Producer Felix Buxton talks to BuzzFeed about the mainstreaming of EDM in the United States and the legacy of his music on the eve of the Jaxx’s first major U.S. gigs in almost a decade.
Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton show off their latest album Junto.
Tristan Fewings / Getty Images
When Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe formed Basement Jaxx in the mid-'90s, electronic dance music was a niche genre in their native England, and was almost entirely underground in the United States. Two decades later, their sort of genre-bending, highly energetic dance music has become the default sound of mainstream pop, and EDM has grown into a massive and highly lucrative part of the live music economy.
Though Basement Jaxx has never enjoyed the sort of major crossover success of their contemporaries in Daft Punk and The Chemical Brothers, or their artistic descendants Disclosure and Calvin Harris, the duo has a devoted cult following in the United States on the strength of iconic singles like "Where's Your Head At," "Red Alert," "Good Luck," and "Romeo." BuzzFeed News caught up with Felix Buxton just before he and Ratcliffe head out to play three rare full-band concerts in the United States — the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on June 28, the 9:30 Club in Washingon, D.C. on June 30, and Manhattan's Central Park on July 1.
It's been almost a decade since you last played in the United States with your full band, as opposed to playing DJ gigs. What keeps you from doing that sort of big-spectacle show in the U.S. more often?
FB: Basically, demand and cost. We haven't had a hit in America, so people aren't aware of us. Why would anyone want to come see us if we're not on their radar? I mean, we have hits in the U.K. and Japan, but not in America.
In your experience of coming to the States going back to the late '90s or so, how has the response to your music and, more broadly, your type of music changed?
FB: Basically, electronic and dance has become world pop music. When we first went to the States in the '90s, it was very underground, it was kinda like a new scene. Ourselves and Daft Punk, we were very in awe of America and its house music, and the whole kind of culture that came from Detroit, from Chicago, and New York. It was a whole scene about unity, and the spirit of house.
What do you think changed about the United States that caused this music to become more of a mainstream thing? I've noticed that if you go to festivals, all the sort of macho, jockish guys who would've been there for hard rock stuff in the past are now all coming out for Disclosure and Skrillex.
FB: That just happens when music becomes mainstream. If you look at hip-hop, that became mainstream, and you had the Beastie Boys and it crossed over to a white college audience, and that happened with electronic music as well. America wasn't interested in the roots of house music because it was too black, it was too gay, it was all these things, and now it's made very sanitized and white.
Do you see your music as being part of that lineage, with the original house music?
FB: Yeah, I guess so. When we started, the name Basement Jaxx was very much in reverence of Trax Records and early Chicago house. It was trying to emulate that sound, and do our version of it. I think with new bands, like Disclosure or Rudimental, they're all fans of us and what we were doing but also of the music we were inspired by, which comes from reggae sound systems, soul music, house music. I think in England, people are probably switched on to that anyway, and quite well educated in it.
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