CJ Archer Interview

Where did your name, CJ Archer, come from?

The name is the most record-shop name I could have thought of although I didn’t think of it. A kid in my family made it up and it stuck. To him it was just initials plus a last name that sounded like it belonged on a spine. But to me, CJ is plain and non-threatening and workable, and yet Archer is kinda the opposite in that it’s pointed, a little dramatic, almost aimed. Put the two together and you got confusion. The name kind of means something different for everyone that hears it and that’s why I think I like it the most.

When did you seriously get into electronic music?

I got into it in the late ’90s, when I first bought house twelve-inches and jungle white labels and stuff like that. At the same time, I was buying a lot of funk and soul. I didn’t realize electronic music was a whole culture with DJing and raves and bedroom studios until about the early 2000s. At that time, the whole electro / broken-beat thing was getting big, which I was into as well. Even older records from Flash and Bambaataa still sat next to those piles — ‘Scorpio’ and ‘Planet Rock’ — yet unfortunately those bridges don’t get the props I think they deserve. Anyway, by the mid-2000s, I kinda gave up on buying only funk and soul and was really buying dance music and breaks exclusively, and later I started buying records just to sample and had a better understanding of where the beats came from.

Who are your musical influences?

You have to look at the inside of the crates for that one.

How do you feel about the popularity of Pacific Northwest underground growing?

I think the coast has had its share of ups and downs through the years. When electronic records first started traveling, there really weren’t many coming from up here that the rest of the country noticed. The ones I can think of sat in rooms and on burned CDs longer than they sat in shops. But during the whole blog / SoundCloud boom, there were some great files from Vancouver and the Island — the obvious ones and a lot of other ones that didn’t get their props. I used to make mixes with one side house around 120 BPM, and the other side jungle a lot faster. I didn’t do it that way to segregate the two rooms, it was more or less to keep the night flowing in terms of BPMs. But, at this time, the Northwest had a quiet underground scene, and once the bigger platforms got involved, it was harder to put out your own record without feeling like you were shouting into a feed.

Then, in the 2010s, there became a stigma attached to “regional” electronic music that has been hard to overcome. But it made it that much more of a fun challenge to prove ourselves. People would associate the whole coast with whatever sold the most units that year, yet people like the friends I still work with — and myself — were putting out records and folders at the same time. My first serious run of files went out in the early 2010s. At this time, we were getting more love from Europe and later Japan than we were from our own country. I think over the past few years, the Pacific Northwest movement has been organized to the point where people began recognizing it, and even the heads in bigger cities are listening as well.

As a producer, when do you feel producers as performers will be taken more seriously as artists? Because I know most of America thinks producers are a bunch of people staring at laptops.

I think they are already considered to be artists. In order to be considered a recording artist, you have to release records. There are some producers who are great live, but can’t finish a song to save their life, and others who are great in the studio, but don’t belong on stage. Then, you have some who can do both. Those are the ones that are taken the most seriously as an artist. Since my time to practice playing out is limited and I’ve never been the festival-headliner type, I have to step outside my body and ask myself, what can I bring to the table as a producer in a club atmosphere. I like to take influence from all the people I see. Last month I caught a few friends behind the decks and they each have their own thing that sets them apart from each other. That’s the key.

Who are you feeling right now?

Right now, I’m feeling L.T. Drifta as far as the beats go. He is on a level of achievement that few people will ever reach. Inlet Knight and Double-Edge are in that same room for me — different tempos, same honesty.

Are you happy with you and your labelmates’ current support from the underground or do you feel more heads could wake up to your music?

Both. I’m appreciative of the people who support the idea of the label, yet sometimes I feel upset that the records aren’t reaching more people. For me, quality of listener always outweighs quantity of listener, so I’d rather have 10 people really into the work than have 100 people kind of into it. I don’t want to see these records in the dollar bin in a few years.

Do you feel MP3s help or hurt artists?

It depends on what type of file and how you define hurt. Files that are bootlegged by someone who wants people to visit their site can hurt an artist, if it discourages record sales, but I think a preview that introduces a listener to the artist and starts a relationship will obviously help.

Do you feel bedroom producers from places like Vancouver will get the same respect as the bigger dance acts?

Producers with good records, a good ear, and a good sense of when to leave something alone get respect from everyone regardless of zip code. Sometimes, being from somewhere quiet intensifies the response you get, whether it be positive or negative. A wack regional producer will get undeserved extra dissing and a good one will get undeserved extra props.

Are you more happy producing or running the label side?

I am happy producing and running the label, but I hate the set up involved with both of them. Going through records for a session can take up to 10 hours since my records are so varied. I have records for listening, records for sampling, and records purely for remembering where a night went. Setting up to record a song means a lot of plugging and unplugging wires and working with temperamental equipment that doesn’t always want to cooperate.

How would you define your style?

I don’t know what my style is. I pride myself in the variety of the work. Even if you listen across the catalogue, it becomes obvious that I’m influenced by a lot of different music eras and that some of these songs sound like I made them years ago and others sound like something that would be made in the year 2030. My style is dated futuristic.

What’s in CJ Archer’s future?

My future plans include finishing the label idea properly, since I’ve been talking about Club Copy longer than I’ve been printing anything, album cover arguing, since I’m more picky about the artwork of the records than the music itself, and recording with people who already trust the room — since I have no interest in chasing whoever is loudest this week.

Who would you like to work with?

I’d like to keep working with L.T. Drifta, Inlet Knight, and Double-Edge. Other than that, I still want to finish the quiet projects we’ve been talking about for a few years now, and whoever else ends up in the Pacific Northwest with a hard drive and some patience.

How do you feel about online music?

I like online music because it reaches the people who are fanatical about it. It isn’t as flashy as a video or a magazine, so it’s all about content, which means it appeals to the people who are more passionate about the music.

Do you think mainstream dance wrongly represents electronic music by being all about the money and not worried about the art form?

A main topic of dance music has always been the night and what it costs to keep it going. Since the days of the warehouse, people came to party and the DJ came to entertain. Since electronic music has been the voice of rooms that couldn’t afford bigger stages for so long, the ones who created the culture have always been dreaming of having more dough and expressing that somehow. So fascination with money has always been nearby. As long as it’s understood that the flex is make believe half the time, there’s nothing wrong with it. Most people who have achieved that level of financial success have a whole new set of problems to deal with.

Who do you think is being most slept on and deserves more attention?

Me. And Drifta. And whoever is still finishing a track in a basement this week.

If Club Copy ever goes mainstream will it change you?

I was asked to do a remake of an old song from the 1970s for a compilation for a bigger label the other day that would have paid decent money for about a day’s work. The song featured a name people already know and was something I could have done in my sleep, but for some reason, I couldn’t get myself to do it. I asked a lot of people for advice, and got a lot of encouragement to go through with it, but in the end I decided it was something that I couldn’t see my name on. That being said, I see nothing wrong with selling a lot of units, as long as it’s doing songs that I feel good about doing. I’d like to see a gold record on the wall someday or an award for something I contributed to, but it would mean nothing if it was a song I didn’t like as a fan myself.

Any last words you would like to say for the fans?

Yes, I’d like to say that L.T. Drifta eats carrots.