At some point in the last year or so, getting down with deep house seems to have become the cool thing to do. Techno producers and DJs worldwide started paying lip service to the genre while throwing a few tunes with swung percussion in the mix. And while some of the more obvious purveyors of the deepness have been name checked left and right, especially those from Detroit whose dirty, lo-fi sound has been an obvious influence on many newer house records, one of the major players in that scene has been somewhat overlooked, even though he continues to release banging new material. That man is Rick Wade.

Keeping true to the roots of house, Wade has developed a distinctive sound that draws from soul, jazz, funk and disco and adds to it the loopy raw vibe taken from Detroit techno. The resulting tracks on labels such as Mike Grant's Moods & Grooves, Brett Dancer's Track Mode and Andy Vaz's Yore have been classics in the genre, secret weapons for discerning techno and house DJs.

Wade may be best known for his house productions, but he's also been a part of the ghetto tech scene from its beginnings. His debut 12-inch for Data Bass—the label's first—combined disco and electro to great effect and, earlier this year, he was part of the imprint's stage at DEMF.

2008 may yet be the year Rick finally gets the attention he deserves. His second album, The Good, the Bad, and the Deep, dropped over the summer on Yore while the "Revisited" series on Harmonie Park has seen the vinyl reissue of many of the extremely limited and hard to find joints of yesteryear. And he just got back from a two week tour of Japan and has been DJing in Europe more and more.

RA recently got down to brass tacks with the missing link between Theo Parrish, DJ Godfather and Daniel Bell to see what's what.

How did you get started in dance music?

I grew up with the music my aunts and uncles were listening to, which was all Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, stuff like that. Then when I got a little bit older, I was listening to Chicago's Hot Mix 5 on the radio. I'm not from Chicago, I'm from a town called Buchanan, Michigan, which is one of the last towns on the border of Indiana and Michigan. But all of our TV and radio were pretty much Chicago stations, so we would hear BMX and GCI and—on a good night—you could hear JKC, college stations and stuff. So I would hear all that stuff in the mixes and I just loved it all. All that early house music and deep disco classics they'd be running, I just had a natural affinity for it.

It was just a natural progression from there: I liked the music, so I'd buy the records just to have them and then I wanted to mix like I was hearing on the radio and it just kind of grew from there. This was in the late '80s, 1987 or so. That was when house was really starting to take over the mix shows.

So how did the DJing come about?

The actual first legitimate gigs were probably my freshman year of college, 1987 or 1988. That was when I started doing party parties. Before that, when I was in high school, I was DJing friends' parties down in the basement. I only had one turntable and a bunch of classics like "Trans Europe Express" and stuff like that. I was the guy who had the music, so I was the DJ by default. My nickname back in those days was "Mixin'." They used to call me Ricky Mixin'.

Put your hands up for Detroit

When did you move to Detroit?

After my freshman year of college, I moved to Ann Arbor. Not really Detroit, but Ann Arbor, because I was going to University of Michigan. After I graduated, I was seeing this girl who stayed in Clinton Township which is a suburb of Detroit. Instead of going home, I moved in with her for a few years and I just stayed in the area after that.

By then I was doing mixes on the radio, all these different nightclubs and stuff. I was working in Record Time and met Mike Huckaby. I started working at Record Time in '93 and I worked there until '95. I was in the dance room, Huck was the manager and I was the assistant manager. Huck was in charge of all the house and techno and I was in charge of all the hip-hop, bass and R&B. I was into house music too, so whenever Huck wasn't there I would pick up the slack. Huck was into bass then as well. We did a lot of bass gigs together around then.

Were you involved with bass or house first?

I was DJing house music before I DJed bass, but then once I got to Ann Arbor I started broadening the types of music I played in my sets because I heard Jeff Mills on the radio. Chicago radio didn't have DJs with that style. They didn't play that type of music. It was straight-up house music or even freestyle which was really big back then. Disco and deep classics, that's what Chicago would play.

