By Anji Bee | August 14, 2000
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| Wade Randolph Hampton, AKA Wish FM, hits the decks in Groove. |
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Wish Fm, also known as Wade Randolph Hampton, really shouldn't require an introduction, due to his long involvement in the world of underground dance music. But unlike contemporaries and good friends John Digweed and Derrek Carter, he hasn't quite reached household celebrity status. Having chosen the jungle genre, and more specifically, the subgenre of atmospheric drum 'n' bass (which he's nicknamed "drum 'n' space"), as his field of interest, it's been a bit harder for Wish FM to make a name for himself outside of his specific scene. Drum 'n' bass has long been viewed as the more passive side of dance music, and thus relegated to the back rooms of dance club and opening slots at parties. Many have insinuated that the atmo scene died years ago, after enjoying a brief period of elevated status in 1996-97 (at which time Hampton was busy creating the soundtrack for a very classy Mercedes Benz advertising campaign).
"Dead" seems a bit of an overstatement, however, if not a downright lie, considering Hampton's myriad accomplishments within the atmo /intelligent jazzy jungle scene. His well-established "drum 'n' space" club, La Belle Epoque, was recently voted one of the "Top 50 clubs in the World" by London's respected music mag, "The Information," and is known within the jungle community as the mecca of atmospheric and jazzy drum 'n' bass, bringing in many of the best-known DJs and producers from both stateside and abroad. Besides the original San Francisco location, at the popular Haight Street DJ barThe Top, La Belle Epoque has also had branches in Santa Monica, Calfornia, and Portland, Oregon, and is now finding a growing crowd at its new Park City, Utah location.
Hampton works at a staggering pace. In just under two years in his new Utah homebase, he's been able to sucsessfully launch a second club, become record buyer and business partner with Utah's Wagstaff Records, complete the Groove film / soundtrack project, compile a 5 year La Belle Epoque Records retrospective mix CD (due out soon), continue his production career under the pseudonym "W," run his San Francisco club, run both his Domestic and La Belle Epoque record labels, keep up a hectic worlwide DJ schedule, and raise a family to boot. Of course, Hampton is quick to point out that much of his success is due to the strong support of his partner, Stephanie Smiley, the mother of his child and all-around help-mate, as well as a group of business associates and friends that they rely on to take his ideas and manifest them into reality. Hampton understands the magic of delegation, and uses that power to reach out further and farther than he could going it alone.
Finally, it seems it was time for Wish FM to become involved in a project that he was not in charge of, Groove: a movie centered in the San Francisco rave scene. For once, Hampton was to take orders from others, and learning a valuable lesson in business, marketing, and the big time. It was this project that occasioned Anji Bee's recent conversation with Hampton, which he graciously fit in amidst his insanely busy schedule.
Anji Bee: You've just returned home from the "Groove" tour, haven't you?
Wade Hampton: Actually, we're in the middle of it. I'm on a two-week break to catch up on e-mail and whatever else. It's been nice being around the house. Good to see my family again.
I bet your son was excited when you came home.
Oh yeah. But he's kinda used to it. Once we moved here from San Francisco and started commuting, he's had to get used to me leaving town a couple times a month. I can sympathize; my dad was gone a lot when I was a kid. But he had spent the first two whole years of his life literally right by our side, even at the record store, so he was a little possesive at first. He's a seasoned DJ kid now.
This tour is basically to promote the Groove soundtrack?
Yes, it is. But since it's taking place during the summer festival season, some nights it's Groove, and other nights it's just the Saturday night rave scene. It's been a good range of crowds so far.
Which has been your favorite gig?
Ooh! That's a tough call; no one's asked me that! Oh man, I could give you a list of the Top Ten questions, which are usually asked in the same order - it's haunting… So I'm surprised that you caught me off guard. There were a couple of dates with John Digweed and I, back to back, 3 hours each, on each coast, for the biggest premiers that we went to - those were really exciting. Even without a weekend gig we were drawing 1,500-2,000 people, because of his status. I was playing drum 'n' bass right up to trance on the same dance floor, and it felt good. I could see in their eyes, going into the third hour, that they really wanted to hear him play, but they were getting sucked in - they couldn't help it! That felt like some necessary time spent in front of a different crowd, so that was good for me. As far as exciting, I'd say playing to 12,000 people at Cyber Fest a couple of weeks ago -- the biggest single floor place I've ever played to - that was mind-blowing! Again, it was on the trance stage, between Dave Ralph and BT live, and Oakenfold closing out. That's the kind of shit that's really exciting. Some of the people looked like they hadn't gotten into it before, just because they don't want to hang out in the jungle room or whatever.
Have you been playing the kind of sets you're known for?
Well, with Digweed, I was playing as trancey as possible, if you can imagine that. Not getting too far off into the Good Looking stuff, but definitely hinting at that style, trying to toughen it up a little bit. I actually played quite a few classics. It was a real shit month for atmospheric records, which was lame! To have to go out four nights a week with the biggest trance DJs in the world, and having to lean on classics to make it work - that was a little strange. But I played pretty hard at Cyberfest and also got into some jazzier elements. It's definitely more of a main-floor experience for me, which has been amazing to get to do. I've had some cool opportunities before, but rarely do I get to play on the stage I want to. It's been great that the promoters have let me do this with them -- for almost two years now. I followed Doc Martin on New Years Eve, and I followed Dan last year at Cyberfest… They've done some things that no other promoters have let me do with my sound, and I give them a lot of credit with that.
