Pop Idols
Derry-based dance supremos the Japanese Popstars fill Edwin McFee in on the secrets of the sound that has made them world beaters.
Edwin McFee, 19 Apr 2010
There comes a moment in every musician’s life when you suddenly realise the direction your career should be taking. Decky Headrock (AKA Declan McLaughlin) from Derry’s Japanese Popstars is no different. His epiphany didn’t happen in a small, sweat-drenched club. No, instead it occurred in a muddy field in Thurles.
“When I was growing up I got into hip hop and rock music first. When I went to Feile ‘94 and I saw The Prodigy do their live show it converted me to dance music on the spot,” he recalls. “I remember The Prodigy were headlining the dance tent that night and they blew me away. I instantly became a big fan of dance music. I started making my own tracks pretty much a week later on my computer. That was the beginning of it.”
Having initially started out as part of the hip hop combo Headrock Valley Beats, Decky began amassing equipment for his home studio thanks to the help of a rather generous advance from his then record label. Now he has pretty much every piece of kit he needs at hand.
“I started off making music on a simple computer and over the space of four or five years I started to build up a proper studio. When my previous band Headrock Valley Beats were signed I got a sum of money from the record company to put together my own studio. I went from there,” he remembers. “I got a 48-channel mixer, some synths and samplers and all sorts of gadgets. Everything we do now though is software based. We each have our own studios. A lot of our music is written on a programme called Reason 4, so we’ve taken it away from hardware based stuff and focused more on the software side of it. That way, we can take our music anywhere with us on our laptop. If we’re doing a remix for someone we’ll work on it on the laptop and then bring it back to the studio and finish it off.”
Translating what they create in the studio to the live arena has been a pretty painless affair for the outfit (completed by Gerry Curran and Gareth Donoghue). According to Decky, the Popstars tend to think about their live show first and foremost.
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