DJ Lottie: It wasn't Comedy Dancing: It Was Alright Dancing
Author: Jonty Skrufff
Monday, March 8, 2004
"That was one of the best things ever, having a track named after you," Lottie reveals today, chatting in her Maida Vale apartment.
"But I wasn't doing proper Vogue-ing," she insists.
"I've always liked dancing on podiums, I always do it if I get the chance, I love dancing. I went to ballet school and I'll dance for hours when the music's good. At the Danny Tenaglia party that night I wasn't doing comedy dancing, it was alright dancing."
Miami party frolics aside though, Lottie's much better recognised these days as one of Britain's most popular house DJs, routinely spinning at clubs across the UK and abroad, as well as running her own Thursday West London weekly, Missdemeanours (at Ben Watts' new venue Neighbourhood). Living not far away in Maida Vale (one of London's swankiest areas), she's come a long way from when she first arrived down South ten years ago, to take up a job folding jumpers in a clothes shop.
"Working in the clothes shop was good if boring to be honest, but doing it meant I could go out every single night and get absolutely nutted (wasted) because you could do that job brain-dead." she chuckles.
"The manageress used to say to me 'you've been here a while now, don't you want to be assistant manageress-' and I'd be like 'absolutely not!- I'm not going to be staying here for long'. I wanted to be in clubs every single night listening to music."
Nowadays making more and more of her own music, she recently released a new single Superkilla, a track she co-produced with Justin Drake (better known as one half of Peace Division.) She's also now a regular guest DJ for Radio 1, enhancing her profile still further (on top of her acclaimed appearance on Channel 4's lifeswap programme Faking It, when she teamed up with Anne Savage to teach a young violinist how to mix.) Sitting pretty (both literally and career-wise) she's also as friendly and open as her reputation suggests.
Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): What was your approach with Supakilla, what kind of track did you set out to make-
DJ Lottie: "A few years ago I was doing loads of tracks and then I got really busy DJing and stopped producing for a couple of years, which meant that before Supakilla I hadn't made one in ages. So I initially felt that it needed to be 'big', then I reconsidered and decided to make a track purely for myself, for my DJing, which is how it is. It's quite (DJ) Sneak inspired, with a summery version and a darker weird one and I wanted it to have a woven groove feel with the percussion coming in. Because that's what I really like, those 8 minute real grooves."
Skrufff: Your biography talks of you dreaming of being a pop star, now that you're making records as DJ Lottie, are you thinking in pop star terms-
DJ Lottie: "I have started making non house music too because having spoken to lots of people I've understood that the best way to make music is to go with whatever works. I've found myself spending hours learning drum programming, not break beat as such, but certainly not 4/4 beats and I'm trying to find new sounds and go with them. I don't see my music as pop, though I love a lot of pop; everything that I do will be dance orientated. When I'm asked what I listen to at home it's Prince or Missy Elliot or Air. I suppose I also listen to Talking Heads and Fleetwood Mac but it's generally dance based. I like a bit of rock but I'm not really a rock girl, I'm a dance girl."
Skrufff: The editor of tabloid magazine Heat described fame recently as bein Tags