Pete Herbert is many people. Some of the best disco/house gems you have squealed and wriggled to in clubs over the past few years have probably been created him, under various guises and with various partners-in-crime.
You may know him from such names as Bakazou, Challenge, Cuica, Frontera, L.S.B., Optimo & Reverso 68, just to name a few.
He has been clubbing since the word 'Aciiieeed' was 'gurned' by a generation and was behind London's legendary Atlas Records in the 90s/early 00s, a hub for weird and rare electronica you just couldn't find anywhere else.
A man who knows his dance music history is always worth knowing!
So we sat down and reminisced about my heady London gay clubbing days in the mid-80s when I was dancing to HINRG and his smiley-t-shirt-wearing days in the late 80s/early 90s.
First up Pete, can you list some of your recording/remixing monikers and a little description on each and why you felt like you need to use a different name for each? Mostly these days I'm just doing stuff under my own name, though I'm currently working on new Reverso 68 tracks, which is me and old friend Phil Mison. I guess Reverso is the most, dare I say it, Balearic of the bunch, and my favourite. Up until recently, I was also working on LSB, which is with Baby G from Barcelona, who is currently residing in Berlin. Due to both of us being pretty busy and living in different countries, we haven't gotten together for a while. LSB are more dancefloor-based tracks and definitely hitting the DISCO button where ever possible, generally.
Tell us about Atlas Records. When and why it opened and when & why it closed?I opened Atlas with a couple of friends in 1995 in Soho, London. I'd been running a few shops prior to that but at the time there was a lack of specialist shops for oddball, leftfield music that we loved. So we went for it, and it worked...though as you can imagine, made not a penny! So after six years, when it came to renegotiating the shop lease with some 'Nazi landlords' who wanted triple rent, I decided to call it a day and move on a bit. I was really getting into making music at that point too...10 years working in record shops is enough to drive anyone mad, so I thought time to get out. There were no regrets. It was an amazing time in London for music and I got to meet so many good people. The next couple of years after that, record shops in London started dropping like flyies as the digital thing started taking over.
Tell us about the music that’s inspired you?
I'm always being inspired by music, in random situations, when I least expect it - snippets from a car radio or watching movies etc. But when it comes to DJing or to making music, there's nothing better for me than hearing either a solid DJ set by someone or a track that's just been made and thinking, shit, I wish I'd just done that.
You’ve been creating ‘disco’ before the ‘nu’ label was even thought about. How do you feel about being a bit of a pioneer in this sound?
That's flattering if it's the case, but I'd like to think I'm not a one-trick pony!
Reverso 68 has been really inspiring. Tell us how you and Phil got together and what you wanted from this?
I met Phil while I was working in a record shop in Soho in the early 90s and he was a resident at Cafe Del Mar in Ibiza. We had a very similar taste in music and beer so it spiralled out of control from there and we finally got it together a couple of years later to try our hand at some production. The first attempt being a remix of our friend Robbi Insinna (Headman) for his label Relish. From there we did 'Piece Together', our first single, which was originally trying to be a completely ambient track but about two minutes in, we realised we couldnt keep it up so it became a bit of a midtempo dancefloor groover!
You say the 90s house sound is what you love and what you love playing. Tell us about your early clubbing days. Personally, I remember being in London in '86 and I used to go to Heaven (gay club) a lot. They were playing Euro HINRG and then the house sounds started trickling through. It was special to be there.
Blimey, I remember trying to get into the WAG club in Soho when I was about 16 with a friend to see Bomb The Bass and getting to the front of the queue and the bouncer stopping me, then slowly standing on my foot for what seemed like ever, whilst making us wait/sweat! Scared the living daylights out of me! Yes, late 80s/early 90s was my first clubbing times in London and the mix of music was incredible as it was just when Acid House had exploded and there was a real sense of something exciting going on around the city... inspiring!
LSB and the Superdiscoteca 12s were two of my faves from the past two or so years. How did these tracks come about and the originals that were sampled? (If you’re allowed to say)
Yes, the LSB stuff was quite heavy on the re-edit side of things which I really enjoy doing. Superdiscoteca is a straight-up edits label and it seems to have gone down really well in general. A lot of the original tracks were found in bargain bins & second hand markets. I'm not telling you any original tracks. You'll have to find them yourself...more fun that way!
Tell us about your original stuff on Maxi Disc. ‘Yo Drums’ has a killer old house vibe. What was your inspiration with this? Will there be more original stuff?
Maxi Discs is a label I set up with Dicky Trisco (who I believe was over there quite recently with you). The idea is an outlet for us both to put tracks out, so we can actually look after the whole process involved; and musically the idea was for dancefloor cuts we would play, inspired by music from our clubbing experiences mixed up with the new - hence some old school house vibes. We have an album on the way from Marius from Oslo which is sounding amazing. It is some lush electronic disco/house with a warm organic feel. And then there will be some new material from me and Dicky and a few new cheeky additions to the roster.
What are you working on at the moment? How do you write?
Before I left Blighty on my travels, I'd been working on some remixes for Fromage Disco from Melbourne, Golden Bug, Supersonic Lovers from Italy and a few others. Though when I return, the plan is to crack on with some new music this year - new Reverso 68 tracks and my own stuff, hopefully an album.
And lastly , what are you playing at the moment and what can we expect from your set at Picnic?
A heady mixture of tropical disco, balearic house and Belgian beer.
Woohoo! You can catch Pete Herbert at the next Picnic event this Sunday (February 7) at a secret warehouse alongside locals Software, Matt Trousdale, Don & Johnson, Loin Brothers, Kali, Vivi & Perfect Snatch. Head here for further details.
Murphy.
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