For a guy who rolls in the most elite of circles – I’m talking Madonna, Garbage and Diddy – Felix Stallings is a humble and down to earth bloke. And importantly, that makes Felix one cool cat. I remember last time we spoke – having got the interview times horribly mixed up – I caught him fighting the brakes on his newly leased and red-leather-clad BMW Z4! He even remembers the conversation – funny how the mind harks back to special moments.
I wonder how many fans have those memories of one of his marathon, epic sets. But incidentals aside, the uncomplicated Detroit born, Chicago bred man that is FELIX DA HOUSECAT tells of his life as a youngster. “When I was 13, my father wanted me to play saxophone and clarinet. I was in all these bands and stuff; band uniforms look good now but at the time they looked bad and I couldn’t get girls playing clarinet, so I decided to switch and I taught myself how to use synthesizers and boards. Then when house started in 1983, I got into the drum machine and my parents helped me buy all this cool gear!”
Not a bad outcome for a chap who was almost resigned to a boring career in orchestra playing instruments; though luckily, he has moved on from that. Today, he is laughing endlessly and recounting how revolutionary house music was in the early years. “I was so young in Chicago and it was really the only sound we had. It was bigger than hip-hop and R&B; it was really the sound of the youth movement but no one really knew how big it was or how big it was going to be.”
Indeed for Felix, music was always a hobby and he never considered himself the type to sit idly in a room with a TV and remote control. He adds he didn’t even start taking music seriously until 1992 when he visited England, though it was the revelation that it wasn’t “rocket science” that helped him on his way. And with the 1994 release of Thee Dawn on Guerilla Records, it was on.
By 2010, there is little the Felix hasn’t achieved. Forget the critical acclaim, the extensive and prolific output that characterises his body of work as well as his ability to stay current, relevant and fresh – and all of this over a number of decades. Whether it be house, electro or whatever in between, here is a man who has long held his finger firmly on the pulse of the fickle and dynamic EDM world.
And to this end, Felix has always drawn upon a wide variety of influences – all taken from more than just house. And while he doesn’t shy away from his greatest love, he plants the seeds of doubt early on. Laughing uncontrollably again, he adds “man, a lot of my new stuff is house and disco and electro – I like music man! Sometimes you upset the house posse or the electro kids; I just try to move away from what I’ve done previously and do something different. There’s only so much you can do with house. I’ve always known it was a limited idea, like everything – and I always learned from Pierre and Knuckles that you should make music that doesn’t label you. Always dare to be unique. I do what I do because it makes people dance; it’s like one part of my body that’s working – I don’t feel like I’m working though, and that’s the beauty of it!”
Just as he finishes that sentence, he yells out “man, there is a deer running across the road!” And as we both pause to chuckle, I ask him about his project Jack U, a hip-house morph project he produced with P.Diddy. “We just got together, did some music.” And that’s the thing with Felix – you’ll never pin him down, or better yet, accuse him of standing still.
“When I did Son of Analog, it was a follow up – a chance for me to try stuff that I hadn’t ever tried before. That was like all of my albums rolled up into one, with a twist. Like one big fucking remix.” And from there, the 2009 He Was King album also raised eyebrows with its take on a kind of electronic pop.
So just as part of one big plan, I wonder whether there is anything left for him to achieve. Giorgio Moroder and New Order fall under his remix discography, while his music has probably been heard in dust particles from Okinawa to Eritrea. It’s his mission – like a legacy almost. “If I left the Earth now, I honestly don’t feel like I’d need to do anything else – it’s just my inner demons that aren’t letting me go.”
Though he is realistic and proves it with this: “you can’t keep putting in 50 points like Jordan every game. An artist has to know when their music starts to sound like shit – they have to give up. I can make 50 songs for an album and while you want people around you who are honest and upright to tell you how it is, you don’t want a bunch of yes-men either. It’s just that tequila that turns those two-hour sets into five-hour marathons. I just don’t know where to stop!” And for a Grammy Award-winning pioneer of the dance music world, to that, I can only say one thing. Amen.
Catch Felix as part of the We Love Sounds festival, held at the UC Refectory on Saturday June 5. Tickets through QJump, Moshtix and Landspeed Records.