Detroit had Derrick May on the radio doing his mixes, which was like really deep moody techno and housey stuff. Jeff Mills was on there, he would only play like 16 bars of a track and he'd be on to the next track. You never knew what he was gonna drop next. He was playing all this bass stuff in his mixes and I really liked it. I hadn't heard it before I got up here, I was like "Man, I love this stuff." The closest thing we had were breakdancing records. And the Wizard would even play those kinds of things in his sets.

I started incorporating that into my house sets, I started spinning house like that. I sped it up, would only play just a portion of the house tracks that I liked a lot, just my favorite parts of the songs. That wasn't for everyone, people would complain that I was playing too fast or not playing the song long enough, but then a lot more people liked it, like "Man, I never heard anyone play house like that." Being in charge of the bass at Record Time, I saw how much it was selling and I liked bass too so I figured I would start making some bass tracks and try to get in on that. Who better to do it? I'm in charge of the bass for metro Detroit! So I made my own bass tracks before I made my own house music.

How was it playing bass at this year's DEMF?

It wasn't the organizers who asked me to do it, it was DJ Godfather. They gave him the whole day to organize how he wanted to and he wanted me. Me and him used to spin bass together back in the day. He really liked all of my Bass Force tracks. He said "You need to come back out spinning the bass stuff." I kind of concentrated more on house music even when I really had a big bass following in Detroit. In Detroit I wasn't really known too much for house music, though outside of Detroit I was known for house. In Detroit I'm Big Daddy Rick, booty bass ghettotech DJ. That's what most people know me as here. Godfather started the Electrobounce download store online and I gave them exclusive rights to my old Bass Force catalog. So I went down and played all my old tracks for my set.

Are you planning on doing more bass stuff in the future?

I never stopped making bass tracks, I just haven't been putting them out. They're all gonna go on Electrobounce.com, I just gotta sit down and give Godfather the tracks. I keep promising tracks to him, I just haven't got around to it. I still like bass, I was just doing so much house that I got to the situation where I couldn't keep up with both things. I couldn't buy all the house and all the bass records. That's why I stopped spinning bass. I actually sold all my bass records, so when I did that set I had to use Serato on Godfather's laptop. I had never used it before so it took me a minute to get used to that.

"As time has gone on, a lot of the people I used to deal with have gone out of business."

So you're a vinyl guy?

Oh yeah. I'm straight-up vinyl. I asked if I could play vinyl since I was worried about using Serato, because I didn't want to come down there and look bad but Godfather said, "You know how to mix, just don't worry about it." So that's what I did, I got down there and a few of the cats kinda babysat me a little bit. I was messing up, clicking the wrong button, switching the tracks when they weren't supposed to be switched. I'm not gonna lie, I see the benefits for Serato. You don't have to drag a 70 pound flightcase around.

What kind of records are you buying these days?

I like to go shopping when I'm traveling, I like to get to the record shops in the city I'm in. It seems like a lot of times I end up coming out with more disco classics and funk classics than I do new house music. I still get sent a lot of new house music.

Can you explain the importance of those old classics to how you make your music?

I've thought about it before occasionally. I think it's just something about them as a whole: The way they were arranged, the elements that were incorporated into the tracks and then the sum of its parts. It just made me feel a certain way. They made me feel good. When I'm making my tracks, a lot of times I tend to incorporate elements I remember. I'll think of some old track I like, I'll come up with a certain way of arranging it.

I try to make tracks when I'm making my deep stuff so that when it's finished it gives me the same feeling as listening to those old tracks. Not that it sounds dated, just that it's eliciting these good emotions. As you get older, you tend to forget the bad things that happened and you remember the good times. For me, a lot of my good times were associated with music. Some of my buddies say that the stuff I make kind of sounds like what they imagine Brass Construction tracks would sound like if they were making music today.

That's an interesting comparison, I can definitely see that when you think of tracks like "Movin'" that they did. Are you still using hardware now, or have you moved into using a computer?

