I still remember the day when I first heard a song from Victor Davies. It was in late 1998 after receiving a box of records from a good friend of mine. One of these records was a white label with no further information attached, but with indescribable soul and deepness that hit me right where I was sitting.

My first impression was instant love for the jazzy house grooves that floated through my headphones; music that immediately caught my attention and transferred me to a better place. But when the person on the record started to sing, my brain waves suddenly awoke from their solid REM state and started to suck in the conscious and rich lyrics delivered by a gorgeous male vocalist. The song I am talking about was the seminal 'Boogie Solitaire Mix' of Victor Davies' "Brother," as I found out some three months later when it was released on the West London record label Flipside to widespread acclaim.

Today on a chilly Tuesday afternoon, I'm sitting in my apartment while getting ready for an interview with a songwriter and artist that had a huge impact on me. The lyrics of "Brother" still stick in my mind; words that assure that there's always someone who will be your brother, Soulmate, partner and teacher. I'm wondering how to start the interview because after hearing several other songs from Victor I have the feeling I know him, his personality and the things that are important to him.

But as it turns out, I have no problems dropping the butterflies that are rumbling through my stomach. Victor just returned from a trip to Vienna and Greece where he performed some of his music, and we start talking about the experiences he collected during his journey to the southern part of Europe.

"At the moment, what I've been doing is completely acoustic. Just with me singing with a guitar - an acoustic guitar. It's easier for promoters, and it's more cost-effective for them as well. The other thing is that you need the right crowd to understand acoustic music, and I play basically everything I have released as well as other stuff, but acoustically! It's a different angle; it's quite nice. Some people that I've met and that have seen me playing a couple of times said that they heard a track of mine on the radio, and they couldn't believe that it was me because they only have seen me being an acoustic artist, and then they heard the records. And I think vice versa it works as well. People weren't expecting me to play acoustically."

Amazingly enough it was an acoustic track called "Runaway Train," released three years ago on People Records out of West London, that can be considered the breakthrough for Victor Davies.

"I did some demos just on a little 4 track, and one of those tracks was "Runaway Train." It was just basically a demo to play to promote, so they hear what's gonna sound it like acoustically. I think it was probably 1998. I gave the track "Runaway Train" to Mike at People Records, just to let them hear the stuff I was in and I was playing live. And he asked me if I want to put it on a People sampler. I said "Yeah" - it took me 5 minutes to record! So I gave that to him and they put it out, and it caused quite a good reaction. People were saying "Who's this guy?" So I thought it's time to put a single out, and I wrote the track "Brother." I got in contact with Flipside, and the Boogies did a remix. We put it out and it caused even more of an interest..."

The success of "Runaway Train" and "Brother" came to no surprise for people who had followed Victor Davies' career from day one. A familiar name in the London underground soul circuit, he collected lots of experience as a writer and live musician for numerous bands and projects.

"I was playing in a lot of bands and stuff, just playing live. Then I started to make my own recordings and I got a publishing deal with Virgin Publishing. You think Virgin at the time was independent, but it wasn't. And I was lucky because EMI bought Virgin shortly after that, but they let me go. And shortly after that I signed with Chrysalis Publishing, and EMI bought them. I got three advances for nothing, really."

As it turns out, none of the big players provided Victor with a record deal, so it was up to a small label to release his first single.

"I did a little single with the Republic label. Dave Lee [aka Joey Negro] owned it. That was the first record deal I've ever signed. It was under the name of Evil Roy, the track called "Ecstasy" which - given the time - it doesn't relate to the actual music. It was more of a kind of Marvin Gaye-type soul record. And then shortly after signing from that Dave left because he got pretty successful with the remixing stuff. Rough Trade that used to own Republic, they went on[...] It was just like three different instances that were really just kind of fate, and I thought "I'm gonna stop this, I just wanna play live! I am not interested in record deals!"

There's one thing that amazes me after hearing the story of Victor's early experiences with record labels and record deals. Instead of giving up on his dream of producing his own music, he stuck to it. He staid true to himself and continued making music he felt and loved until People Records released "Runaway Train." Yet, Victor Davies' music greatly differs from the contemporary sounds usually released on West London-based record labels. I ask Victor how he feels about being associated with the West London music scene.

"People always say West London because they kind of mix me in with that West London sound. The main reason for that is because my distributor Goya (which are also People Records) are based in West London. And I.G. Culture and all these people, they live in West London. It's been good for me because that's the scene people kind of associate me with. Yet at the same time, I think a lot of stuff that I do is quite different from that. I mean my stuff is very song-based. Definitely, I am a songwriter! A lot of the West London stuff is very cutting-edge, very contemporary, while I think a lot of my stuff that I do is quite retro. I don't listen to much music that was made past like '78. That's just what I like. I am very influenced by that. The rest of those guys and girls in that West London scene do very cutting-edge and contemporary music."

