Serge Devant performing at Chateau
So you want to make an album. It won’t be easy. Look at all the steps Serge Devant took to release his new album "Rewind" on Tuesday, even though he wrapped up production a year ago.
1. Devant (who performs Saturday at Chateau nightclub) recorded "Rewind" with other writers and singers. They had to amicably work out a few creative differences in the studio.
2. Then everyone in the studio had to divvy up songwriting credits, for the sake of recognition and money.
"Someone will say, ‘I want 15 percent because I sat in the room’ (in the recording studio)," Devant says.
3. Some people at the DJ-producer’s record label thought they would be releasing "Rewind" too soon in 2011, since Devant’s 2009 album "Wanderer" was still doing well.
4. Next, he had music videos to shoot, including one for his cover of New Order’s "True Faith."
"New Order didn’t want to give rights to YouTube stream for a few months," he says. That finally got settled.
5. Yet, Devant still had to deal with lawyers, paperwork and clearances to get everyone involved to sign their legal releases.
"It’s like a puppeteer. You try to play with all this," Devant says and laughs heartily, rather than sounding whiny. "It is a bureaucracy, straight up!"
There is an obvious drawback to this drawn-out process: The single "Dice" from "Rewind" was recorded two years ago.
"By the time it comes out, you think, ‘I may have done something different with this,’ you know?" he says. "That’s the downfall of making albums."
Fortunately, Devant rolls with the punches. He is in a stellar mood while telling me about his long and winding "Rewind" road, because it was all worth it. (I’ve heard parts of "Rewind" that sound excellent.)
And he stayed friends with singers and other people involved in the album.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" he assures me. "Everybody’s really cool. It’s always pleasant working with those people — even after the bureaucracy!" he says and laughs again.
It was also years ago now that Devant remade KLF’s exquisite 1991 dance hit "3 a.m. Eternal."
Devant remembers first hearing the song when he was growing up in Russia, where he studied classical piano for eight years. (He moved to New York when he was 15 in 1994 and got his first turntables in 1996.)
"At the time, anything that came over the border was amazing, no matter what it was," he says.
"I heard it (‘3 a.m. Eternal’) again a couple of years ago, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe nobody’s really done anything with this’ " for a new remix, he says. "So I sat down and did it."
He likes giving new life to songs and artists who influenced him, from Queen to New Order and Depeche Mode.
"That way, young kids who are 22 or 23, who don’t know about KLF or New Order, can find them to be a whole new thing. And then later, maybe they’ll dig" those bands’ originals, he says.
Devant had some of those influential musicians forced on him by his older brother, when Devant was 10.
"We lived in the same room. He would play his tape player all day long. It was Beatles and Queen, Beatles and Queen. I just fell in love with it."
Funny, that’s exactly how I got turned on to the Beatles and Queen, by my older brother and sister playing Beatles, Queen and David Bowie. Such is the bureaucracy of family.
Doug Elfman’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.
