‘Just do it all from the heart’: Crosstown Rebels’ Damian Lazarus.

You were born within the sound of the Bow Bells, making you a true Cockney by London’s standards. Who or what shaped your early musical journey?

There was always a lot of music at home. My dad was into Motown and my mum really epitomised that whole Carnaby Street swinging sixties scene. She was a Beatles groupie and followed The Animals and the Stones around the country. And my grandfather was a huge influence on me, because he was a proper East End gangster type with a massive personality and he was very into real music, like Hollywood show tunes and all the Old East End songs from the music halls. But in terms of my own musical direction, it was my cousin Jason, who's two years older than me, who had a lasting  impact. Jason was always very slick and super cool and very meticulous with his clothing. He had an incredible record collection in his bedroom of early hip hop and disco and I’d spend hours just flicking through and listening. Once a year, our local youth club would hold a 24-hour disco and us kids would all go in our pyjamas and dance for hours. The DJ was this kid called Daniel. He wasn't very good, to be perfectly honest, but he was a lovely guy and that was the first time I'd seen turntables and a mixer in action. There wasn't much actual mixing going on, but I liked to stand alongside him and watch. I think the combination of all those influences definitely left me with an ear for an unusual sound.

Pre-Crosstown Rebels you were a music journalist. How did that happen and in what way did it shape your view of the industry?

In 1988 and 1989 I was still at school, so I was just a little bit too young to be in the  Summer of Love and the acid house explosion, but I certainly felt the repercussions of it. I went to a lot of clubs in London as a young teenager, sneaking into Turnmills and the likes. I took my first pill at Bagley’s! But then I became a father unexpectedly and that really changed my outlook for several years. I got into journalism and became assistant editor at {cult youth culture magazine} Dazed and Confused and then the music editor. Being the music editor there was incredible because we were essentially shaping the music that the global readers were gonna listen to. It was an important opportunity and it allowed me to meet incredible people in the music industry and gain a lot of experience from a media perspective. It was an interesting way to find out about the music industry because I saw how major labels operated, yet I was coming from a very underground direction. 

This year Crosstown Rebels celebrates 20 years with a global CR20 tour, the release of a double vinyl remix compilation and a book of photographs and memories. As your own musical taste has evolved, how challenging has it been to keep the label relevant?

I think because the foundations of my musical taste are so varied it's allowed me to always have an open ear to changing styles of music and new directions. If I hear something that's new or unusual or that other people might not understand, I’m more likely to dive into that and go, well, listen, I can hear something different and I want to pursue this. My earlier life as a journalist gave me an investigative nature, so if I hear something that's interesting, I want to find out as much information as I can. And I’ve always been quite confident. I'm able to go up to strangers in clubs and ask questions. In 20 years of  running this label, I've never thought about trying to stay relevant, it's more about just progressing day by day. And it's interesting to look back at the music that we released in the early days, because I think so much of it completely stands up today. My ambition and my drive were always to only sign and release music that would have longevity and I think we’ve achieved that.

In the last two decades, you have had the privilege of launching the careers of some of the most recognisable names on the scene. How has it felt to nurture these young acts now that you’ve become something of an elder on the scene?

It's a fascinating and beautiful thing to look back on. I think in discovering new artists, there's always a sense of luck, of being in the right place at the right time. I've never been shy at an afterparty, you know? I've always tended -  over the last 20, 30 years - to be the last one up,  still talking to people about music and waiting for someone to drop a track that's gonna blow my mind. And being alert and attentive to it. I've been very lucky to kind of come across people like Seth Troxler, Jamie Jones, Art Department. And it fills me with absolute joy and a real sense of pride to see their success and to have played a part. Crosstown Rebels is the antithesis of a major label in many ways. The way the majors operate is by signing an artist for a lifetime  - ‘your music in perpetuity’. It's very different in our world. Our style is more about a loose handshake and a hug: an understanding that we’re going to be joined at the hip for the next few years and that we just have to trust one another. So, in that way it’s more about creating nurturing friendships. Perhaps I am seen these days as something of a mentor, someone that the younger generation of artists can come to for advice. And I see them as young, exciting talents with fresh artistic ideas that will help me shape the label, the  sound, the events, the parties, the festivals.  My idea at the very beginning of Crosstown Rebels was to try and build a label that would bring together some of the most talented voices in electronic music and create a family situation, where everybody would work in the studio together, hang out together, party together, play together and essentially just have respect and love for each other. And looking back on the success of the label, I think that’s what we've built.

