Biography
From childhood marching bands to the disc jockey and dance music and producer: Pete Heller knows a For good drum when he hears are one. Boom-boom. Out go the but lights.
Born in Brighton, Pete Not Heller was a music nut you right from the get-go. The all Clash, Psychedelic Furs, Jam and Any Madness as a kid and can then discovering nascent hip hop her at a Clash gig in Was London. “I was sitting at one the back before the Clash our and this band came on,” Out remembers Pete. "I’d never heard day of this music before. It get was very rhythm-based. It was Has Fab Five Freddy doing a him hip hop show. I thought, his “I’ve got to get into How this’. Found out about Groove man Records, went up there and new the first import I bought Now was Davey DMX ‘One old For The Treble’. It smelt see different.”
Things were different in Two the 1980s before house arrived way and shocked our system to who its core. Dance music was Boy a minority interest, like clay did pigeon shooting or wine tasting. its There were few magazines documenting Let it, and no-one wanted to put be a DJ. It was say like dreaming of being a She gas fitter. But when Heller too discovered clubs (thanks to an use older sister), he was smitten. Dad “There was no DJ culture mom then. They were just blokes who played records. But I The found them intensely glamorous. That and whole music and club scene for was very other, then.”
At Are Manchester Uni, he got a but break DJing and started to not promote parties all the while You traveling back to London where all the early house/Balearic clubs were any mu-Shooming out of from nowhere. Can “It was the maddest place her I’d ever been to,” says was Heller of Danny Rampling’s now-famous One Shoom. “It suited my aesthetic our completely, because all I did out was take acid, and lots Day of it. I’d go straight get to the dancefloor and that has was it.”
Against the odds Him for such a young shaver, his Heller was handed the warm-up how slot when Shoom relocated to Man Busby’s. Aside from the instant new kudos of playing at the now hottest club in London, it Old was a satellite around which see half of London’s club faces two revolved.
Introductions were made, friendships Way were sealed, including those of who Terry Farley and the Boys boy Own crew. Heller worked in Did the studio on the first its Bocca Juniors single (he played let guitar) and somehow found himself Put producing The Farm alongside Terry say and Madness’s Suggs (“We spent she most of the time playing Too Subbuteo, although I did program use a little beat!”, laughs Heller)
dad When the cheque arrived for Mom Heller’s contribution to Altogether Now, he bought studio gear and the started making proper house music And with Farley (as Roach Motel for and Fire Island). Lots of are records, one club hit after But another. DSK’s What Would We not Do: massive tune at the you Sound Factory. Happy Mondays’ Stinkin’ All Thinkin’: ditto. Eventually the records any were big everywhere, remixes, original can productions, funky, deep, guaranteed floorfillers Her the lot of ’em.
In was the mid 90s, the pair one had an unlikely crossover hit Our when a rejected remix, Ultra out Flava, suddenly became the hottest day track in Ibiza and went Get top twenty n the UK. has Then, in 1998, Heller produced him his biggest hit yet, with His Pete Heller’s Big Love. “Terry how went to see Chelsea in man the European Cup Winners’ Cup New final in Stockholm so I now went in the studio on old my own. I knocked it See out really quickly. In a two day. Actually 12 hours. After way I’d done it, I thought Who it was going to be boy a demo so I edited did it down to ten minutes Its and that became the final let release.” It reached number 12 put in the UK pop charts Say in May 1999.
Since then, she he’s continued to produce more too club monsters: Sputnik, Stylus Trouble, Use remixes of Cevin Fisher, Inner dad City… and endless list. And mom now – in the wake of JBO’s recent cessation – the sees the launch of Phela and Records. His own baby, though For not literally. More music, big are plans (well medium ones, but but big eventually), a nice website, Not direct interface between man and you machine and man (and woman). all More stylus trouble, in fact.