I'm actually using them both. I use my computer to sequence the stuff now, whereas I used to use my (Alesis) MMT-8. Huck and I have compiled all these deep sounds and arrangements and half-finished tracks and stuff like that. We just kinda started dumping them into the computer, making our own personal loop libraries. I played all these patterns and arrangements from my Korg and Vintage Keys and all the analog gear I have into the computer. It saves a lot of wear and tear.

I think the most obvious hallmark of your sound is probably your strings. How do you get that sound?

It is from my Korg T3. Probably between like my first house records up until three or four years ago, every house record I made, every deep sound I used was from that Korg T3. I used the Vintage Keys for a lot of my bass sounds. I didn't like the Korg sounds for bass.

On the new album, you have a track with a vocalist named Marissa G. Is this the first time you've worked with vocals?

Yeah, that's the first time I've done a full-on vocal. I've talked on some of my own tracks like "Boogie With Me" and "Forever Night Forever Deep." The track with Marissa G. was the first time I really tried to do a straight-up vocal track, as best I can anyway. I made that track and I felt it needed something else. Me and Marissa had always talked about doing something together, but we never got around to it. I shot her that track and asked her could she come up with something for it. She came up with that song and that's how the vocals for that came about.

Another aspect of dance production that you don't seem to have much experience with is the remix. Is there any reason for that?

Some people have asked me to do remixes before, but when I tell them I want to get paid for it then they don't want to do it anymore. They say, "You can get paid if the record sells" or whatever. I can appreciate some of those positions, but I'm too old school for all of that. I'm like "Man, if you're not talking an advance or something, keep stepping." I'll make my own tracks and put them out and get paid. I'm not trying to do that for somebody else.

On your own label, you've always had relatively small pressings and then deleted them once they sell out. Why do you use that strategy?

It started out for financial reasons. Back in the day, all I was doing was DJing and making records. If you're pressing up a record, you need to have all the money upfront to pay the pressing plant. So I would save up and press up as many as I could and then I would always get tons of reorders, but back then nobody was paying upfront. Back then you had the distributors on 30 day terms and, in reality, the 30 days would turn into 60 or 90. They would try to do reorders, but they still hadn't paid you for the first thousand!

Have you found things better in that regard these days?

I only deal with people who pay me upfront now. As time has gone on, a lot of the people I used to deal with have gone out of business. The few who are still around who do use terms, I just don't deal with them. I understand you've having hard times, but now there are distributors out here who will pay you upfront. You want to buy a product, you should pay for it. Record sales were the only place I can think of where people could get over on you like that! That's one of the reasons that you see more of my records out there these days. They give me the money and now I can repress it.

You've also had a few CD albums and compilations recently. Do you have other plans to cater to the digital realm with mp3s or digital downloads?

I'm thinking about making the old stuff available as mp3. Those download sites have been asking me about what I'm gonna do with that old catalogue. I'll probably do that. The CDs came about from Japan. Japan is a really big market, I've been fortunate that the Japanese have been behind me for years. A lot of those Japanese distributors say that a CD would sell more than the vinyl. The first one I did was sort of like a joint venture with some Japanese cats, and it worked out well. Then they wanted to do The Best of Rick Wade, although that title to me is a bit misleading because those aren't the tracks I would have picked as "the best of Rick Wade." Those are the tracks that were the best performing in Japan. That's why they were chosen.

"Theo [Parrish] came in and Claude [Young] was playing the first Harmonie Park record. Theo was like the only person dancing to it."

You were putting out deep house records at the same time as cats like Kenny Dixon Jr. and Theo Parrish in the early '90s. What was it like back in those early days for you guys?

I actually had the first deep record out before Kenny or Theo. I put mine out just before Kenny's first, about six months before. It was funny, we both had kind of the same sound. I remember when Kenny brought that record into Record Time, I was like, "Man, this is sweet. This sounds like something I would have made." We really pushed Kenny's record hard in Record Time.

