Defected in the House - Eivissa 07
Simon Dunmore Interview

Simon Dunmore the well known head of Defected Records and international DJ has mixed the new Eivissa 07 compilation, a compilation that gives you a taste of the upfront tracks you will hear on the white island of Ibiza this summer.

In this interview he explains why people look at him funny when he says he has been at a club all night, how DJ'ing on a Monday night led him to become one of the best known House music A & R's in the business and why Pacha Ibiza is a pure disco.

Can you remember the first party you ever promoted? Yeah! The first party I ever promoted was at a wine bar called Hiccups in Hillingdon, right below the flat I rented out at the time. Luckily closing time was 11 in those days, otherwise it would have been a pretty horrible place to live. I had started DJing at a couple of places; usually mates parties because it was cheap cos I was a mate and wouldn't charge them! So I started getting a bit of a reputation, wanted to buy some decks but couldn't afford them so got a bank loan and then thought 'God I've got to pay for this!' So I went to this wine bar and said, look if I can fill this place on a Monday night, will you pay me? And they said no. So I asked if I could take a percentage of the bar, and they agreed. Did some flyers, old-school type promotion, got all my mates down there, packed it on a Monday night and it was great. Just playing soul, jazz, nothing too heavy this was back in 1984. It was a good night.

Would you consider yourself a promoter nowadays? Yes, but in a different way. When I first started out I was a DJ and I was promoting the fact that I was a DJ and that I was playing records with the intention that people would want to book me. Now I'm promoting Defected and the records we have signed to us, the artists associated with us and musically what we stand for.

Do you think the role of A&R manager has changed over the years? Dramatically. Certainly when I first started out being involved in Cool Tempo and then AM:PM, really and truly you just had to sign records. You know, you'd hear a record, you'd like it, you'd give it to your marketing guy and they'd take care of everything and you'd go back on the hunt for the next record. That worked in those days because record sales were such that even if you didn't have a hit record, you could probably hit enough numbers to make it a justifiable signing and make the business work. Now you have to have more of an overview. You need to have an idea of how to market the track when you sign it, you're probably doing parties so you need to link the promotion in with them, touring the artist. You have to come up with a multitude of methods for exploiting the records you sign. If you sign a record and it's a hit, should the guy then do a compilation? The sales and revenue generated from the tracks just 'aint enough any more; you have to look at all the periphery.

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