Vick Lavender Interview
by Terry Matthew | Published December 2006 | Features Archives

ON NOVEMBER 10TH, a fascinating group of artists, musicians, DJs, label heads and music afficionados from all walks of life came together for the latest installment of Diaspora's Den at the Vida Lounge. Headlining the event, as always, was Mr. A.L.I. Many people by now have been initiated into the Mr. A.L.I. experience - the mesmerizing voice of Carla Prather, the performances of "global groove guru" David Risqué, the powerful blend of rhythms and exotic sounds spanning the world and mixed with an expert hand.

5 Magazine has been fortunate enough to have Mr. A.L.I. co-founder Jere McAllister share his thoughts with us about the meaning of House music through his column, and Carla and David have also spent some time with us in these pages over the last year. Vick Lavender, however, has been content to be the man behind the curtain. "I do this because I love it," he told me. "I don't care much for the limelight. As a producer, I'll let other people take the limelight before I step into it."

If you've spent any time in Chicago's House scene, you've certainly come across Vick Lavender before. From his days as a DJ in the mid- to late-1980s to his time in Glenn Underground's Strictly Jaz Unit prior to the founding of Mr. A.L.I., Vick has been one of those people in the trenches, releasing a steady flow of irresistible deep house tracks but slow to sound his own horn as one of the premiere architects of the Chicago House sound we know today. Working around our sometimes hectic deadlines, Vick graciously agreed to step out from behind the curtain and sit down with us to talk - about House music, fame, the music industry, some old friends and the musicians in the band that he calls his family.

VICK LAVENDER: I was born in New Orleans, but I moved when I was a kid and was raised here in Chicago. Artistically speaking, I have so many influences it's be hard to name them all. Joe Sample from a jazz group called The Crusaders and Sting come to mind. Spiritually? I do this because I love it. I don't care much for the limelight, I'll let other people take that.

5: How did you come to House music? Do you remember when your first paying gig was?

VICK: Probably... 1986, I'd say. I can tell you a funny story about when I first got into the business. This would have been back in 1987. I was going to put out a record with Larry Sherman [of Trax Records] - that was how I met Glenn Underground, who was working in the pressing plant for Trax. I was coming out of the room after listening to the record I was going to make and Larry was a couple of steps in front of me. Glenn was pressing records and he stopped and took me by the arm. We didn't know each other at all. But he whispered to me, "Man, don't do it. If I was you, I wouldn't do it." [laughs]

But here's the thing: two nights later - I'm not kidding you - two nights later, I was watching ABC news and they were taking Larry Sherman away. I was like "Oh my God, that guy wasn't playing!"

Today it's different. A lot of us have been in the game so long that we know that we're going to get ripped off. I think by knowing more, we minimize how much we're going to get ripped off.

5: How do you do that?

VICK: You have to be on your game. You know, if you make one huge record, you can actually live without being on your game all the time. The scary part about it is that you never know when you're going to make that one big record. You always have to be prepared. You never know - the record you're making today might break big tomorrow.

The fun thing about working with indie labels is that I get to make whatever I want to make. If they don't like it, someone else might like it. I'm not really tied down by, you know, "I don't hear a single on this album" and stuff like that.

5: Have you done a lot of major label remixes?

VICK: You know what, I really haven't. As of right now, we have a major album coming out on West End Records called Third World Culture and I have a solo album forthcoming with Unified Records called Diaspora's Den.

5: What is Lavajam?

VICK: Lavajam is my solo project. I'm with Mr. A.L.I. We have jam sessions, which make up the Jere McAllister solo stuff. And then you have Lavajam which is the Vick Lavender solo stuff. It gives Jere and I a chance to do what we want to do. When you work with somebody, it's also very important to take time out to do what you really want to do without being concerned about, "I wonder if my partner will like that?" It's a very good situation - we're both able to do these solo projects and come back to Mr. A.L.I. and keep it fresh.

Of the two of us, I'm more of the militant when it comes to sound. Jere is more flexible. Musically, I sort of stay within the sounds that I love, and I don't really go outside that sound. Jere on the other hand is very professional. If Britney Spears came to him and asked him to do a record, Jere probably could and probably would do it. Me? Nah... But I think that combination works out great, because that's where you get the Mr. A.L.I. sound. It's that really great underground sound, which is where I'm from, and then you get more of the polished, professional sound which is where Jere is from. When those two meet, that's when you get "Cast Your Spell", you get "Rainy Day", you get our entire Transit album.

So many influences came into the Mr. A.L.I. sound. Influences came from rock, you can hear some jazz and soul, which of course is the base of what we do - so many different forms of music. That's the beauty of working with Jere. I think we respect each other enough to let the other bring his musical influences to the table. We had a lot of similarities when it came to music that we like. We were talking when we first met about some of the '80s bands that we liked, a lot of stuff like the Smiths, Love and Money, the Cure, Joy Division which later became New Order.

Something really strange happened to black music in America. After the '70s, everything became very electronic. You'd have artists like Teddy Riley who was making stuff like "Rumpshaker" and we hated it. Most artistic black kids hated that. Me, I was a huge Smiths fan, I have everything the Smiths ever made. It was artistic but it was very good musicianship. Bauhaus with Peter Murphy was another band I liked. We were playing all that stuff. There weren't that many black kids that got into the stuff that we did so when I met Jere, we had that in common.

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