No doubt, Victor Davies produces what can best be described as Retro Soul. So what are his musical influences, I wonder. One has to be Jon Lucien, the almost forgotten godfather of Latin Soul...

"I am listening to Jon Lucien, definitely, absolutely! A lot of people also say it's Terri Callier. I've got one Jon Lucien album that I've listened to quite infrequently. But the thing I like about Jon Lucien, there's an integrity in his music. It's very very honest. I know as an artist sometimes you can kind of portrait that you may not even have to believe it. But to me there's a real substance in the music, so someone saying that I sound like him is amazing to me. It's quite an honor! Because he's a real musician having a great voice and real substance to the music. I also like the fusion, the whole aspect of that. Everything that I have listened to is being quite varied, all my influences. I like stuff like Stevie Wonder, the jazz rock stuff, John McLaughlin, even Pink Floyd. Sometimes the things I like about music are not necessarily the music. It might be the way it is recorded, or just the way they write the songs. For instance, take "Dark Side Of The Moon," the way the guitar is recorded on this record. It's really done well. And then you have other stuff like "Hotel California" which is really kind of middle-of-the-road American rock, but the songs and the arrangements are really done well. Then you have stuff like Stevie Wonder that you just got this feel that the whole kind of songwriting is excellent. Or all the kind of Latin stuff! That just has that Brazilian feel. So if you take elements of that it influences you and you can create something really really good!"

Listening to tracks from Victor Davies confirm these influences. Instead of riding a groove or looped sample to infinity, his songs are soulful melodies that were actually written rather than just picked up from pieces. No wonder that he chose the guitar as his instrument of choice.

"I was about 14. It was a guitar. I really really wanted to play guitar. It was a very strong thing to me, more than anything else that I can think of I've ever wanted to do. I was in school started playing on my own, then I got lessons in school that were guitar lessons. Then I got a little scholarship to do classical guitar, you know that kind of the government would pay for me to have classical guitar lessons. I did that for a while. I didn't do the grades because I hate reading. Whenever I was given sheet music I never read it! But my ears are very good and I just used to copy what the teacher was playing and then improvised it. And after about a year he realized that I wasn't actually reading it and he got kind of pissed off to that. However, I think it was important to me, because the finger style that I use - the classical style - works very well with Latin rhythms because you're actually pulling and plugging. It helped me quite a lot having this basis."

Having learned the basic skills he was now ready to approach the more contemporary areas of music by embracing the sounds of jazz guitar legends like George Benson and Wes Montgomery, something that helped him become a familiar name in the highly competitive British underground scene.

"Originally, it was just classical because that's what I was taught in the school. From then I kind of got on to hearing jazz style guitar: Wes Montgomery and John McLaughlin, George Benson and that kind of stuff. From there I played in different bands here in London, one of them were called Deep Joy. They actually released an album, and I did most of the guitars on their album. I worked with them quite a lot."

Victor continues that after these years of apprenticeship as a musician he decided to focus on his very own vision of music that is based on songs, melodies and most important, messages. Like every good songwriter, Victor Davies sings about topics that are important to him, in particular love and racism. Being biracial (his father is from West Africa and his mother from England) racism is of special importance to him, and one of his latest songs called "Better Place" focuses on this issue.

"Most of my songs have a kind of message in it, some kind of story. Racism is obviously just a natural thing; that's the way that I think. I realized that the way we define ourselves in race culture is pretty irrelevant. It doesn't really have any substance. If you look at the history and where we come from, it basically tells you that black isn't black and white isn't white. But the reason why we say they are is because we say they are! To me, looking at my background and a lot of people that I know that are mixed race, I could see that in the way people define white as beings these people weren't white. But they were saying they were, so they were! And that was the point in the song. Another thing as well is that I think that the whole thing, you know you take a black boy white girl or white boy black girl making love even today is one of the last taboos. And if we go over that we really be getting to get somewhere."

"People ask me if I see
the color of the face.
I say black is never black
and white is mostly gray.
You take a black boy, white girl,
white boy, black girl or any other race,
Making love and making this
a much much better place."
Victor Davies - Better Place
(AfroGigolo Records)

Prejudice is still common in so many parts of our world, and for Victor the intolerance that arises from prejudice is not only limited to racial barriers. He even sees implications in the type of music he is playing.

