Harry 'Choo Choo' Romero: New Jersey, Colombia & Living in America . . .
Author: Jonty Skrufff
Monday, July 26, 2004
Chatting down the line from his New Jersey studio, Subliminal Records house star Harry 'Choo Choo' Romero is adamant he'll never leave the States, despite finding '99%' of his work these days in Europe.
"I'm straight-up from New Jersey; I was born and raised here, I drink Jersey water, I'm from New Jersey," he insists, stressing that he wouldn't even countenance a move to New York.
"I have nothing against people from New York but I'd never live in that place," he continues, "man, there are too many people and it's too chaotic. I like trees, grass and birds."
However, despite his apparently parochial stance towards home, Romero is a truly international American of the first order, one who's totally committed to travel, whether in the face of Middle Eastern terror alerts ('Fuck that, I don't listen to any of that shit') or a State Department warning to avoid his ancestral home of Colombia ('It's bullshit, man') He's also a regular visitor to Ibiza where he's currently performing a series of dates at Erick Morillo's Subliminal nights at Pacha, presumably spinning more than a few tracks from his new Subliminal mix CD (Subliminal Sessions volume 7).
Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Subliminal 7 is coming out imminently, was it an easy CD to put together-
Harry Choo Choo Romero: "I did this latest one in a day but I remember racking my brains for months when I did my very first compilation years ago because it was so difficult. The more you do them, the better you get at doing them and this one was a lot of fun because there's no really big records on it, instead there's lots of chunky, underground, jacking sorts of tracks. It's more like a DJs' compilation for other DJs."
Skrufff: You've worked alongside Erick Morillo for almost ten years now, when did you first meet-
Harry Choo Choo Romero: "I was 18 or 19 when I first met him, he grew up about 40 minutes from me in Central New Jersey. I met him when Reel 2 Real were first starting out, doing little shows in the clubs around my area. We hit it off (made friends- slang Ed), stayed in contact and when I got into production I played him my demos and he saw that I had a raw talent and he was there for me to listen and to confide in."
Skrufff: What exactly is your role with Subliminal-
Harry Choo Choo Romero: "My responsibility is a real personal one and it's this; that when I hand in a record it's got to be the best possible record that I can possibly make. That's my role; I don't have any managerial duties or anything else, I'm a producer for the label."
Skrufff: Several months ago, DJ magazine suggested you'd been kidnapped in Colombia, a story New York magazine The Village Voice described as 'the most bizarre, untrue rumour ever', what happened, was there any substance to the rumour-
Harry Choo Choo Romero: "I was on vacation on Colombia with my family and my cellphone doesn't work down there and that's what it was all about; they were trying to contact me and they couldn't so I think a publicity company in the UK must have said 'let's tell everybody he's been kidnapped'. I was pissed off when I heard that shit, because my country (Colombia) has a bad rep (reputation) already. Colombia is my roots and the story was really bad. People in Colombia are really trying to do something with dance music but other DJs reading that story are going to get scared off and are not going to want to go there."
Skrufff: When did you first hear about it, when you were still in Colombia-
Harry Choo Choo Romero: "no, when I got back to New York. Lots of people were calling me saying 'thank God, Tags