It’s on a Wednesday afternoon in the midst of April when I catch up with Sam Harris, better known as Zuccasam in the world of electronic music. He is in the middle of moving house from London to the countryside, while I am in my little office in Holland. A small room with a different view. Technology is a wonderful thing, although we can’t seem to establish a proper Zoom connection, so we end up using a whatsapp video-call.

At District we like what Sam is doing. In a world where copy & paste seems the normal thing to do, we admire his ability to mix up different music styles and genres into a coherent and tasteful piece of music without being a copycat. Not an easy thing to do as everything has been explored and this is not the nineties anymore where everything was new and fresh. We talk about his teens, food and more. Knowing he is now 51, I can’t resist asking him about his adolescent years and his connection with dance music (if there was any of course). Turns out Sam was very active at a young age already in a period where there was a lot of excitement.

I played drums when I was 10 and from there it was game on, Sam says. My brother Ben and I started a band together when I was 13. Our parents played a lot of soul, Motown – Earth, Wind and Fire mostly, and even some Billy Joel. But for us it was soon all about House music. We were about 15 and it was around 1990 when we started going to raves and discovered a new world with House. We felt free with this music. We got sucked in and it wasn’t long after going to Ibiza fort he first time that I sold my drum kit and bought a pair of Technics 1210’s. My brother ended up selling his guitar and doing the same. It must have been terrible for our parents with the two of us mixing music all day in our bedrooms.

I remember going to Hastings Pier to see Sasha and Digweed for their Northern Exposure tour. We also had Underworld and Orbital, and a lot of Ibiza influenced stuff. In those days everything was just called House music. We didn’t have many genres back then, which was nice really. So we played all kinds of music as long as it had a ‘4 to the floor’ in it.

I think we where about 17 when Ben and I wanted to open a dance music shop and sell vinyl. So we did! Which is quite amazing when I think about it now… and so ‘Casa Records’ was born. It wasn’t as famous as Plastic Fantastic or Black Market of course, but we did it and it was magical. Music all day long and then during the weekends we went to places such as Ministry of Sound and The Cross. The scene was vibrant in the nineties! Venues and festivals where popping up all around the country. Cream, Gatecrasher, Renaissance etc. On Mondays we slept it off and then the whole week we would start again. Anybody who lived through that period will remember the atmosphere and excitement of those parties. And there was so much good new music around which still stands today. Have a listen to Underworld’s Dubnobasswithmyhead – it sounds like it was made yesterday.

We had our shop for 3/4 years, lost some money, gained a lot of experience and had a ton of fun. At the shop we had a room upstairs where we made some music and when the shop ended we actually signed a deal with Virgin records. We’d made a track and decided we needed a vocal for it, so we looked for a singer through a local add which was the normal way to do it back then. We found somebody and recorded it. That demo ended up in the hands of Andy Thompson, A&R of the dance department of Virgin who was really good mates with Pete Tong.

It was the start of a new chapter. The song ‘Cried to Dream’ got signed and of course there had to be a remix. It ended up getting the treatment by Blue Amazon. They were huge back in the day which was so lucky for us. I remember getting invited to Cream by Virgin where Pete Tong was to play our track. Seeing the whole place going mental was an experience to say the least!

But brothers being brothers we eventually had our own Oasis moment and ended up going our separate ways. Ben became big with Hydrogen rockers and Dirty Vegas and I went to do something completely different which was cooking.

That was another crazy time. I started with a small cafe and ended up with a big restaurant called “Zucca”. That’s where the name Zuccasam comes from. I had 35 members of staff, would work my ass off everyday and on my day off I would always end up watching Youtube video’s of Sasha or Digweed playing somewhere around the world, and feeling nostalgic of the good old days! But there was no time for nostalgia. At a certain point I had to choose between cashing out or incorporating the restaurant with another company. I was stressed out at the time, feeling unhappy so my partner Megan and I decided to start a new adventure. We bought a small place in Italy and I started making music again, building my craft and knowledge and trying to find a way for myself to express what I had in mind. Megan was the first to hear it and she encouraged me to further explore.

Me: It is no secret that Maarten and myself like cooking, although Maarten is a much better cook then me. But for us it makes sense to compare music with cooking. Putting flavours together and mixing things up. In that light your music is the same as cooking.

Yes, you guys mentioned that before and it makes sense to me. In the end that’s what I do. I have all this memory and experience with music and I try to cook something new. It’s a journey all together and it’s just a lot of fun. But in the end it’s also about the long hours and listening to loops!! Finding your sound is quite a challenge and it helps having people like you and Maarten giving proper feedback on the music. It goes beyond just saying it sounds great which sometimes isn’t the case for yourself. I remember you saying you find my music too loud and full in the beginning when we first talked. That was a bit of a wake up call, but a good one as it made sense to me what you’d said.

Me; Yes, exactly! You soon had a buzz surrounding your music and I was listening to tracks but always felt it was too loud. Then you send me a link with 4 or 5 tracks on it and all of a sudden it made sense. We signed “Rattle Shake”and “Moonchat”. The latter we felt wasn’t quite there yet but had the potential. You had to strip it more and all of a sudden it came alive. But what was nice is that you picked up the feedback and used it in your own way.

