An Interview with Leedemon by Zero

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Tuesday, 12 February 2008 10:20

To say that Leedemon is motivated is inaccurate. He gets things done. To say that Leedemon has a plan is too short term....

He is on a mission. To say that Leedemon is not going to do everything in his power to keep Philly EDM going strong, that would be just wrong. In a scene once inflated by people whose only thought was that drugs and raves go together like fire and oxygen, Philadelphia is still in its beginning stages of coming out of its drug fueled haze. For some promoters, DJs and party goers, it is clear "it aint like the heyday," but Leedemon only sees "fertile ground" and the chance for Philly to move in a new direction.Of course there are challenges, competing promoters, a dominating hip hop scene, smaller turn outs for parties, however drawing from over nine years of Djing and promoting, formal education in business and a unyielding passion for techno music Leedemon is tirelessly working to move the scene away from those E nights and into a new day. On the bus ride back to Philadelphia from the New York party Invasion, Leedemon sat and talked with Philly Dance Scene about where the Philly EDM was, where it is now, where he wants to take it and other "small" topics.

Within the Philadelphia electronic music scene you currently are a DJ and are involved with Sinthesis Entertainment, True Night.com and Smile Thursdays - Out of all those activities, which are you most satisfied by and which was the hardest to accomplish?

...I'm most proud of and the thing that I've enjoyed the most was about a year and a half ago, right after the tsunami happened in south east Asia, Sri lanka, Thailand. My wife's from Thailand so I have a certain sensitivity to what goes on there and with her family in that part of the country. When the tsunami hit it was so unbelievably staggering how many lives were lost in that thing. I mean it was over 300,000 400,000 people that died in a matter of six hours -well maybe not six hours but probably over the course of six days because all the disease and everything. You compare that with a war, more people died as a result of that. And these are already people that don't have a pot to piss in. They have nothing and then their nothing got wiped away to complete nothingness, just watching that on TV hit me so hard I was literally depressed about it way more than our own September 11th. When you think about it we lost 3,000 people in the Towers and it was a terrible awful thing, worse than Pearl Harbor, but when you look at that versus the natural disaster of the tsunami and you think about how many people's lives were lost. Its mind boggling to think about how our whole country was polarized over this 3,000 person event and yet the rest of the world is sitting around not all that polarized about the tsunami. You'd think that one of the most greatest natural disasters of human kind that every country, every government regardless of their political agreements or disagreement, would come together and just help people. It was so disappointing to see that not happen. It was so disappointing to see our own government take two weeks to decide to even give one hundred million dollars. Thats it? Thats not going to make a 1% dent. So that motivated me to say "geez its a really fucking depressing world we live in when this happens and people don't respond" but I cant complain about it unless I do something and lead by example. If not for other people, just for me my family, my kids - I want my kids to see that their father did something like that when everyone else didn't. I got together. I mean I worked my ass off, to get as many promoters in this whole scene, who normally compete with each other, to get everybody together to just do one event. ...Now everybody started doing their little stupid tsunami fund raisers, like it was the politically correct thing to do. Emerald city did one and they donated like ten percent of the door and I'm like, "c'mon dude." They used this tragedy to make money, 'cause its good marketing to say "we're donating proceeds." Fuck that. I went to Tony at Shampoo, these guys at Shampoo are the most ethical professional people that run a nightclub anywhere in the city. ...The first thing out of their mouth was "yes we absolutely will do it and we will donate every dollar." Not just the cover, every dime that came out of that bar on a Saturday night. Like you only get four nights a week to pay your mortgage and your rent and Shampoo has been doing ok, but lets put it this way, it aint like the heyday. So for them to give up one of their big nights and to give that money up, and all the people who earn tips that night, ...everybody who was supposed to get paid that night forked over their pay for that night. ...We raised something like 24,000 and then I went to a pharmaceutical company and they matched the money so we raised 48,000 and we had 1500 people had Nigel, had Tommy every DJ - it was called Urgent. So all the accomplishments, its not about what sites I have or what business I have, it was the most satisfying feeling not only be integral in laying out that whole thing and planning it and doing it with friends and stuff but it was so satisfying to see all the promoters, that normally bitch and moan and fight and scrap away being competitive. Even in the Asian scene, I had another Asian promotion company that we had literally taken to court a year ago for stealing one of our DJs...we dropped the beef, they came into the whole thing, promoted it like mad. We did another one with them at Transit...just for the Asian community and people were blown away that there two companies that had been fighting for two years just came together. ...That's the most satisfying thing i think I've done in this kind of business.

