5 MAGAZINE FEATURES

Jon Cutler Interview

by Czarina Mirani | Published October 2007 | Features Archives

"It's Yours" is one of the most uplifting soulful House anthems that came out in the past ten years, forever impressing the name of Jon Cutler in the minds of even the most neophyte of clubheads.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Jon was the quintessential club kid roaming the city's rich nightlife and cultivating friendships, experiences and most importantly the ear that enabled him to play and produce banging House music.

After DJing for some years, in 1996 he created his own label entitled Distant Music. After releasing "You Groove Me", "Fluttie Pebbles" and various remixes, Jon produced "It's Yours" featuring Eman on vocals for Chez Music. The song reached #1 on the DJ Hype Charts and #29 in the UK pop charts.

Since then Jon has continued focusing on releasing quality House Music along with a hectic djing schedule. While I was in New York at a Jellybean Benitez party, I was introduced to Jon and got to talk to him early summer about his background and the impetus behind his music.

 

 

5 MAGAZINE: Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

JON CUTLER: Well I guess you could say I'm just a clubkid from back in the day. From the '80s/early '90s, I was always in the clubs. That kind of led me into the DJing and the DJing led me into the producing. As the years went on I started working for independent labels.

5: Any musical training?

JON: You know, school band and that kind of stuff, nothing major. My musical training was programming drum machines and those kinds of things. I played a little keys, but mostly drum programming.

5: Who were some of your favorite groups from the '80s?

JON: I listened to a lot of underground club stuff from back in the day, like real bboy type music. Hip-hop, pop-locking kind of stuff like "Just Begun", all the major classics.

5: Were you a bboy at the time?

JON: I wasn't a bboy but I hung out with a lot of the hip-hop crowd. It all went hand in hand... Washington Square Park, hanging out in Brighton 6 in Brooklyn at the beach, and we would see the same people out at the clubs so I was involved in everything. If Afrika Bambaata was playing, I would go. If David Morales or Frankie Knuckles were playing I would be there also.

5: What were your favorite New York clubs back then, and why don't you tell me about some of your experiences of what it was like back then.

JON: We went to the World, in the east village where Morales and Frankie Knuckles used to play... Area, which then became the same location where they did Body and Soul/Shelter parties. I used to go to MK, which was a smaller spot. Danceteria, Peppermint Lounge... They're all gone now.

5: I was told that at that time the music wasn't necessarily House Music being played.

JON: It wasn't House - it was all underground. If you went to Danceteria, you'd hear Mark Kamens play one kind of House Music. If you went to Area or the Tunnel there'd be Johnny Dynell playing a different kind of House. But most of the clubs back then were House Music that mixed with the early hip-hop like LL Cool J all his earlier kind of stuff, reggae and some classics. Those were the parties back then it wasn't House Music throughout the whole night. You would hear everything.

5: Did anyone mentor you?

JON: I was the typical young kid just wanting to get in. If I knew they were playing, I would listen to them play. Later on after a couple of years, then you get to know some of the DJs and you hang out at the booths and you watch what was going on. I was already spinning at that time in my house, I was a bedroom DJ so I was just determined to get on.

5: And you began Distant Music in '96, correct? What type of artists and music were you trying to put out with this?

JON: Well the first release was by Johnny Fiasco (The E.Z. Tracks EP Vol. 1). I wanted to mix and match - I didn't want to just start with my own stuff. I was still just kinda doing production stuff and I had to work doing retail, selling records, and I knew Johnny Fiasco at the time was selling a lot of units. I was already friends with him so he did the first one.

5: Why the name Distant Music? What does that mean?

JON: Distant Music kinda represented how I wanted to be distant from all the other labels, and just really far away from everybody. And at the time where I lived which was Red Hook in Brooklyn was a good fifteen blocks from the train so that was about as distant as it could get.

5: Did you run this label by yourself?

JON: I started the label off at my house, but you know - you gotta understand I worked at another label and I was doing retail so when I started my label, I more or less knew what to do. I work very quick. I started my label, and did a P&D deal with 83 West Records in Toronto and kicked those two labels off and we worked very quickly.

Within six to eight months, I was already renting a little office space and then within a year I had taken over the office space. As it went down, I started getting more staff, etc. etc. It built very quickly.

Now I'm back to just freelancing. With the diminishing of the vinyl end of the business and everything, I gave the office up about two years ago. The office was then in Manhattan. I've moved back into Brooklyn now and basically I'm just doing my production again. You'll see some Distant Music stuff on the digital downloads and the CD stuff.

5: That's what I wanted to ask you and I've been asking a lot of other artists as well. Right now it still seems like a gray zone with the MP3s and iTunes and where that's going to go. How do you see the market going now with the whole digital download?

JON: Within a matter of three or four years, everything has completely changed and that's why you see now everybody is kinda single. Now there's hardly any need for a staff. For me, I'm back to being an independent freelancing producer. I do mixes, I release them on Distant Music. I might press up 1000 limited vinyl and do my MP3s.

I think about this everyday, but I really can't answer that question. It's very small now - we're down to a few pressing plants, a few distributors and a few record stores... because there are some guys out there that just collect vinyl.

5: Do you still play some of your earlier tracks or do you sometimes cringe when you hear some of your earlier work?

