It's a new era at dance music label Defected, as the company has been acquired by Wez Saunders in a management buyout. To mark the big news revealed by Music Week, here we present our 2019 interview with dance music legend and label founder Simon Dunmore, who will remain at the label in an A&R role...
Defected Records is marking 20 years of dance anthems from the likes of Roger Sanchez, Bob Sinclar and CamelPhat & Elderbrook. Here, former A&M exec and DJ Simon Dunmore looks back at the hit-making history of the label he launched in 1999, calls out the majors for poaching his acts and admits to still going raving in his sixth decade...
I had to choose between DJing and dry-cleaning….
“That was the first job I had when I left school. I was DJing at the time and collecting records. My boss told me to take my enthusiasm with music and the scene more seriously. He was gently pushing me out the door! It was hard to be a professional DJ back in those days, and it’s probably hard to be a professional DJ in these times. I’m sure there are plenty of people that also have to work nine to five and just grab sleep when they can. When you’re younger, you can probably style it out much more than I can at my age. Even though I’m 57 now, I still count myself as really lucky that my passion can actually be my employment.”
The first rule of business is to stay in business…
“We’ve had our ups and downs, the music industry’s had its challenges. Lots of labels have gone out of business, lots of music institutions and High Street retailers. We’ve had to be very nimble and change course really quickly as market forces have changed. The streaming world works really well for us. The income that’s coming in is enabling us to reinvest in artists, events and making our engagement with our community very broad. It’s giving us a new lease of life in a new order.”
Your talent is always being poached…
“It’s something that is a challenge for us is. It is a bit annoying that we put people into the shop window, and then everybody gets their chequebook out and tries to coerce artists away from us. But that’s the way of the world. If you’re a football team, unless you’re in the top five your talent is always in the shop window. But it gives us an incentive to go out there and find new talent. And even though CamelPhat did leave Defected to go to Ministry Of Sound, their biggest record is still Cola [with Elderbrook]. Even with all of the weight that Sony is able to put behind the releases, their biggest streaming record by some considerable distance is the record we released.”
The Instagram generation of DJs are not ‘faceless’...
“People can now promote themselves in a very proactive way. Peggy Gou hasn’t had a hit, but she has a million followers on Instagram. In time, she will get huge streaming numbers, maybe in the absence of radio, because she has such a devoted following and she’s able to communicate with them. She’s the real deal, I don’t think anything is contrived. That’s why it resonates so well with her audience. My daughter, who’s 18, is obsessed with her.”
I still have some big nights out…
“My staff think I’m a little strange, because I still enjoy going out and I still DJ. I still go and watch other DJs and consume music like I’m an 18-year-old. I think that that’s actually probably quite key to our success, that I still have that enthusiasm. I still have that passion to discover music and to want to tell people about it. Sometimes people get to 40 years old and they lose that passion – they get a little bit tired. I’ve never been affected by that, for which I’m really grateful.”
FOLLOW 