Do you think that this something you would be able to do again?

I actually want to do a follow up. When you search the Google and you look up tsunami, they'll give you all kinds of report and information and pictures about what's going on now, they're not all that much better off. Half these people still don't have houses, the people that actually survived it all going through mental trauma

What would you say to people that say people that say "why are you doing this for another country when New Orleans is still messed up, 9/11, the Iraq war - if you have this ability to get people together and to raise money money for causes then why not America first?"

That a great question. Being a business major and just being American citizen your taught and you're force fed this notion that you should always care about your own country before other people. I'm the biggest nationalist there is. When the towers fell I literally sat there and crying and I was so angry because I was so proud of my country I would have gone to fight if I could. I didn't my wife was pregnant and all that and I'm too old. I'm 32, no one is going to want a fat bald guy, like "I'll do the spreadsheets."...People can be cynical, I've been to Thailand twice, trust me we've got it way better here as a country and I kinda feel like there is nothing wrong with diverting some of our resources to help other people in the world, specifically 'cause they're not Americans. That is what the American ideal is, we should be leading the way. Its not like it does a disservice to this country to do things for people, if anything it promotes this country - me being a promoter an all. I look at it this way, people in Africa, in certain parts of Africa where the U.N. or the U.S. does air lifts to drop food to people and they're just dropping bags of rice, trust me, our military makes sure that that American flag is screened on that bag. 'Cause when those people are getting that food we want them to understand that it was American people that brought [them] that food and that's the most powerful thing our military can do. More so then killing terrorists... it shows people what we're really like inside. ...Why should I devalue someone just 'cause they're not born with the same god given rights I have? It is mind boggling and ridiculous to think about the sacrifices that some people make just to enjoy one tenth of what we have. There's people in Africa, there's people in Asia, there's people even in Russia, ...that would kill to live in conditions like Louisiana. ...I feel terrible about the things that happened to those people, its awful but we still got 400 million people that can help. I sent money, its not like I did nothing, but I really want to put my effort into this.

Being that you are both a DJ and a promoter, how is the Philly EDM scene different from those two points of view?

...Being a promoter gives me a perspective of understanding, especially when I have a close relationship with a venue owner... of how that venue owner approaches his business, which is a perspective that a dj could never have. ...[DJs] don't get to talk to an owner about what it takes to do expenses for the night or to run a party. Now, I know plenty of promoters that call themselves promoters and they call up all their friends and they bring people to a club and then they sit around getting all fucked up and drinking not running the party. ...From a promoter point of view I look around [Philadelphia] and I see a lack of creativity. And I'm not making fun of other promoters, I'm even seeing myself, my parties, I was getting bored of them. Its just in this lull Its like you're a drone, "hey come up with another theme for another party and just do the same fucking shit again and again and again." ...I'm tired of seeing the same shit, no one is bringing any new talent, no is is bringing any young bucks up in the ranks. Those young DJs are the ones that will promote and work hard, so you gotta to give them an opportunity to earn some shit. Now as a DJ its different. When I throw my own events I have approach it as a promoter first a lot of times. I got a partner, like Andy, and don't want him seeing me approach the business that we're doing together as a DJ 'cause then he's like "well do I really want to be partners with this guy 'cause he's not thinking about the business. He's thinking about the own agenda as a DJ." Thats why certain parties I won't book myself, I run the party...For my birthday party in April I'll book myself, cuz its my birthday and I feel like it. (laughs)

Which takes precedence over the other, your DJing or your promoting?

