My Musical Influences: Eddie Amador

House music veteran Eddie Amador has been contributing to the dance scene since he exploded on the dance scene with his ’House Music’ anthem in 1998. ‘House Music’, features the line “not everyone understands house music, it’s a spiritual thing, a body thing, a soul thing”, spoken over a hypnotic pulsating beat, which consequentially became a seminal dance classic.

However, it wasn’t until Amador released his next single ‘Rise’ that proved his appeal as it entered the UK Top 20 giving him exposure as a world class DJ. He’s performed at famous club venues like Ministry of Sound, The Queen, Centro Fly, Crobar, Stereo as well as Pacha and Space in Ibiza. Based on his success, he set up a second studio in Amsterdam in 2003 where he continued productions for Defected, Nero, and Yoshitoshi.

In 2015, Amador received a Grammy Nomination for Remixer Of The Year for his remixes of the group Five Knives ‘The Rising’.

As Eddie Amador releases his new single ‘Don’t Look Back!’ with Coco Street on his recently launched new label NuSoul Records, we invited him to talk us through some of his musical influences. 

Rick James  ‘You and I’

This song influenced me before I was a DJ.  It is purely funky, soulful and at a slower house tempo. The vocals are meaningful, in that they express the human condition of a man in love, expressing positivity in his relationship with his girl. You can feel the funk and hints of James Brown by the heavy emphasis on the first beat of every bar. Moreover, because Rick James had synthesizers and electric bass the impact on the bottom end is more present. Of course the “whoo whoo” chanted by the background singers introduced the new era of funk that was alongside Parliament and Funkadelic.

Malcom McLaren ‘Buffalo Gals’

It was very cool to see the connection between “Punk” and “Hip Hop” on this release. The synth stabs and the drums on this are relentless, which I love. The instrumental alone is dope, yet Malcom had the audacity and attitude to take such a great track and pan the vocals to the extreme right and the track to the left, to me that is reducing the dance floor impact, yet it is so much more creative. It is like taking a beautiful red range rover and painting half of it in primer!  DOPE!

Victor Simonelli ‘Feels So Right’ 

This track’s apparent simplicity is a perfect example of house and has all the basic elements that define it. That is – a drum machine playing drums, a bass line, keys, a soulful vocal and strings. That’s it!  The first time I heard this was back in 1992 in San Francisco at a MAW party. It was amazing to see the crowd shout from the East Coast and West Coast – a true gem made by a cool producer. I actually have 2 of the original test pressings on vinyl.

Human Resource ‘Dominator’

WTF!  The first note of the track grabs you by the neck and is not playing around! Without a doubt this is a hot track from the early rave scene that burnt a place in my brain! The change up in the driving synth stabs during the rap is awesome. Of course the rap had to be as bold as the track and it simply is. The original mix also has a blasting bell ring out of nowhere, which I do not think was needed as the energy was already through the roof, but that did add to the mayhem. I am still rather speechless how this was created, but it was simply innovative and unique for its time. The synth stab in this was also featured in one of  Red One and Lady Gaga’s hit songs a few years ago. It is also a preset in Lenner digital’s plug in named Sylenth if you dare to emulate the original.

Boris Dlugosch ‘Keep Pushin’

This is another house classic that I heard and played many time before it was a “hit” global song.  What I love about this track once again, is the simplicity. There are various forms of house, yet for me this track demonstrates the variations on a theme, that is, the same words are simply repeated but placed differently and at different time. However, everyone can sing this. As an artist, I like my crowd to go home with great memories of the night and a few easy to repeat and positive message songs in their head. House music quite often should be uplifting and encouraging – this one is. To expand on this, the original club mix has a long intro with that unique bassline alerting the people to “that song” is about to start, which increases the hype and turns up the level on the dance floor.

Eddie Amador & Coco Street ‘Don’t Look Back!’ is out now on NuSoul Records and available from here