JON: There are a couple of things I might cringe about but what I realize is that sometimes, you may want to be stubborn... but when I go on these gigs, a lot of kids ask to hear this stuff.

I was actually googling myself last night on some websites and there were like three or four things that I've done that I completely forgot about. There's a lot of stuff that I completely forgot about but I want to have them all on CD because the kids do ask for it when I'm playing out.

5: "It's Yours" was such a major club anthem, is it almost required that you play it in all your sets?

JON: I had not played "It's Yours" for about two years. I just now played it at the last two gigs because they were asking for it and it was kind of a crowd that wanted to hear the hits. It was some place in the UK. I go back and forth. I don't play it unless its asked for, but if it's asked for, you don't want to be mean about it.

5: Can you tell me how you came about writing that song?

JON: Short version was that Neil from Chez called me up, he used to have a radio station and he was doing an interview with Eman. He said, "You know you have a really cool voice, you should do something for the label." Then Neil called me up and asked me if I would produce a track for Eman. Eman actually wanted to sing and I was like, "No way. We're going to do spoken word." I knew that he could do that kind of poetic way of talking over it.

He came by, he had the hook ("Do you want it? And if you had it would you flaunt it?") which was like from an old hip-hop record. He said he was just going to say that over. Basically I just had the beat, and he had written some stuff and I wasn't so crazy about it.

And then I spoke to him for a little bit... kinda told him the story, there's people in New York, people in Chicago, in Australia, in Japan... And there always seems to be this crew of Househeads or clubbers that go out and it doesn't matter if it's Monday night, it doesn't matter if it's snowing, it doesn't matter if you have to travel two hours. If you go to any city, you will always find this group.

That's when he wrote it... "What makes you journey into the night? Take flight on a musical bliss... chasing beats through ghetto streets..."

And that was it. That's the story behind it. Recorded him, the next day I brought in the saxophone player and Jillian did the hook, recorded the hook, mixed it down, gave it to Neil, and it was one of the quickest things I ever did. But one of the biggest.

5: So did it hit right away the minute you played it?

JON: It was pretty immediate. I wasn't used to it. The conference was maybe five weeks after that and Neil was rushing to get it pressed. I mean it was like, I must have heard it at least seven or eight times down there.

5: What year was it again?

JON: 2001. It was a rush and then to come back and I thought another month, another three more months, and then I thought maybe until the end of the year... and it didn't stop. It just kept on growing and growing. The record went for almost 3 years around, and if you check the MySpace page, there are still kids that say how much they love it.

5: What other kinds of music do you listen to aside from House?

JON: Today I listed to the Leela James album "A Change is Gonna Come". I listen to a lot of downtempo, any kind of underground hip-hop. Everything I listen to is underground, I don't listen to a lot of radio. Anthony Hamilton, old school funk or disco and that's basically what I listen to.

5: How important are vocals to a song for you?

JON: The vocals are very important. I'm pretty much known for doing vocals but I haven't done a vocal in a long time. I'm actually now doing minimal instrumental tracks because sales-wise it seems to be working better for me.

Yeah, vocals are an important thing. The more techy, tracky kind of stuff is I think kind of for the guys, and then the more pretty vocals, the vocal that means something, the words if they mean something, is definitely for the girls on the dancefloor. It seems to bring the girls out.

The thing with the vocal is that if the harmony is good and the words are corny, we have to sit and get it right. The words - they have to mean something to me.

5: Have you ever been to Chicago?

JON: A few times! I played a New Year's Eve party at the old Red Dog. I had played at that club around '97/'98 with Johnny Fiasco, and the Shelter for John Curley. That's when I first met DJ Sneak.

5: What do you like and not like about New York?

JON: To me everything comes from New York. It's funny - overseas, the Europeans they all seem to watch what's going on over here but when you go overseas, unless it's a special party, it's not deep like how it was when I met you at Jellybean's gig.

I like New York because it's pure House Music, and I think with the exception of Chicago, it originates here. At the same time it could be a little bit stubborn because that's the only kind of style that they're going to go over here. I play New York-style obviously when I'm here, and overseas I still play a good, soulful set but still with much more power.

5: There's no place here that would accept a higher energy type of House?

JON: Well, then it becomes one of those bottle crowd type of places.

5: Favorite and worst city to play in?

JON: I'll say the UK, since I play there all the time. The worst city... I played in North Carolina once upon a time. I didn't think it was for me.

5: What can we look forward to from you?

JON: You know what, I have a whole bunch of stuff in my computer and I finally decided I'm going to knock out all these tracks. I'm going to put them on a CD or release it as an album.

It's not going to be completely polished - it's going to be underground, dirty kind of stuff... tracks, some vocals... and I'm gathering all that stuff this month. When I sort through it that's probably the next thing you can look for from me.

5: Like an album of sorts?

JON: It is an album, but a dirty album. You know, it's not a complete polished album. But that's kind of what I want to do right now.

5: Is that your dog in the picture of you on your MySpace page?

JON: That's Alabama, everyone knows her!

 

To see more of what Jon Cutler's up to, including info on new releases and upcoming gigs, visit myspace.com/joncutlerdistantmusic.

 

 

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