I don't think one takes precedence over the other. I love doing both really. When I was playing music up in New York for two years as a resident DJ at [Machine Nightclub] they were paying me $250. I was driving myself two and a half hours each way, rarely staying at a hotel killing myself every weekend, for what? 250 bucks? ...Its not that its nothing, I value every dollar I get but its like compared to the amount of work its like a fourteen hour day. And the disturbing thing is I would have done that shit for free, but I never told them that, it was so much fucking fun - I loved doing it.

In the future would you ever see yourself leaving DJing for promoting/ managing or vice versa?

...As we get serious with more of these websites and it becomes more of a legitimate business, I'll have no choice but to concentrate on the business end. ...I got a lot of money invested in a website right now, I got a lot of money invested in events and invested in partners and an office, we're trying to run a real promotions company so its kinda no turning back now. But every once and a while if I can stick myself in the line up or get an outlet like up in New York to do a party but really DJ, I'll still do that. But the business part, because we're growing and were trying to do more big events...if I don't play the event, its still satisfying to watch your...event. Its almost as cool as DJing 'cause you're like "damn this fucking party is happening people are having a good time," and you feel like I helped create this, its cool that I got all these people having good vibes.

Often times people in any underground scene will feel a need to make sure it stays true to its underground roots. Being that you are on both the artistic side with DJing and on the management side with promoting, is it difficult to find that balance between keeping the loyal fans happy and selling tickets?

No - i don't think so ...every time Andy and I get together to plan a party... Andy comes from the perspective of who is the better talent, who's better to listen too because he feels that if you bring that quality of the music into the party thats going to make the party grow. What balances that out is me coming at it from the other angle saying, "I understand this guy is awesome but can he bring people? Does he have a website? Will he promote?" So whats cool about it is we balance each other out a little bit and it ends up that you pick the best of those things. The more heads you enter into the conversation, the less likely you allow yourself to inadvertently lean one way to far or to far the other way 'cause that can hurt some. If you have all these great DJs but nobody knows who they are, whats the point of doing the event? And the other aspect of that, its not even just the DJs. I might be into electronic dance music, I might be into trance and house and wanna do it in the main room at Shampoo all the time but there are times that I have to have hip hop in the main room because if I don't I can't pay the rent, I can't make money. If I can't make money and pay the rent, there's going to be no parties. So you gotta sacrifice that you're going to have a big hip hop crowd, but you know what, our Asian hip hop crowd that comes, they're all cool. A lot of them like trance anyway, so they mix well. There's no problems, there's never fights we have a real international crowd. ...Balancing it out is the key, not let one thing get more than the other.

Speaking of Hip Hop parties, in the past few years Philadelphia has lost a lot of venues that played techno music due closings or converting to hip-hop. This cause many people involved in the EDM scene to think that this was the beginning of the end, how do you view the changes in Philly scene?

Lets face it Philly is a hip hop city. There's no way to get around it, there's so many roots that go back to earlier hip hop. There's ridiculous amount of hip hop artist coming out of this city and hip hop coming off the streets...

...Allen Iverson had a CD...

