The “King of Electro Pop” sits down with Fairtilizer.com for an exclusive interview. Check the playlist and live video footage below:

Busy man these days huh? Winter Music Conference in Miami; Santos House Party in NY; lost your bags [again] in Nova Scotia…and now Washington D.C. What’s next?
Home. Back to London for a little while actually. I’m looking forward to getting back into the studio and recording again.

Nice. So back to the purple room [referring to his home studio]?
YES…although it’s blue now.

What was the inspiration behind the Humanthizer?
Oh that wasn’t my idea. It was someone else’s.

Whose?
The label [Sony]. Whenever you make a record on a major label there are people paid to come up with these ideas to make the album sell.
I think it worked though. Hadn’t found it until yesterday, but I thought it was pretty cool.
Yeah not a bad way to spend the day I guess. I just don’t think it made sense in terms of the record I was promoting. I tried to get it yanked off of the internet.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given about the music industry?
Hmmm. I don’t know. I don’t think anyone gave me any advice. Yeah…I don’t think anyone has. I need some.
I think you are the one that should be giving the advice.
I was just kind of flung into the situation.

And all of this evolved out of MySpace?
We’ll yeah. I had sort of given up on the industry and didn’t know what else to do. I was sending my CD’s out to people at the label and not getting any response. So I went and I uploaded some stuff to MySpace and started adding friends. I added this guy who had just started in the publishing department at EMI. He must have been new to MySpace too. So new that he was still reading those spam messages. He read mine and the rest was history.

You got signed at what 17?
No I was much older than that. I was 22

So you were that age when were writing “I Created Disco”?
More like 18, 19 & 20

And before that you were bagging groceries?
Yes. At Safeway. I saw one down the street actually.
Yeah we don’t have those up North either. You must have been great at stocking shelves.
I was. Long arms help.

What instruments do you play?
You know…the standard ones. The good thing about being a Dance music producer is that you can play individual notes once and sequence them over and over to make it sound good. So I can play the piano, strum a bass and create a good drum pattern, but I’m not super talented on any one particular instrument.

I like what you did with the horn solo on “Rain”
Yeah that was nice. Wasn’t me though. The sax solos were the only thing on the entire album that I didn’t actually play myself.

How is it possible that you can’t dance, but you can create these amazing rhythms?
We’ll yeah, I’ve got rhythm. It just doesn’t translate to the rest of my body.
Merry Making was one of my favorite songs. What was the inspiration behind that record?
It was all made up. Most of the stuff on the first record was created while trapped in my parent’s basement in Scotland.

Never been to Vegas?
I have now. (Smiles as he recalls the experience) I wish I hadn’t! That was a rough night.

No drugs?
Nope…nothing. All made up.

What do you feel the next sound is?
Oh I have no idea. I DJ a lot now and have been turned on to a whole different aspect of music consumption. If I had to guess I would say dance. People like to have fun.

You seemed to run into a lot of beef early on in your career. Do you think people are intimidated by your height? Or is it that because everything you do is perfect?
(Chuckles) I was young. I just didn’t understand that all of the criticisms aren’t personal. If somebody said mean things to you right now, how would you react?

Badly!
Exactly! Anyone would. Now I don’t take things as personally.

How do you service promos these days…Physical or Digital?
Everything is digital now. I can’t even fathom sending out CD’s anymore.

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