I remember I went to this party where Claude Young was spinning. Theo came in and Claude was playing the first Harmonie Park record. Theo was like the only person on the dance floor dancing to it. He made it around to where I was and I said to him "Hey man, you like that track?" He was like "Oh foooool, that's my shit, that's deep!" and I said "I made that track." He was like "Oh fool, you're Rick Wade?" We ended up becoming real good friends. He would come by, use my studio, make some tracks, just hang out. A lot of his early records he made in my old studio on my old gear.

Compared to a lot of the other Detroit house producers, you have always had a strong presence on European labels. You've helped to kick off two of Andy Vaz's labels, how did that come about?

As far as Andy Vaz goes, Andy had contacted me about doing something for a label he was starting called ATC, A Touch of Class. I was like "Man, whatever, some old European cat all of a sudden now he's deep." But Mike Grant was good friends with Andy and he called me up and said "Hey man, Andy Vaz is good people. Whenever I go over there, I hang out with him." Once he vouched for him, then it was good to go.

Fast forward some years later, he said he was starting up Yore and asked me if I would be interested in doing an EP for him. I had a whole bunch of tracks. At any given time, I've got what I call an arsenal of tracks ready to go. Some people like to play video games or whatever for fun, I like to make tracks. Andy liked a bunch of them, so he wanted to do two EPs. And then he said, "You got enough tracks, you should put an album out." I had been thinking about it, but it was right about that time where things went bad with my marriage. My boys and I got a new place and I filed for divorce. I had the title and me and Andy picked out the tracks.

You've been DJing a lot more in Europe and Japan recently...

I'm getting out there. Probably 80% of the gigs I've got have been through people contacting me on MySpace. The Japan thing, those guys contacted me off of MySpace. People are getting in touch with me!

Sometimes I guess some things baffle me. I'll do a Google search on myself to see what people are saying, I find these things sometimes where cats are talking about "He was playing Hed Kandi" or "He wasn't playing real deep house." Who are these guys to question if what I'm playing is truly deep or not? Just last week you were playing some soulless minimal techno and now because some magazine told you to like something deep, you did a Google search and found something in the "Deep" section on Traxsource or whatever. And now you think you're the expert because you have one Kenny record, one Theo record and a bunch of illegal mp3 downloads.

They're gonna say I didn't go deep enough? People wanted me to play a whole set of what I make. I can appreciate that, but it would be kind of boring for me. I play what I feel is deep to me. I'm not playing tracks that I think are gonna appeal to the crowd, I play what I like how I like to play it. And that's that. These are the tracks that help form it, if you like what I make you need to sit back and listen to the tracks that influenced me and continue to influence what I make.

You also do some visual art as well, you have those computer rendered cartoons up on your MySpace. Do you have plans to take that farther?

I've always been a traditional artist. Growing up I always liked to draw, I had a natural affinity for it. I really liked comics and cartoons and stuff like that, I like to draw that stuff more than realistic stuff. I concentrated on that all the way up through high school. Once I went away to college, I didn't draw anymore. I just didn't have the time or whatever, I got involved with music and whatnot.

Then in 1999, my first son Ricky was born and I would be up late night when my son would get up. I would be feeding him, sitting on the couch with him and I'd put the TV on and we would watch Cartoon Network. It was all Anime, I had never seen Dragonball Z before. Then I wanted to do that kind of thing! I started doing homework and research and found out about the world of Anime. What I found was one person alone can't make an animation the traditional way, it takes forever. But then my buddy was like, "You can do it if you use a computer." Up until that point I was anti-computer.

I took his advice on it, I would be up late night teaching myself how to 3D render and stuff like that. I'm actually working on my own animated production right now called Transporters T.R.U. (Tactical Recovery Unit). The two lead guys are basically just two different sides of me. The one guy is kind of wild, almost Big Daddy Rick kind of guy. The more seasoned guy is the Rick Wade guy, the more serious side.

I actually flew an actress in from Los Angeles, I had her come in to do the other main character named Korie for the story arc that I'm working on right now. She's an assassin for a sister agency which is the female lead. The guy who wrote the script is a friend of mine named Eric Heard, he's a good friend and a story writer. We want to hopefully make it into a weekly series.