Josh Hussaney part 1/2
When his brother returned from Ibiza saying he’d heard Marco Carola playing Josh’s track in Amnesia, it seemed too good to be true.
That is, until they YouTubed it, and came across something neither of them were expecting
In this interview Josh tells us a bit about what happened next and his career.
Hi Josh! Can you talk us through why you moved to Manchester?
I moved to Manchester just over 2 years ago. I’ve always DJed since I was a kid, but just as a hobby – never really took it seriously. I’ve always really loved early 90s music, and K Klass was always someone I followed.
One day I just decided to drop Paul from K Klass a message – basically saying ‘I’ve always DJed and I’ve just moved to Manchester. I’m looking to produce but I haven’t got a clue where to start.’
Bold! So you approached with him an attitude of ‘Will you tutor me?’
Yes basically – amazingly he said yes, give me a call! He was like ‘Where are you from?’ and I said ‘Just near Chester’, he said ‘No way! Me too!’ – I didn’t realise he was from near Chester. He said ‘Yeah I’ll sort something out for you – we’ll book something in – I’ve never taught anyone before so you’ll have to bear with me.’ I wasn’t expecting a response because of who he is; K Klass have had like major hits in the UK over the last 20 odd years.
Paul showed me the basics, and then after a few months he suggested that I do something like this. So I came to school of electronic music to get something a bit more formalised, and studied the Music Production Course.
That’s awesome – nice one Paul! There’s three tracks I want to ask to you about. First off – tell us the story of Burnin’
Without a doubt, without Paul I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I built the Burnin’ track as a way to practice learning to produce with Paul. When it was finished Paul said ‘This is actually really good’, and said he sent it to his friend who owned a label – and that’s Roland from Mjuzieek, who said he’d have it for his underground label.
Before it got officially released, the promo list went out and Roger Sanchez spotted it.
I’m pretty sure it was before the actual release date, so he must have picked it up from the promo and played it on his ‘Release Yourself’ show from New York, and it went from there!
I kept sending Paul tracks whilst on the course, he was amazed at what I was able to do without his advice.
So you came to MMS, worked really hard and smashed it on your course!
Did you feel like you still learnt a lot on the course, even though you had previous experience and a release out?
A lot. I was having to bother Paul a lot – I’d be like ringing him up at home and be like ‘I need to pop round Paul, how do you do this and that?’
I think after the first project at school of electronic music where you had to strip down a reference track and build your own track – that helped me with pretty much everything.
So, at that point that’s when I stopped calling Paul.
That’s great to hear. The second track I want to ask about is ‘Come on Down’ released on Foreign Language, and the Scurrilous remix.
That’s great to hear. The second track I want to ask about is ‘Come on Down’ released on Foreign Language, and the Scurrilous remix.
Whilst I was on the course at MMS, because I was learning so much I was able to get quite a lot of tracks completed. I had 8 releases whilst I was on the course, all through different record labels, and have signed another one since finishing.
The track ‘Come on Down’ I produced in Midi School, but was released slightly after I finished. I released it through 2 lads that have a label called Foreign Language, they found me on Soundcloud before I signed anything with them, and they invited me down to headline a gig for them in Leeds.
Excellent!
Yeah I know! So I headlined the gig for them and stayed in touch, and then they asked ‘Can you throw us some music our way?’ I said yes, and wrote the ‘Come on Down’ track. They got 2 lads from Manchester (Scurrilous) that they know to remix it, and then that’s when Marco Carola picked that track up.
That is i n s a n e ! Marco Carola – we’re talking one of Italy’s biggest tech-house exports, 141 thousand Soundcloud followers Marco Carola! How did you know he’d picked it up?
So the story of this is really funny. Basically, my brother had been in Ibiza and he comes back and he goes ‘Hey, I heard your tune in Amnesia!’ and I said ‘Yeah, whatever’. He’d dropped his mobile phone in the swimming pool out there and broken it, so the video he said he’d taken he couldn’t show me – so I thought he was just winding me up.
Anyway, I go to bed as I’ve got work in the morning –
Then he comes storming into my room about 3am (we live together) – shouting that he’d been looking on Youtube all night looking at Carola’s recent sets and he’d found about 3 or 4 different videos of Carola playing my track in different clubs around the world.
Whaaat! I know. I couldn’t sleep after that!
When I first started off buying music, I used to look and acknowledge the producer’s name, the year of the track and everything – the little details. All I ever wanted is for other people when they’re shopping to come across my name. That’s why I’ve used my normal name. It’s mad it’s all starting to happen.
With that track – how do you think Carola picked that up?
Promo, again. The majority of the labels I’m on use a distributor called Labelworx – I’m pretty sure that’s how people like Sanchez and Carola have picked that up.
I think that when Carola played that track I think I found the track where he first played it in Il Muretto in Italy [shown below] – he turns round to speak to someone in the DJ booth, like a young lad, so I’m pretty sure that lad puts tracks forward to him – he must sit there going through tracks and then puts them forward to Carola – because he turns round and nods to the young lad as he mixes the tune in.
Marco Carola
Carola is playing the remix by Scurrilous, but it’s worth mentioning the original on the support sheet that you get through from the distributor has artists like Horse Meat Disco and Riva Starr saying they’re also supporting and playing the original, and then you’ve got people like Carola playing the remix.
It’s all good at the end of the day – whether it’s the original or the remix, it’s still linking back to your talent. They’ve both got strengths. The third track I want to talk about is your Martha Wash Remix, which did air time on BBC Introducing, tell us how that came about?
The standard thing to do when you’re producing tracks is to upload them to the BBC Introducing page – they’ve got an upload section where you can send your track and your details, two of them have been played so far.
It’s strange how the remix came about – basically I just used her vocal, and made an unofficial bootleg remix of it. I was initially going to put it up as a free download – but then a label said they wanted it. I said ‘look, I really really doubt you’ll be able to sign off her vocal , she’s massive’. They said to leave it with them – bearing in mind it’s a small independent label – and they managed it! They copied me into all the emails with Martha Wash’s Dad (who is her manager) and the original record label for the track – and they managed to secure it as an official 2015 remix.
It just goes to show you that sometimes it’s worth doing, just using an acapella and putting the track up as a free download – as there’s no issues with doing that – as long as you’re not making money from it.
What happened in my case where I managed to secure it as a remix is rarer, so it’s great that it pulled off.
Read on to part 2 of this interview with Josh, where he gives absolutely invaluable advice for producers on how to get your music out there, how to get gigs, and how to keep the music-life-work balance in tow.
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