Paul Johnson Interview
At around the same time, Vega and Angel Alanis were throwing rave parties. "I first approached legendary rave promoter Roger Pedraza (RP Smack) of Ripe Productions with the idea to work top selling artists who were also DJs into rave parties," Vega says. "The music at the time was strictly techno, trance, break beat and some House. But when Paul Johnson hit the rave circuit he blew up! Before you knew it, one promoter after another was booking him.
"I mean to actually think back and understand that we were the first to have guys like Paul Johnson, Robert Armani, Felix Da Housecat and others playing our parties before anyone else in North America... That was really something!" It was something. It was the introduction of House music to a new generation that had never heard it - the same thing that had happened in Chicago ten years before.
A few years later, Paul hooked up with Relief and Cajual Records and released some of the imprint's seminal material, both original productions and remixes. Label owner, producer and DJ Cajmere/Green Velvet remembers loving an EP of Paul's on Clubhouse Records with the underground classics "I Feel Good" and "Nice and Fast". "He brought a lot of creativity to the labels," Cajmere says. "He's a very warm person and he really tries to be as positive as possible."
"It's in my head before I touch the equipment," Paul says of his writing process. "I can do a track in about 30 minutes. As I'm making the track, the vocals come to me and it goes from there."
In 1993, Paul brought Gant into the studio with him. There was no million-dollar rig behind his sound. "He had a mixing board and a Roland beat machine. That was it. It was about working with what you've got and making the best music out there with it."
From those beginnings came a string of hits in the 1990s, many (including "Doo Wop" featuring Candi Staton) on the Dust Traxx label, which he helped start up with label head Radek.
"I remember before Radek and I worked together," Vega says, "he was telling me about travelling to France with Paul. They were going bananas over him and his records. It's no doubt why Radek would've wanted Paul Johnson for one of the first Dust Traxx releases and if not to help head up the label."
Paul is amazed at all the love he gets from countries you would never expect to be up on House. Like in Turkey - they were all over him. "In Chicago, it's been here so long that everybody's used to it," Paul says. "It's nothing special. Over in Europe, it's still new."
Europe acted as the proving ground for the 1999 smash hit, "Get Get Down" for Moody through Bad Boy Bill's former label, Mix Connection.
Ironically, he originally wrote it as a filler song. "When the album came out, 'Get Get Down' overshadowed every other track on the album. I had no idea it would be that hot. I was actually kinda upset when that became big, because I worked hard on all the other tracks and that was what blew up."
"We were in Paris, all those places on tour," Gant Garrard remembers. "After all of those EPs, it was amazing to see how he blew that place up with 'Get Get Down'. I wish people back home could see how people went crazy to that song."
Frankie Vega was hired by Mix Connection to write the official press release for the album. The song had a "major impact. You heard it on MTV, both in America and Europe and it was everywhere a dance record was heard or sold."
"One thing I remember is that Paul was always bringing people to Cajual," Cajmere remembers. "That's sort of rare. You know, a lot of artists are really about their own stuff, and maybe they're afraid that bringing in someone else might threaten them. Paul isn't that way at all. He's extremely unselfish."
Stories about Paul discovering and mentoring younger producers and guiding their early careers abound. Gant Garrard was similarly taken under Paul's wing at the age of 12. "He was becoming a man and I was becoming a teenager," he says with a laugh.
These days, Paul's high on Que of the group the Monkeynuts. "He keeps me motivated," Que says. "He's been majorly influential in the way I write and produce. Aside from all that, he's like a big brother to me."
Paul met producer and DJ Stacy Kidd through a mutual friend at a House party in 1989 when Stacy was 17 years old. Afterward, they sat in a car for about three hours, listening to tracks. "I had all of these unreleased joints on cassette that Paul was checking out," Stacy remembers. "It turned out that some of them were from his own recordings.
"It was a huge honor for me. After that night for probably the next two years we'd be together every single day." Paul also hooked up Stacy with his first record deal with Dance Mania. "If it wasn't for Paul," he says, "I wouldn't even be in this business."
He's not the only one, whether they know him or not, who feels that way about Paul Johnson.
Paul Johnson's "She Got Me On" will be released on Ministry of Sound and "Love at First Sight" on Riviera later this year. His myspace.com page is at myspace.com/djpauljohnson.
Page 1 | 2
5 Magazine is supported in large part by the patronage of our readers. If you like what you see, consider subscribing to the 5 Magazine Digital Edition and receive the complete contents at the beginning of every month as well as access to members only stories for only $1.50 per month!