Joey Negro – aka Dave Lee – headlines a special night on the first floor of the Royal Yacht Hotel on Saturday

IT’S a wonder Dave Lee can remember who he is when he gets up in the morning.

The man with a million pseudonyms is one of the most respected, prolific and original artists in the industry, but with aliases Jakatta, Akabu, Sessomato, Doug Willis, Raven Maize, The Sunburst Band, Z Factor and AC Soul Symphony, as well as the infamous Joey Negro, even he can’t quite pin himself down. ‘My life is going down the toilet!’ he says.

Is the multi-persona thing getting the better of him? Maybe it’s that he is working in so many different directions, at such erratic pace, that life has become a bit manic.Or perhaps it’s just that he can’t work out quite why he keeps ending up in Hull.

‘You know it’s funny where you end up going and where you don’t go. I’ve never been to Jersey, but I’ve been to Hull a few times – why is that? I don’t know why I keep going back to Hull!’ he says.

The thing is, whether it’s Brazil or Brentford, Lee won’t turn his nose up. As he well knows, you can’t knock a night ’til you’ve tried it – and even the world’s greatest clubs can’t guarantee a good gig.

‘Sometimes you travel all this way to get to a gig but you don’t particularly enjoy it. A lot of places I play, the guy who goes before me is playing real rubbish, and you just think “what are you supposed to do with a crowd going after that?” It’s not always about the venue. You have got to play the best music for the crowd, though. A lot of the stuff I’m into is mellow by today’s standards, but I always try and mix it up.

‘I’m always going back to my roots – I suppose my taste has changed a bit over the years, but I still really like the stuff I used to like. There’s always the odd record you play and you think “what the f*** did I like about that?” but most of it I still listen to and play out. I’ll always try and play the best music depending on what the crowd are into. I’ve always got new records I like, but sometimes people don’t want too much new music. It depends where you’re playing.’

DJing earns the money, but Lee’s notoriety depends on his prowess as a producer.
The consummate multi-tasker, he’s currently been working on numerous projects, including a new album which pushes deeper house and electro, a live jazz-type released under production alias The Sunburst Band, a Joey Negro album release and a new LP, which is more ‘backstreet Brit funk – more of a specialist thing really.’

‘Sometimes it can be a bit manic, but with modern technology you can swap between projects, or go back and fine-tune stuff you’ve played at the weekend. The old way of working was that you’d keep at it until it was completely finished, but now I can dart between 20 tracks in a week if I want to.’
Lee’s a grafter, no question, but he’s also a complete perfectionist. It’s a quality you’d expect from someone with such a lengthy discography, but, as he says, it’s also got its downfalls.

‘I think most people making music are perfectionists, but sometimes you just have to let it go, or you can go on forever. Sometimes you are making a difference, other times you’re not making a difference at all, and you’ve just wasted a week on it. But there are a lot of great records around which have a lot of things wrong with them – if it’s got a good vibe, sometimes it doesn’t matter if it’s not quite right,’ he says.

‘The DJing is where you’re earning the money, but making music these days is the sort of thing that takes up most of the time. The DJing is good for the studio work, though, because it’s a good way of seeing what works on the dance floor and what doesn’t. The two are quite different, but there are good bits and bad bits with both, in the same way that travelling miles to some gig which is s*** and then sometimes maybe you’re in the studio and something isn’t quite happening, and you’re trying and trying to make it work, and it can get quite depressing. Both can be great, and both can be not so great, but even the worst gig is usually a lot better than most jobs!’

Chances are that Lee’s debut in Jersey won’t fall into that category – and certainly, if it’s Hull we’re competing with, we might even get Negro on a return ticket.

• Joey Negro – aka Dave Lee – headlines a special night on the first floor of the Royal Yacht on Saturday, hosted by Firethorn Productions. Main room support from Craig Alder and Keith Robinson, with Wrongtom and Fuzzbox Inc in Sirocco and Pete De Momme and Carrie Cooper in Lazy Jack. For further information, contact events@firethornproductions.com