BIOGRAPHY - JUNIOR JACK The world doesn’t know it, but Junior Jack (aka Vito Lucente) has been making music for roughly 13 or 14 years. “I was 15 years old, I stated for fun with some friends,” he recalls. “The second track we released, it was a huge success. In France we sold more than 3 million records, so after that I had a lot of offers from record companies to produce and remix, so I quit school, and still work in the studio today”. Vito’s story is of dogged hard labour and determination, building his studio up from a bare computer, and accruing skills to make some of the phattest basslines and most monstrous synth leads this side of Mars. “I buy equipment slowly, but it took years. I learn everything by myself, with a small computer at the beginning… now, it’s a museum in the studio.” In an age where virtual studio instruments are the norm and where soft synths are king, the Junior Jack studio is quite different. “Hardware, completely hardware,” he says of his set-up. “I don’t like software, I don’t like virtual stuff, I like the real machines. I have just analogue synths, all my stuff is vintage, I don’t have any new things, the only new thing is maybe my sampler, but the rest are old. I love my Roland Tr-909, my Moog memory Moog synth and I love my Tube Tech 3 band valve compressor. I use my valve compressor a lot.”Compression would go some way to explaining the terrifically tearing analogue lead of ‘Da Hype’, or huge bassline on ‘Thrill Me’ or ‘E Samba’. Spectacularly, he wrote most of his hits in one go, with other tracks from the album taking a solid two months’ studio work, plus a few years of rough ideas.

Vito wrote latest smash, ‘Stupidisco’, for an extra track just because he needed one, and he hated the Pointer Sisters sample (‘Dare Me’) that it uses. As a DJ, there are strict stipulations on having Junior Jack play at a venue. Number One is that he never goes without his wingman, Kid Crème. “My man Kid Crème is always mixing with me, we mix always together. He’s an old friend of mine and also lives in Belgium. He pushed me to start DJing. Because I have a lot of records and I receive a lot of promos and I buy a lot of records. He said ‘You should play!’ and I always say ‘I don’t enjoy it’. I don’t want to start travelling by myself, country to country just to go and play, I prefer to make music in my studio. I said to him if you want we can do it together… we’re going to have fun. We start for fun… that’s why we refuse a lot of dates.

We are not looking to be booked very weekend, we prefer working the studio ­ we get enough work on remixing and production. We just DJ when we want to go, not just for travelling or the money or stuff like that.”As for their musical content, “we play a lot of our own productions but as well it depends on the crowd we get in front of us. When we go somewhere and play we are supposed to make people enjoy and make the night happen, so it depends on the people in front of us. Normally I really like playing in England and Switzerland, I don’t’ know why but we have al to of requests in Switzerland. In England, the people have a very big house music culture, so in the middle of a set you can drop an old classic and the people start screaming because they know the track, which is very nice you know, and in the summertime we like to play in Ibiza. Still, it’s a house music paradise. Every year, everybody is there anyway so it’s still a good place to play.”Despite press and fan adulation, Vito is a grounded person though, as evidenced from his account of the progress from his house music baptism to making music and gaining global fame. “In Italy, I went to a festival called Nightwave (Italy’s answer to the Winter Music Conference). I went there and I was at a party of Lil Louie Vega. He played in one place, it was his birthday I think. It just blew me away. He played some really good American house music. After that I flew to New York and went there to buy a lot of records because it was difficult to buy this here, and I start producing house music. All these people at that time (Morillo, Sanchez et. Al), they were gods for me. I really respect them because they give me the bug to make house music. Now, I meet with them, I talk with them, they are just normal guys. At the time I was imagining that they were aliens. But now I am a part of the family so it is not the same.

Years ago, I was a big fan of those people, I buy all of their records, and now when you go on the Roger Sanchez website, you read Best Track of 2003 ­ Junior Jack ‘E Samba’. It really pushes me to keep working and keep doing house music, much more than listening to my track on the radio for example.” Current hit ‘Da Hype’ has welcomed the addition of seminal vocalist Robert Smith (of The Cure) ­ continuing Vito’s dream run in music. “I was a big fan of The Cure and I never imagined that one day Robert Smith is going to sing on one of my tracks. Years ago I went to see him at a concert, waiting for him to sign my poster, and a few years after I’m in the studio with him, behind the desk saying ‘Robert, can you re-sing this part, I don’t’ like it’.”As for future production, Junior Jack is headed down two avenues. One, he is making a track with Felix Da Housecat and a possible Sandy Rivera collaboration. Secondly, he is producing what he hopes will be his greatest works yet, his children. “After this world tour, that is it. I want to stay at home, work in my studio and spend time with my wife trying to make some kids.” Good luck Vito!