"It's OK for people to come to me and say you're a soul artist or whatever, but because of my guitar style I can see myself actually moving very much into folk acoustic stuff, and I might not be allowed to do that. It's crazy, it's ridiculous! Music is music! It's invented to have influences from everywhere, especially in American music. It comes from blues, it comes from classical, it comes from European immigrants who came over there, it's everything..."

I fully share Victor's opinions about racism and music, and I am amazed about the deepness of his statements. Music should unite - not divide! I realize that this is probably the major reason why he chooses house, with its vast amount of spiritual and multicultural listeners, as his preferred remix format. Most mixes from his tracks are house versions that feature completely new recorded vocals and instruments, something that makes them first class quality products in shelves of record stores. Ultimately, his twelve inches like in case of "Brother" or "Better Place" received rave reviews from the press and can be found in countless charts and playlists from house DJs. Asked about the reasons why these tracks became such anthems he tells me that house represents an important genre to promoting messages and deeper lyrics. However, he feels that this combination is still underrepresented in the dance community.

"There was also another intention in writing "Better Place" because I obviously knew that I was gonna do a dance mix or club mix of this. Late to mid Eighties when the whole acid thing happened, the only kind of meaning behind the whole thing was having a good time and taking lots of drugs, and that's it. For me, being younger and listening and seeing the whole punk thing happening in the UK, it had a very strong message. And although being negative, it was quite positive. I just feel that the whole acid thing that turned into house, there was no real message there. I don't think you have to have a message, but I think it would be nice if every now and then someone could play something about what's going on. That is my problem sometimes with a lot of R&B. There is a definite strong message in there, but the message is to accumulate as much money as you can, as much women as you can, fast cars and clothes. And I just don't understand that. It's a very strong part of culture, and it creates culture..."

But the lack of positive messages in music culture is not the only thing I am missing nowadays. There's also lack of melodies and true soul that is bothering me since several years. I ask Victor Davies how he comes up with the beautiful soulful music in his songs.

"I think the main thing with my music is songs. The most important thing for me is writing a song. And then after that it's trying to make an arrangement that would complement that[...] I think lately within the last year it's been a case of writing a lot of songs without an instrument. It just kind of changed that way. I used to always write with a guitar. I also used to do stuff whereby I be in the studio and then start a groove, and then just wait for it to kind of create itself, and then write a song on top. But now, primarily I'm writing songs without an instrument and actually kind of internally hearing a melody in a song. I am working out an arrangement in my head. I've got four tracks to finish my album, and those four songs are in my head. I just find that it's a really good way of writing good songs because if you can sing it without an instrument and it works, and people say "Yeah!" then you know it's gonna be good when you put some instruments in it[...] That's why my stuff is very different to a lot of the other people in the West London scene. Because a lot of their music is very much dominated by the beat. With my stuff it's very understated. That is just the style that I'm doing. That's the good thing about having my own label cause if I was on another label they're be pushing those beats. But in doing it the way you like you just create your own sound. And I don't hear much here in the UK that I can say "Yeah, that sounds like me!" It's what I am happy with, and it's a fusion of all different styles. I'll do this forever. If the records didn't sell I'd still be doing it. It's just what I love to do."

Well, there's no reason to be worried about sales because the records Victor puts out on his own label AfroGigolo don't need much pushing and shuffling. The first single "Lady Luck" from his upcoming debut album already sold more than 5000 copies although there were only 100 promos sent out to radio, press and DJs.

"I actually licensed a lot of singles for compilations. I think probably the next step now is to licensing the album. For me that is the safest way because then I have complete control over what I am recording, and I can reach a wider market. If I sign to a major record company then they gonna have some kind of input on the actual making of the music which is not what I want. You just end up like everybody else. The album is already finished. I'm not gonna do anything else to it. I'm not gonna start changing the beats or anything like that. That's the way it's done. If you sign a record deal then there is a chance they can say "Well, we don't like this, can you do this?" and you just loose yourself."

The album will drop this month in the UK and will feature the raw Victor Davies in his purest form.

"The thing is that my influences are so varied. I want to do a lot of different stuff. I think the album will show that. I think the album will be quite purist."

For me, that's an understatement! Victor Davies' debut album is one of the highlights not only in recent house music history. The end result, with its immense variety of different music styles ranging from strictly acoustic soul to Latin jazz to incredible house, is a complete winner on the entire music front, and delivers on top of high quality tracks deepest lyrics and poetry that is so hard to find nowadays. After talking for more than one hour to Victor Davies, I am glad that he turned out to be exactly the way I had imagined him to be...

For more information including sound samples of some of his songs please visit his Web site at:

http://www.afrogigolo.co.uk.

DJ MG
January 2001