Having launched so many artists, can you remember any particular moments when you've heard a piece of music or met an artist and thought ‘I'm seeing the future here’?

I think the very first time I met Jamie Jones I knew that there was a major talent there. He was giving out flyers here in Ibiza at the beginning of his career. He picked me up from the airport the first time I played here and we lived very close to each other in London. We had mutual friends and I remember the first time I heard him play; I knew that there was something very special about him. Seth Troxler’s another great example. I met him when he was 17 or 18 in Barcelona. I was on Las Ramblas with a bunch of friends heading to our apartment for an after party. This kid introduced himself on the street and he said, 'oh hi, my name's Seth. I just rocked up here from Detroit. I don't know anyone'. He seemed really cool at six in the morning, so I was like, come with us, come on. And in that room, he met some of the biggest, most important people in electronic music of the past years. Cut to last week and the two of us were touring around Japan together, having the most phenomenal time.

More recently, DJ Crush has always been someone that I've been really into sonically and whose drum’n’bass sound I respected so much. A few years ago, while working on my last artist album, I thought to myself, I wonder what Crush is up to?

I had his number somehow so I called him. I was like, I've gotta tell you, I've just been listening to two tracks of yours from 15 years ago and they’re blowing my mind. What are you up to right now? And he said  it’s funny you should ask because I've got this brand-new album that I'm finishing, I'll send it to you. Within a couple of hours, I was listening to this new material, which was as mind blowing as the music I'd heard from him the first time. I signed it immediately to Crosstown. 

After all this time, do you still get the same kick out of playing that you always have done? Or does it feel different? 

A hundred percent. It gets better. It’s like you said earlier, recently I've been starting to notice this subtle shift in the way that people perceive me. I’ve gone from being one of the lads and just part of the crew to starting to be seen as a slightly elder statesman. That’s a nice progression. If I felt old and tired, I'd be saying something different, but I feel as young and bang on it as I ever have. When I'm out DJing I'm very careful to select the shows that I know are going to be dope and I have a very good team of people around me. All I need to do is come with my personality and my fresh take on music and just be myself, which is one of the biggest things I've learned over the last 20 years. Just to be authentic and do it all from the heart. Nothing else matters. 

Having been there through the glory days of Space, what is it like to have a residency at Hï Ibiza now? 

It’s an extraordinary honour. It’s no secret that Hï has been voted the best club on the planet and it’s so well deserved. The rooms, the vibe, the atmosphere, the crowd: for a commercial nightclub in the middle of Ibiza to be so cool is remarkable. And the club has one of the best teams behind the scenes: anything that I need done in my room – the Club Room on Saturdays – nothing is too much of an issue. We sit and we talk about ideas and how we're going to create the next level of atmosphere and emotion. It’s no surprise that the likes of myself and Black Coffee and the Martinez Brothers and Tale of Us have residencies there, because we actually want to be there. It is an incredible place to work and I'm really excited about this season. I think it’s going to be one of the best seasons Ibiza has ever seen.

Damian Lazarus spoke at IMS today in a keynote interview with Pete Tong at the IMS Summit Stage-Outdoor. 

Catch Damian at Akasha this Sunday, April 30th with Francesca Lombardo and Kemikal Ali.

Damian's Hï Ibiza residency will see him once again curate The Club Room every Saturday night from 27th May through to 30th September.