Lenny Dee, you’re playing the Brooklyn, NY stop on the Trauma Harder Styles Tour, I have to say it’s an honor to be conducting an interview with such a legend! From pioneering the NY scene back in the 80’s, to dominating the charts in the UK, and developing the early hardcore and industrial sounds that has evolved into modern hardcore- how does all that happen? Who was your biggest inspiration in the early part of your career?
I was inspired by the evolution of electronic music itself. This hunger lead me into doing all the styles so this was the next step along my musical journey. Right before the hardcore, I was doing disco, house, techno, industrial, Dnb breaks, rave, hardtechno, and I kept on rolling with the flow of the music which I felt was getting harder each party.
When I met Marc Arcadipane in the early 90’s, his tracks were the definitive sound of the style. He made the sounds of the core in the studio which had not been done yet and we released it on Industrial Strength Records. 25 years later – we are still pumping out the most underground artist and styles of Hard Electronic music.
What important changes have you witnessed from the time you got into the scene, until now?
The sonics of the music have changed in a big way, analog gone – digital in. Also social media.
Some DJs coming up don’t know how to beatmatch and really DJ which is a shame as I think it’s a real artform, and some don’t even make their own music. That’s the bad side, but there are a lot of talented new guys coming up too. I like to support guys with real core attitude. I still have faith in the new, unexplored roads. I’m not the “safe bet” / “every track sounds the same” kind of label guy.
What projects are you working on right now that we should be looking out for?
I just finished 3 tracks on Mr. Madness’ new LP, I’m also working on a few remixes Tymon & Stormtrooper.
The big one is our 25 years of ISR project this year, which will include a vinyl release, and we’re also doing parties around the world to celebrate.I’m also wrapping up some solo music and collabs with Tieum and A-Kriv, which I am excited about – some cool vibes cooking up. I also signed with Footworxx Bookings for Europe who are awesome!
I am super excited about our new Kaos Engine Kick Drum instrument collection we are doing with ‘5KRO’ and ‘Industrial Strength Samples’
This custom instrument will give new artists loads of hardcore kicks, with the power of a custom NI Kontakt Gui. This is a real studio tool to help make the hardest part of the style – the kicks! We are set to release it in April.
This Trauma tour is a big thing for the North American hardcore scene, featuring some of the biggest names in hardcore today. Have any of the other artists on the Trauma tour ever inspired your work? If so, how?
Yes, the Trauma guys doing the tour – they give me inspiration that there might be more hope for this music here. Hats off to them for giving this style of music a real tour.
All the artists give me inspiration for sure. I love all the music they make, plus I have worked with many of them over the years too.
What are your top 3 favorite tracks of all time? Why?
I kinda flip around with this question a lot :
Mescaline United – first ISR -First core track – this has a place in my heart forever
Euromasters Rotterdamn 01 – killer core for sure – really took it up a notch
Extreme Terror – ISR – thee most bad ass track around – Nuff said, really!
Lastly (see our interview with Rob Gee for Rob’s answer here) who would win in a pie eating contest between you and Rob Gee?
Haha! Well I am not sure. I like pie – but i am not a super sugar freak – now if we are taking about smoking …… I think I am the winner 🙂
If there’s anything we haven’t asked, what else would you like to say to the readers of The Hard Data?
This music was a USA grown music style. Industrial Strength Records was the first Hardcore Label ever, here our of Brooklyn and I was the first hardcore DJ back in the day, so the USA is the real birth of this music. But it still needs some support here – so lets ass kick it!