Didn't Jerome Brown too? Some Eagle had one too... As soon as the drug scene hit six , seven years ago, it was ridiculous. Robbie Tronco was pulling in 1500 people over twenty one on a Sunday night at Egypt. All these people that were all cracked out, not wanting to go in to work Monday morning. And now that would never happen. Its not that the drug scene is not there, its that nobody is popping pills and that was the fashionable thing to do. A lot of these people that got into house and trance weren't even house and trance heads. They were idiots that were going to see Love Seed Momma Jump and listening to cover bands wearing flannel shirts and cut off jeans and now they're coming out to like Evolution and Shampoo, Emerald City, raving with glowsticks and you're like "how real is this anyway?" Now I think you get a little bit more depth in the scene in the quality of people. It may be a smaller scene, but the people who come out for these parties really like the music. They're not a bunch of posers, they're not trying to get their next fix, yea some of them are trying to get the next fix but they're still there at least 50% for the music. ...The hip hop scene on a country wise basis has gotten so repetitive. You listen to some of the songs out there and they're like nursery rhymes. There's no melody, there's no harmony, there's no chord structure, except there's a really cool reggeaton beat with a clap behind it and its poppy and a girl can say the same thing twenty times in the lyrics. It sucks and I think a lot of the hip hop heads now are starting to get tired of hip hop...When that Beenie man song came out, you could jump over to Dreams, over to Mad River, over to somewhere else you're going to hear "King of the Dance Hall," by Beenie man ten times that night. C'mon you go over to electronic dance music you're not going to hear the same song even once...

Since Hip Hop is stagnant right now, do you think that [the Philly electronic dance music scene] is moving back to how is was?

Here's the key, right now I believe that the state of house music and trance music, is really threatened because Shampoo on Sunday night for the last eight years Lifted Sundays, ...seventeen to enter, lots of high school kids, lots of young college kids, for years they were doing house music and a little bit of trance in the main room and so you were exposing the youth to that music 'cause they love going to Shampoo. The main room was packed every Sunday night but now times are different. Now people are into mash up, their house room has been kinda dying in the past year. They switched it up one night to mash up and their numbers tripled. Now house is dead at Shampoo and no one is doing it. ...Now the only people left exposing any young kids to house and trance is us, sinthesis and True Nights and Philly Dance Scene, we're the only ones. ...For Halloween, when we did Louie Devito, we put two rooms of hip hop down there with Amaze and DJ Taiga. We had 1944 of which at least 1000 of that was hip hop heads. It was a mob scene. Once Deep Nights went on at 3am, we pushed all those people back upstairs to the little outdoor tent and then that was mobbed until 6am. But what was so cool about that is you had a lot of hip hop kids getting sick and tired of that room all night and they started coming into the main room, getting a little bit exposed to a new style of music and dancing to it. So some people in the scene thumb their noses up to Shampoo or thumb their noses up at doing events that has hip hop but...it really is "build it and they will come." You gotta build you gotta expose these college kids to [electronic dance music], you gotta be handing out mix CDs...on college campuses otherwise you're not going to build the scene and where the fuck is the scene going to be in five years when all these people get all married and have kids and don't go out anymore. ...Nobody is grooming any new DJs, nobody is hitting these young kids. ...The rave of the new generation is going to be a mixture between hip hop and electronic music, and thats why I think when we get into the big scale events... we're going to really position ourselves real nicely to hit the scene hard and change it. We'll see

With Philly it seems like there is this crew here, doing their thing and there is this crew over there doing another thing. You mentioned trying to build a scene, but its going to take some level of unity or you'll have the same problem. You'll have you're own people following your parties.

The key to that, two things , whats exciting about True Nights is that its going to be a good tool that going to help us bring people together under circumstances that they normally wouldn't. Plus, once a year doing a huge charity event, that in itself brings people together for one unified night where no one is making money everyone is just trying to do a good thing. ...That creates positive seeds that you plant with other people which in turn creates more cooperation throughout the year. ...Holding occasional networking events for True Nights or getting some sponsor to kick out an out bar for every DJ, promoter, writer, artist, graphic designer, get everyone in the scene to come out for an open bar and get some big long tables... get people working together, i think there is an opportunity for it.

How safe is the Philadelphia scene in terms of numbers of party goers, loyalty to parties, and its ability to attract more people to it?

Its fertile ground man, its got a lot of people there really die hard and willing to support each other...just got everyone to come together and get those college kids converted. Those two things together man, I'm not saying not saying the scenes going to take off to what it was before, I don't what it to what is was before.

Why not?