Which brings up the Groove soundtrack; you didn't really do the classic Wish Fm sound your fans would expect.
I couldn't! When I took the job, I had to look at it as a kind of time capsule for nine years of sounds that have influenced everything I've ended up doing, and then it was alright for me, honestly. But, its like, "If you don't want the job, then just go DJ this Saturday, but if you want the job, then …" The job came with an agenda that's maybe not all mine, so I tried to put aside the DJ ethic and just put on the hat of "Music Supervisor" and do what I'm supposed to do. It's a very diplomatic CD.
That's a perfect description for it. I was amazed that you were able to pretty much cover all interests with that mix.
Well, we can't say all -- at least in some of the circles that you and I run around in. I honestly didn't want to insult the junglists by putting it in there, though. I could have done it, but I just didn't want to get it started up at that tempo and then piss people off. There's been talk of a third CD depending on if the series continues to sell as well as this first one has. If so, I'd branch out and do all the down tempo and eclectic stuff from the movie.
Like the chill room stuff?
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| Click here to read our review of the Groove soundtrack. |
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It would actually be sold as "the chill-out room." But that would be after Digweed and it's not on the deal with Kinetic yet, though it was part of the original bid we put in. They didn't want to agree to it until they saw how the first two sold. Digweed's is going to have a lot to do with what he played, but very little to do with the movie itself. John was very flexible, working with us on the movie, but we couldn't ask him to play all tracks from the film! His will have the 3 tracks from his set in the movie and then it's supposed to be like the rest of his set that you didn't get to hear. That seemed the best way to market it, and people really want to sell Digweed albums, so we're sure it will do alright.
Have you felt overshadowed by Digweed during this whole Groove thing?
Not at all. He's one of my oldest friends doing this. I've know him for ten years, and he's the first big British DJ that I brought to the States and promoted, so for us this is just hitting another stage of new territory, like pioneering times again. Not to sound cliche! We did some pretty cool things together back in Chicago when house was king. We were breaking breakbeat records there, in 1990-91, that were made in England. That was not a very popular thing with everyone, if you can imagine! To this day, he puts as his top three DJs, always in this order: Danny Tenaglia, Derrek Carter and Mark Farina, which for a trance DJ, is a step out there. That's the type of person he is. My dad always said, "You gotta dance with the one that brung ya," and I kinda feel that way about a lot of those guys, even though we don't really play the same thing. We fed on each other, and the fact that Derrek has done what he's done is a real inspiration to me, as well as what John does. That blip in time in Chicago, when the old guard was letting go, and things were beginning to splinter into sub-genres for the first time, that's changed things. We all went very different ways with what we do. So I really feel that there's no "overshadowing," because John and I are just getting into the movie business together now, and we'll continue to work on things . He's in my next film, in fact.
Wow, you're already working on another one?
We've actually been working on it for five years now, since before Groove. It's called Louder than Words and it's about my childhood, growing up in Dallas, between '83 and '86. It's a dance music movie about a time when things were a little bit different. We're casting some fairly well known DJs as non-DJs, to kinda suss up the early music conversations. These guys are all fairly knowledgable. Hopefully it will be an interesting commentary on where the music has ended up. So you'll see John playing someone other than "John Digweed" in the film.
You have so many things going on.
We have a lot of really cool people that work with us. We've been lucky to surround ourselves with companies that facilitate our labels and such. It's never been a total in-house thing. We work out of our offices here, but we have enough people working on our various businesses that we don't have to house them all here. There's not like a room with twenty people working in it.
(Laughs) What a weird concept! A big building with a "W" on top of it.
How weird would that be? A long hallway of offices … but I know a bunch of old ravers in L.A. that are doing it as we speak, so don't laugh too hard. Go look at Steve Levy and Jason Bentley. My god! But it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I had a really good time playing on his radio show ("Metropolis," which broadcasts on Los Angeles station KCRW) recently, actually. He was spot-on, as usual, making me write down the track names. Man, he has the sickest hookups! But, anyway, that concept of big business to us, is still … I mean, we kinda run it like we would a house music party. We just do it for fun. We have an office and studio, side by side, in various configurations over the last 5 years. Occassionally we have someone come in to help us for the day. In San Francisco, at our store, we had more help maybe on some days, but again, you can't do all these things at once. You have to align yourself with resources that almost give you the structure of what, apparently, would be a bigger business. That's the way we design things, while other people try to take it all on themselves, buy the building and everything. In my opinion, that's not the best way to do entertainment, to have a lot of assets. A lot of people lose a lot of money that way. We've lost some, trying to take on projects that were too adventurous. But we've learned that, until you have the means to afford it, you probably shouldn't go out and buy it all. That could be any business, selling records, baggy jeans or whatever! Creative businesses like that can do it without setting up a huge office with a staff and all of that. I encourage people to operate on D.I.Y. ethics.
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