect for. He’s an Australian artist who never really I think got the recognition he deserved. Some of his production values are just amazing and that’s something I aspire to.
HRFQ : Your music is a bit progressive, little bit of trance, but mainly it’s quite housey, do you do that on purpose?
Jaytech : The number one thing for me with my tracks is to have a lot of feeling, I don’t want to do too many tracks that are just dancefloor, I want to tell a story. While I was writing all this progressive and a lot of trance as well, a very good friend of mine we were always getting together on Friday nights and mixing lots of house records, so I have a bit of a house influence from that and from Sydney as well, spending a lot of time there, there’s a lot of House music in Sydney so that’s also probably where I get influenced from.
HRFQ : With your label Red Seven Records, you mainly release your own productions, Do you have any rules on deciding which tracks to release?
Jaytech : Red Seven allows me stretch my legs a bit more and put out the stuff I really want to put out. It’s done through 3 beat in the UK and so they cover all the management side of things so that really allows me to just put out what I want. It’s basically a platform for Matt Rowan and myself to put out the records that we want to put out, it’s also an avenue for Matt to put out his tracks as well. I just released a double A side single for Matt that was done really well, so I’m really pleased about that. Starting towards the end of this year my release schedule will be including other artists as well so basically I wanted to run Red Seven for at least a year only using my tracks or Matt’s tracks so that it was an easy process because I didn’t want to sign any other artists until I was ready to do it. The last you want is to sign someone up and then have overlooked something, or not manage them properly, or not pay them or something like that, I wanted to make sure I do it right. It’s been very slow, I’ve started it off very small and it’s just been getting bigger all the time.
HRFQ : What kind of music (or image) do you want to express through Red Seven Records?
Jaytech : Underground, I think. I definitely think the Red Seven sound is something only certain people will like. I think you couldn’t play a lot of Red Seven tunes at say the commercial clubs in Australia, because you have to really be in to this sort of music. I hope the people who listen to Red Seven tracks are people who are a bit educated in this sort of sound and don’t need to have their attention grabbed from them.
HRFQ : Your tracks have been supported by many kinds of DJs in progressive, trance, house, is that your goal when you compose tracks?
Jaytech : I used to, one of things I’ve learned with producing over the last few years is that the best thing you can do is just sit down and write whatever comes out because it tends to be the best music that you make. I think every producer has had a few tracks that they’ve made where they are trying to do a certain sound but I generally find if I just let whatever I want come out it yields a better result. You generally come up with your own kind of sound that people will pick up.
HRFQ : Now in Europe and here in Japan as well, the minimal sound is the current trend, What are your thoughts on that?
Jaytech : For me personally, I find minimal a hard style to write because whenever I write a track I keep adding parts and adding parts, and I always have so much stuff going on. I didn’t like much of the minimal tech at first, I think it’s a genre that is very easy to do a bad of, but I think it was Jody Wistenoff with his mixes, a lot of his recent mixes are starting to include minimal progressive, I guess you would call it, and that was the first minimal stuff that I heard that really had some feeling and was really intelligent and had some thought about it. So I think if you can get a new flavour of sound into dance music than that’s really good, it’s just I liked to hear a good job.
HRFQ : For such a young guy, you have already accomplished so much, what is the next milestone you'd like to reach?
Jaytech : I’m not really sure, I guess I want to get my music out to as many people as possible. You can always go further, you can always take it further. With the help if the internet and things like that I’ve been able to do that over the last few years. From here I want to be a bit more professional with my traveling and with playing internationally, which is very exciting. I want to also become more professional with my producing. I’m happy with how I’m going as a songwriter, as a musician I’m quite comfortable with writing tracks but I want to get to the standard of producing like Junkie XL or BT where they can write music for films and commercials all over the world because their sound is so tight, that’s something I’m really interested in.
End of the interview
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