Cuz it wasn't real. ...There was this one kid that I used to see all the time he played in this Gothic metal band, and they were this Gothic metal band that was always angry and full of angst and always had to hold up that image for the fans and be cool Gothic guys. ...One day over at Evolution night club and I look down and I see this fucker with a bunch of glowsticks in his hand raving to this happy trance song and I'm just like "hmm c'mon buddy, tell me you're in it for the drugs now." That's what was a shame, it was all so drug orientated that I don't want it to ever get to that level again...where everyone is walking around in the club, people falling out on the floor...There was like three or four guys that died on the Atlantic city express way coming back from Studio 6 cause they were too [intoxicated] out of their minds to drive and they drove. When shit starts happening like that you're like "something needs to change", and that's actually when locally this scene started to change dramatically... it woke a lot of people up...That's when it started to shift and those people started to going back to the regular interests that they had before more live music bands, maybe not even going out, or whatever they did

You want to grow the scene by exposing people that aren't a part of electronic music, if you keep drawing in people that don't live breath and die rave thats only going to increase the chances that they are going to be like "oh raves are for drugs" How do you prevent that?

I think the big difference now is that the young college generation their drug of choice that they do is definitely not Ecstasy anymore...they're doing drugs to stay up and study, its a different kind of thing. I don't think they're on as much dangerous drugs as people where before...there was so much bad publicity about [Ecstasy] and Fox undercover reports about how if you take Ecstasy every week you'll be drooling by the time you're 40. The word got out there and less people started doing [it]. So I think these younger kids coming up are a little bit more wiser to this...I feel like if I got a lot of people to come out and if I sell them on the music, it might actually raise the bar a bit it terms of their taste, the culture and their tolerance for something different. And now whats cool about it is hip hop and reggaton...some of those dance hall type beats they're only five to seven beats per minute away from Tribal house. You take a reggaton beat layer it with tribal house, I guarantee you I can walk into the most thuggish place drop three tracks...they'll be listening to electronic dance music without even knowing it. I think there is possibilities like that... if you're going to convert people to this music, you're getting people that already enthusiasts for their music. You're not just getting some dodo brain thats not thinking about what they like and don't like, "oh yea trance is awesome, when's the next party I wanna go get my fucking hit." Now its like people that appreciate bass lines, appreciate the talent of MCs and artists, they're going to listen to those elements that they like and they are going to be able to sing along to something on top of banging ass beats. It would be unstoppable...

With popular music in general, it really is all about the single. Everyone has their ipod and its this one song from this one person and this other song from this other person. Do you see that as a problem now that people are not really listening to long sets of music?

Now I actually think its different. ...When I was doing the Cool Junkie parties, our main room was off the hook and one of the reasons why is because when Bismark was doing the parties with me and Vanasia she would play hard style heavy trance and we would layer [tracks] over top of house remixes of hip hop songs. I've got trance song...Without Me...I have an awesome trance remix of that and whenever I dropped it at Shampoo people would go nuts 'cause it was the best of both worlds; it was a hard trance remix of a song they're singing everyday in their car or office. ...If more djs just did that and stopped worrying about being so underground or "I only play progressive trance, I only play deep house." ...Play music that's going to get people interested in the art form first and then they'll pick their [genre]. You don't need to jam deep house down everybodies throat, why not play want people want? I'm not one of those DJs, I don't give a shit if I look cheesy cause a play some euro house I'll play that uh...

Dont say "Crazy Frog."

(laughs) Nah definitely not. I have a remix of AC/DC "Thunderstruck," I'll play something corny like that but its fucking cool if people like it and they recognize it. ...You know that Benni Benasi song "Satisfaction?" Can you imagine if hip hop artists took that sound and put [it] into a hip hop song? It would blow up, that's one of the only house songs that every college kid in the country knows...you mix that in with some hip hop done deal.

Based on what you see now, where do you see the Philadelphia scene going? And is it different from where you would like to see it go?

