Saturday at Dalston Superstore sees legendary musician, DJ and now producer HiFi Sean take to the decks for Bust Yo Nut.
The lead singer of ‘90s Scottish rock band The Soup Dragons, Sean went on to form The High Fidelity and become a successful DJ in his own right.
With a new solo single on the way and a side-project with Severino, we caught up with him to get the latest gossip and find out a few lurid tales of rock n roll excess and indie band debauchery ahead of Saturday’s party…
You used to be the lead singer of ‘90s band The Soup Dragons. What’s your most treasured memory from that time?
As in what bits do I actually remember? [Laughs] Well, a classic was being banned from TVAM by Lorraine Kelly for life. We had been up all night partying at Milk Bar, which used to be near Tottenham Court Road. It was a release party for our album and we had Terry Farley on the decks; it was an amazing party.
We got back around 4am to be told by our manager that ‘ooops’ he forgot, but we had a big interview on TVAM as our single ‘I’m Free’ had climbed to Number 5 in the charts that weekend and the album was out that day. He bundled us all in a cab. I’ll let you fill in the messy blanks.
How do you feel about the recent resurgence of acid house after having experienced it the first time round?
The acid was better!
How did you come to work with Severino on your side project Up Yours?
We were spinning next to each other one night at a club and hung out listening to each other. We quickly realised we really got off on what the other was doing and it just grew from there.
I’ve only been in London for six years now and miss a lot of my musical friends from Glasgow that I made records with or DJ’d with, but Severino has been such a great musical companion for me since moving here. And like what you should be doing, we are just enjoying ourselves and having good and fun times with our musical passions.
We had to come up with a group name for our first single on Southern Fried Records as they preferred us to have one, and ‘Up Yours’, which is so quaintly British and Carry On, just seemed to tickle our fancy… matron.
“Give me anything with no attitude and good music and friendly people.”
Tell us about your new solo single…
I was in Chicago about two months ago DJing and I made a track with Celeda who lives there. I met her through a friend and we wrote and recorded a nice piece of gospel deep soulful house called ‘Tear It Up’. Although I’ve done tons of remixes under Hifi Sean this is going to be my first solo single under that monicker.
I’m taking my time with mixing it and getting it just right. I’m in no hurry, but it does need to be out for the summer I think.
Who are your favourite vocalists?
Wow that’s a question, but obviously right now I have to say Celeda. She blew me away recently when working with her. I’ve always loved her cross between slightly tranny style bitch house and gospel soulful.
She said she hadn’t sang like this in a long time as most collaborators wanted the spoken or shouty stuff. The ‘Music Is The Answer’ singing style she did had taken a back seat for a while. But boy can she sing.
Loleatta Holloway also, was a very special house singer and now much missed. I tend to swing to the gospel side of things with house singers. I remember back in Soups, I was always blown away by the choirs we worked with and it was always a special day when we had one in the studio, which was a few times.
I could never sing around them, felt like a foghorn around some of these big voices!
What are you favourite queer dancefloors past and present?
I lived in NYC back in early ‘90s and my friend Lavinia Co-Op worked for Michael Alig, so I saw it all back then, and I mean ALL. Club USA, which was nuts, it had a spiral slide from balcony to bottom dancefloor. Limelight was crazy, too, with all of Alig’s and the club kids parties.
And obviously the few times I went to Sound Factory were pretty special music-wise; you just heard things that sounded like they were from another planet.
Another fave was Save The Robots, believe me you cannot get any more underground than that party was back then. Plus, the Meatpacking District had places like Jacqui 60.
It did help that my manager was gay and loved dragging me around all these places. These days just give me anything with no attitude and good music and friendly people.
• Hifi Sean spins at Bust Yo Nut (Dalston Superstore, 117 Kingsland High Street, E8 2PB) on Saturday 8th June, 9pm-3am.
• See the full interview at dalstonsuperstore.com
