Lenny Dee : Hard Act To Follow
3D World Australia / Dec 5 2005
http://www.threedworld.com.au/

Hard Act to Follow
Lenny Dee may have been voted the ‘Number One – Hardest DJ’ by Mixmag last year, but he may well be in the running for hardest-working DJ too. The 37-year-old veteran reckons he’s already clocked up over 170,000 tour miles this year, and there’s still one month to go. Suffice to say, his frequent flyer points should be looking after themselves.
Heading down under for Godspeed Gothica this week, the Brooklyn hardcore/techno producer is the first to admit Australia retains a special place in his heart – after all, his wife, Julie, is an Aussie. The couple met in a club in Paris in 1997, exchanged their vows two years ago in New York and now tour the world as Team Lenny, running his Industrial Strength label and its various off-shoots. Who knows – one day Lenny might even be calling Australia home.

” Man, when I first came to Australia I loved it and still do, especially the people,” he explains. “It’s definitely a place I can settle and get used to living. If it wasn’t so far from Europe, I would stay.”

You were named the 'Number One - Hardest DJ' by Mixmag last year - how hard are you exactly?
(laughs) Some times I’m really hard as hell. But I do what I think is right for the crowd, keeping in the line of the party or event vibe. I think it is good to express a positive vibe overall telling a story through hard electronic sounds with many lows and peaks throughout the set. I am not as linear as some other DJs. I feel things need to be mashed up a bit which makes my mixing style makes me hard in a different way.

What can Australian audiences expect from your sets this time around?
A journey through different styles of hard electronic music – I will bring some banging techno, hardcore and industrial hardcore, I think the three sounds have a great feeling and to mesh them up gives off a different totally vibe. But it really does depend on the crowd. I don’t play for myself, so things never go as planned. It keeps me on my toes!

You’re been DJing since the ‘80s - whats the biggest lesson you've learnt over the years?
To believe in what you do and not get shit-faced before I play.

You've been collaborating quite a bit from the looks of it - with DJ Promo, DJ Radium, Tieum, Neophtye and a heap more. Where do you find all the time?
I produce during the week while in Europe. I play on the weekend and produce during the week. It really is good for my health to stay in one place more than one or two days. We have a deadline as I leave to catch another flight to play. So it’s an unseen pressure to finish something. With Radium and Tieum, we work fast and the vibe is non-stop. It takes more time with Promo in the production as it’s all analogue and plug ins. So to create the sounds and maintain the program changes, mixing etc takes work. But we love it! The results are different all of the time.

Tell us about your new label, Industrial Movement. Why start another label?
Industrial Movement is a fusion of the Third Movement & Industrial Strength Records labels. We are doing it to explore new producers & style to fuse them together. We have some great new releases out now including from Stormtrooper, Terrorfakt and Moshpit - a wicked French band who do a fusion of metal and hardcore techno.

Are you looking forward to coming out to Australia?
Yes, I was the first DJ to play hardcore in Australia back in the early ‘90s. It’ll be great to see old friends & family on this trip. Powerhouse Productions parties in Sydney are always wicked to play at so I am looking forward to it.

by Jason Treuen