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Miguel Migs Interview

Miguel Migs: California Soul
Interview By Norman Mayers California native Miguel Migs helped to revitalize house music with his signature style of laid back grooves. By incorporating live instrumentation with electronic elements and understated vocals, Migs has created a sound and vibe that is unique to his Northern California home and has inspired artists such as Kaskade. He has built an impressive resume of productions for labels such as Naked Music, Om Records, and Defected while also remixing artists as diverse as Macy Gray, Lionel Ritchie and Brittney Spears. With the recent launch of Salted Music, Migs has created his own label to put out his music and support other soulful talent. These Things, Miguel’s second artist album is a joyous ride through soul, house, funk, and reggae that features appearances from Lisa Shaw, Aya, Tim Fuller, and reggae superstar Junior Reid. And when he isn’t in the studio, Migs is out on the road DJing relentlessly at gigs around the world. Nu-Soul was able to catch up with this house music luminary. Nu-Soul: You started your label, Salted Music about a year ago?
Miguel Migs: Actually almost 2 years ago. But I’m just slowly starting to move forward with it and really put more energy into it now and put more energy into the release schedule for this year and next. So I’m pretty excited about it. Nu-Soul: So what are some of the new developments at the label?
Miguel Migs: Well we have my album coming out and we have quite a few singles in the works for summertime and spring. Also we have Lisa Shaw’s next album coming in September as well as a mix compilation by Marques Wyatt in late October. And into the beginning of next year we have my album remixed. I also want to do a reggae/dub compilation. Nu-Soul: How has being able to release music under your own label changed your career?
Miguel Migs: Well it’s given me a different perspective because before I had to shop music to a label. I’ve never worked for a label. So for me it’s kinda a new perspective. Now I can actually pick up projects and release them. It’s just another creative outlet for me to release my music as well as for other artists. Nu-Soul: So what was the inspiration behind the new album, These Things?
Miguel Migs: Well really I just started it without too much planning. I just knew I wanted to do anther album so a little over a year ago I just started creating lots of tracks, I started to write and bring in different vocalists. I write really spontaneously. I just like to go in without too much planning and see what unfolds while I’m in the studio moment by moment. I definitely knew I wanted to do something upbeat and funky and sort of old soul/new electronic feel. It’s not like that’s new territory for me but I wanted to do something that had a consistent upbeat flow to it and also something that could be transitioned into being played live in a band situation. I wanted to do some different styles in there. Nu-Soul: So your music is often lumped in as deep house but how do you see your music?
Miguel Migs: I’m usually recognized for doing house since predominantly that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 8 or 9 years. So I guess that’s what I’m known for. But I really love all types of music. I grew up writing songs on my acoustic guitar. My musical tastes are very diverse. I would love to do a whole dub/reggae album and also put energy into doing a whole live album. Nu-Soul: When you worked with vocalists on this album, what exactly was your process?
Miguel Migs: What I’ll usually do is go into the studio and write a bed of music. And then a lot of the times I’ll write melodies and lyrics and then bring in a vocalist that I feel suits the style most appropriately. Sometimes it’s a female, sometimes a male. Sometimes I’ll just write a bed of music and send it to Lisa [Shaw], for instance, if I feel her vocal will fit nicely on it. And sometimes she’ll write some ideas down and we’ll finish the track together. It works out really well since the people I work with, we have like-minded creative musical thinking processes. Nu-Soul: In regards to your musical partnership with Lisa Shaw, what do you think makes this partnership so special?
Miguel Migs: Well I’ve known Lisa for so many years. She’s like family. I basically always have music running through my mind and she comes up with lyrics pretty fast so we’re able to brainstorm and we never run into any kind of block in momentum. Nu-Soul: The live band experience. How is that shaping up?
Miguel Migs: It’s in the process of beginning right now. We’re getting the right musicians together right now. In the next couple of weeks I hope to start some practices and then hopefully we can do some one-off shows through the late spring and build some momentum from there. Nu-Soul: Do you find that more artists are mixing genres today as opposed to a few years ago?
Miguel Migs: The fun thing about music in my mind, especially electronic, is that there are no rules and no limits. That was one of the things that attracted me in the first place was that I could incorporate and take inspirations from hip-hop and from dub and soul and funk and incorporate them into house or electronic dance music. So definitely I hear elements of a lot of techy electronic stuff in R&B. In rock music as well. Nu-Soul: What can we expect next?
Miguel Migs: Pretty much between heading this label, and having this album come out, and touring for that and putting this live act together I don’t have a lot of time to do a whole lot of other projects at the moment. So that’s taking up most of my time at the moment. www.saltedmusic.com www.myspace.com/djmiguelmigs Purchase Miguel Migs’ music at Itunes Purchase Miguel Migs' music at Amazon

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