You guys where right which was both cool and confronting for me…the power of good feedback!! And I went to work with that. When you first begin making music it’s quite frustrating sending out music to labels. 90% don’t like it and 10% respond and tell you it’s ‘really good but not for them’. I was very successful as a cook and had to start all over again. Makes you humble again, haha. But I wanted to do my own thing and stick to what was in my head. And one day I made a track called High eyes and send it to Steve Parry from Selador. He send it to Sasha who then played it for 3 months more or less. That’s where it all started and where my belief grew into something more. Listening to that track now I think it needs so much work on it, but that’s all part of the process! I was just slamming sounds together with a kick and a bass. It took me another year at least of really hard work to get my sound more enhanced and to get a better sense of what I was doing. It’s a bit like cooking in that way – when I developed new dishes I would call everybody in to taste and give feedback. Ultimately to improve the dish. Music works the same way. Sonically you need to get it right, a bit of the top end, EQ it right, get the bass where it needs to be, let the kick sit in nicely. It’s a lot of work before you understand how it all works. It’s the same with mixing. It’s not that hard getting two tracks to blend into one another, but to do it perfectly on all levels is something else. Especially back in the day using vinyl.

I have a proper setup now, my personal ‘mancave’ instead of a hot stove! I know I promised you guys an hour mix six months ago, but this time I will actually live up to my promise, haha. I need to get some hours in again behind the decks. I’m getting more and more requests to play which I have been holding back on, but now it’s time for that. For example, I’ve been booked to co-headline the after-hours gig for Sasha somewhere in the autumn, which is another milestone for me.

I’m quite lucky at the moment. I have a lot of music that I send out to people like Digweed and Hernan and a few other names, and I get plays. We went to see John Digweed in Edinburgh recently and he played 3 tracks that I had only sent to him days before. He never says anything, doesn’t reply but just downloads if he likes them and plays them out. Even for me it’s a surprise. People like Digweed, Sasha, Guy J must get sent hundreds of tracks a week at least, all from different angles. Just the fact they pick one out and play it is amazing. I never take it for granted. You’re only as good as your last track, so you’ve got to keep learning and challenging yourself.

Me: it seems to pay off, your hard work. I speak to lots of people in the industry and I hear and see your name popping up more and more. And with a broad variety of dj/producers which is even cooler. How does it work with you, creativity. You just sit down and let the almighty do it’s work? Or is it blood, sweat and tears?

I always start with a bass line and kick. That is the foundations for every track I make. Then I just play around on the synths and see what happens. I do have in my mind whether I want to make a club monster or something more melodic, but once I’ve made that choice it starts with the bottom end of the track and from there on it show’s it’s true nature mostly. And inspiration for my music depends. If I’ve just been to a club on the weekend, I usually want to make peak time floor fillers, but if I am just at home listening to some down tempo melodic music then I always end up using more chord progressions in my music and adding more soul to the track. And I am pretty sure this change of scenery where we live now will be of importance as well.

Me: What’s the plan right now?

Well, I guess we are already living the ‘plan’, it’s coming along nicely. I am doing music, we just moved house, wanted to leave London and we’ve been here about 2 weeks now. We’ve been painting the house and all that stuff, and it feels great. Seeing trees and meadows, waking up to birds instead of traffic. It’s a cleansing of the soul for us. Family and friends are majorly important, my relationship with Megan. I am sure it will all show in my music as well. It’s all about balance. Not just the music or back then the food. It’s foremost a state of mind and appreciation of what you have.

We asked you to join our Lemon 8 project on District for the later part of this year. In Holland he is a legend, he sure is ours as we grew up with his music that inspired a whole bunch of producers. To be able to get all remixes from his Inner Sanctuary Sessions on our label is amazing. Why did you decide to join the project?

Harry Lemon is a legend for sure! I might still have all those vinyls to be honest and we sold his music in the store back then. It’s very cool to be part of something that was iconic back in the day and one of those things you don’t need to think about when being asked to remix one of those tracks.

I understand you like the other side of electronic music as well, downtempo, listening stuff.

Yes. Right now we have this amazing album by Nils Frahm on repeat while we work on the house. Olafur Arnalds music is another artist we play a lot. Both these artists are really the kind of music that I truly love. There’s a ‘musicality’ to their music which is second to none- if that makes sense!

Personally I don’t listen to high energy, banging stuff all the time. I do make some downtempo music as well, still finding my niche and there is no hurry for that. But working on other sorts of music is very cool, also for the dance tracks. An example is the track “Planet” you guys picked up. It’s just different. The whole sound design and melody I got was inspired by working on other music. I want to do more with that (“Planet” will be out on Bandcamp only at first). Working at a different tempo gives you another perspective and sometimes opens up a new view on sounds or moods.

So, how does the release schedule look for you in the next months? And what can we expect in terms of gigs? I think I am correct in saying that it’s all about this plan, the music – your Plan A.

Haha, yes you are correct. It is all about Plan A. Usually when I set my mind to something I will get there. But you only get there by hard work and commitment. Putting in long hours is the part that people don’t normally see. But I love to work with certain labels where I trust the people behind them and where I can be myself. District is one of them, MTDF, Keep Thinking, Selador, Plastic Fantastic, Nightcolours. I like to focus on originals as much as possible, and I also have a number of collabs going with some people I respect and feel a connection with. One of them is with my old mate Enzo (Cortona) from Plastic Fantastic.

I’m really looking forward to my next release on District called “Open Arms”. It’s a dance floor vocal one side and a kind of dubby Techno mix on the flip. It’s a bit different. After that I will have an exciting release in the summer coming on Nightcolours which has a massive remix from one of the hottest dj producers out there. But we’re not allowed to say who that is at the moment, haha! I guess I’m in a good place at the moment. The hard work is paying off and hopefully more will fall into place in the next year with music and gigs.

It’s a very exciting time, and I’m looking forward to what life will bring after all the changes over the past few years.

[Peter @ District HQ]