I'd play Biggie, EPMD, Rufus, Chaka, and AC/DC in my sets and blend them together. I'd been learning for a long time to make beats, but that was for my DJ sets. That was around the same time I was introduced to Nikka Costa through Cheeba Sound, this label on Virgin. Puffy would take me around the world with him to DJ spots while he was on tour, and Jay Z started booking me to play his parties. That was a process, digging and trying to find the samples. If there was a new Busta Rhymes song, like " Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See," I'd make sure to find the original steals and cross-samples to put in the set before I dropped the track in. I was really good at a hip-hop set, but I was also really good at digging for the breaks. Puffy took a shine to me and liked the way I DJ'd. Then suddenly Biggie, Jay Z, Puff Daddy, and people like that were coming to our low-key, downtown New York spots. At first it was more underground rap stars, like DJ Premier from Gang Starr. Like why wouldn't I love to do this? Over the course of three or four years I made a name for myself, playing in hip-hop clubs downtown.
First you want to get the gigs, and second you just love doing it so much. I literally took my turntables and speakers in the back of a taxi in the middle of a snowstorm to a bar to play. I'd listen to Stretch Armstrong, Funkmaster Flex, or Red Alert on the radio and try to teach myself routines by listening to them. You were a teenager heading to downtown New York and DJing, back in the day? One time this kid, who was a rapper, came over and told me that it was the same concept as DJing, and that if I really liked it I should try the process. I wasn't that knowledgeable with the equipment, so I'd get the loops as close to a tempo as possible and hit "start" on both machines at the same time.
He had two S950s, and I didn't know how to sync them. He had an S950, and when I got into hip-hop in high school there were three kids who rapped, so they'd come over and I learned how to make beats. The version was a bit different, because I was changing the arrangements and adding certain colors. I loved the songs so much that I wanted to get inside and see what made them tick. It can probably be traced a little bit to the covers record that I did later. I would take songs that I loved and recreate them on the Synclavier. He had a Synclavier in the house, which was wild. We had one of the early AKAI 8-track recorders that ran on Betamax tapes that I taught myself how to use. I had a mini drum kit I'd wake up in the middle of the night while my parents were having parties and I'd play air drums in front of the speakers to whatever was playing. My real dad wasn't a musician, but I was obsessed with drum kits from the age of 2. I definitely was on the path where I would have done it either way. Knowing Mick was making a living in the music biz, did that influence you in a way?
You sometimes forget how great sounding it is, even though it wasn't critically acclaimed at the time. I listen to the vocals and arrangements on the first Foreigner record, and I'm always blown away. But, all of a sudden, there was this new multitrack technology that they could really take advantage of. It was taking from the '70s, building on everything that Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and The Beach Boys had done. Those Foreigner records, and how amazingly pristine and clear they are, were part of the reason that I think rock radio exploded in that era. He had some great partners, like Thomas Dolby and Mutt Lange in the '80s. Mick Jones from Foreigner, not Mick Jones from The Clash. Growing up, your stepfather was Mick Jones?