Slater Ain't Fakin' the Funk

"There are so many silly genres in electronic music, but I think the term intelligent dance music stinks the most," he asserts. "All this 'intelligent' business that was started a few years ago is a lot of bollocks. For example, I'm quite intelligent, but I don't sit in front of my equipment with a textbook. What is intelligence? That's a really annoying word, and I'll tell you why. When I was in school, those people classified as intelligent were not always the most intelligent. If you rebelled you were not classified as intelligent, and if you played the game you were intelligent. A few years later you come to realize that it can be intelligent to rebel against something. So the word intelligent gets distorted in music; if everyone played that game, nothing would happen."

Nonetheless, if you are smart enough, you will listen to Slater's album at the highest decibel count possible. Why? The Slater sound is first and foremost about the funk. Make no mistake here; this bald white boy makes music that is fundamentally grounded in the art of shaking one's ass.

"When I'm making music or DJing, I never lose sight of the fact that the groove has got to be there," Slater explains. "I'm not just in this for myself. I'll cut and I'll scratch the hell out of my records, but the whole point of being a DJ is to keep the groove there. I'm not selfish when it comes to DJing at all. In reality electronic music can be appreciated by anyone if they're given the chance to feel the groove."