I'd like to see it grow at a very slow, methodical predictable pace the way I think it is right now. ...Its really cool to start getting some of these other promoters to work with me at Shampoo...use talent and their ability to promote to expose more college kids to their crowds too so they can see what people who are into trance and house music do when they hang out... I'd like it to just go the way it is

With Sinthesis Entertainment you've become one of the largest production companies for Asian nightlife - how did you get involved in that niche scene?

When I was doing a Halloween party at Shampoo, two Vietnamese guys, one named Huey one guy named V, approached me and said they had a pretty strong crowd that followed them around at their parties and they wanted me to do a guest list with them. I said sure, I'm not going to turn that down. They brought like three hundred people at that party. After the party we all sat down and was like "if you can bring your Asian crowd and I can bring a white and black crowd... we merge them together." ...We formed a company, created a name, even though our website looks like an Asian nightlife site I would probably venture to say we're probably one of the biggest general nightlife production companies now... We're not one of the biggest ones in the hip hop scene, but in the college scene 'cause I was doing college Thursdays with Smile Thursdays. So you throw all these things together even though you come to the site and its an Asian site we're really not Asian nightlife company...

Are there any unique issues or challenges you deal with in promoting Asian nightlife parties in the Philly versus the other parties that you do?

Yea 'cause the Asian crowd has different tastes, different ways of doing business, the Asian crowd is all about promoters. There's so many sub promoters that go to all the colleges just to make two or three bucks and get people on a guest list, its all guest list driven. ...[The asian nightlife crowd wants] you to step around from venue to venue, venues get burned out and they get tired of the same place and they want variety and they love it when you break out a new venue for them and they respond so big.

How separate are the different niches of Philly nightlife you're involved in promoting for, college, Asian, and "standard"?

They're all really separate, which is why its kinda fun to bring them together. Different ways to promote, different methodologies, different type of music, everything is separate.

You said on your Myspace page you stated that "promoting via myspace is like trying to hand fliers to people driving in their cars 60 mph down the highway." As Myspace and other social network sites continue to become more popular, do you ever seen them reaching a level that would actually be useful to a promoter?

The only way it will ever become useful to promoters...is if they offer localized advertising that's affordable. So, if I could take out a big banner ad on Myspace, ya I would do that. But this concept of sending people bulletins is the most retarded thing I've ever seen. I never look at them and when I look at them, its always some indy pop band trying to get me to come listen to their emo and shit and i'm just like "nobody cares about you." ...I hate it when promoters leave comments on my page that are their flyers advertising the parties cause I kind of feel like "listen...this is my myspace page not yours, if I wanted your ad on my [page] I'd call you and ask you. Its really rude when you think about it, for you to just take over somebodies site by putting up your gigantic flyer when people are really going there to read the comments from your friends but instead they gotta see this flyer and then these [Myspace promoters] come back and they do it like three times a week. ...Everyone is doing the exact same shit there is no creativity. ...I feel like if you're going to do myspace or anything in life, try to find a way to be different... Nobody does that, a lot of people that I know they don't do any real promoting they think that Myspace is promoting...its not real promoting. You want to promote? Pick up the phone call people, create interpersonal relationships...promote by talking and networking and god forbid actually hand out some real flyers to people walking down the street, that works.

Your currently involved with a social network site "Collegeweb." Given the enormous popularity and options of site like Facebook and myspace, how do you plan to standing out in this growing industry?

That was a huge huge discussion that all the partners and I had, where we all absolutely 100% agreed that we all do not want to make our site even remotely like a Facebook or a Myspace. We have a little bit of social networking so you get your profile your pictures and it has that flavor, but the only reason why we put it in there is 'cause I felt that if we blow up in size for all the other reasons, we'd be dumb not to have that too 'cause that would give people even more reason to come. ...Give people multiple reasons to come back to your site, [social networking is] so big you have to have it. ...The same reason when you throw a party you have to have hip hop, same shit.

Out of all the things you're currently involved with what is going to make the biggest gains in the upcoming year?

Raising my kids.

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