Felix da Housecat has been a house music powerhouse since the late ’90s, when a series of chart-topping releases brought him from Chicago basements into the international spotlight. In the wake of his new Sinner Winner EP, and smack in the middle of WMC, I had a chance to sit down at a café with the gold-glasses-ed God himself.
Noisey: First off, it’s a pleasure to meet you. How long have you been attending WMC?
Felix: Oh, wow. Since ’98, I think. I don’t even know when it started, but I been coming every year, never missed a year.
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So how have you seen it change?
That’s a great question! It was really underground, it was very culture-purist… Everybody had to get a badge. And then what happened when corporates and promoters and all that got involved, it started building and growing. Now, people just come down here ’cause it’s either Winter Music Conference, Miami Music Week, EDM… They don’t even know what it is, they just come down.
Well, it’s two weeks to party in Miami.
There it is! So it went from underground to corporate, but it’s still… There was a moment when Daft Punk was promoting “Music Sounds Better With You,” and that’s when it was peaking. This was, like, ’99 or 2000, and that year was just like, boom. I’ve watched it come from nothing to something so massive, and I mean that as a compliment.
But you’ve played from the biggest festivals, Ultra to Sensation…
I even played Glastonbury…
But you still play basements with less than 200 people. So what do you prefer at this point in, you know, your tenure as a dance music professor, and how do you choose the shows that you play?
Man, you know… I’ll go where they want Felix. I love educating crowds.. Small rooms, like 5-800 people… It depends, man. You get a couple promoters and then we just decide the best route for me, my name, my style, the vibe, the energy… Make sure I don’t walk into a bottle service crowd like, “What the fuck is this?”
Well tonight that isn’t the case. You’re linking up with old friends, Tommie Sunshine, Arthur Baker, and DJ Pierre.. Tell me about what it’s like to reunite with the people you came up with?
It’s gonna be emotional. It’s gonna be pure, it’s gonna be beautiful. Arthur Baker, man… This guy was there in the beginning. Arthur is one of my best friends. Like when I was in London, he let me stay at his crib, and me and Tommie met Arthur at the same time. Tommie was schooling me on like the white electronic music… Arthur Baker, Giorgio Moroder, and Serrone, Tommie schooled me. A lot of people don’t know that Tommie was like the brainforce behind Kittenz and thee Glitz. He put me onto the white coolness.
And Pierre was the one that brought you in…
Yeah… Tommie was the one who helped me with the reemergence, but Pierre… I was making stuff on my own, and Pierre was my mentor. I was making my stuff alone, and then Pierre brought me to London and when I came back to America, Tommie and me hooked up in Atlanta, of all places, and we just started rocking out from there. He told me about Kitten and Gigolo Records and from there we all jumped in on the Devin Dazzle and then everything just took off. And I haven’t seen Tommie in like two years, so we miss each other now, so tonight’s gonna be really special. It’s gonna be a trip.
I feel like it might low-key be the best party of the week. So tell me about your new track, “Sinner Winner…”
I wanted to do a track about a hypocritical, racist preacher outta the Bible district of somewhere in Mississippi or New Orleans, and just find him winding up in clubland, and he’s preaching, telling everybody, you know, “You shouldn’t be doing this,” but he’s become a part of it, and he’s become a hypocrite, and he catches the ravely spirit.
Did you grow up with that? And do you think there’s a weird connection between that and rave culture?
I grew up with gospel and church and stuff. Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, it’s all the spirit of music.
So once you got into the gospel thing, was Green Velvet the obvious choice for the remix?
Oh yeah, we both grew up on the whole house music circuit since ’84-’85, but we met around ’96 when he started doing Relief… We’re fans of each other, and I was influenced by “Preacher Man.” I said I was gonna do the Bible district white version and mash it up with a little bit of Blues Brothers and stuff.
Finally, in an interview, when asked about artists you’d want to work with, you said Gucci Mane.
Me and Gucci Mane have the same barber. ‘Cause I live in Atlanta, and Gucci Mane comes in sometimes to get his haircut when he’s in Atlanta, and my barber makes music too, and he was like, “Yo, Gucci Mane was here shooting a video. You and he should try to hook up.”
Is it in the works?
That would be a trip, wouldn’t it?
Felix’s Sinner Winner EP just came out via No Shame/Rude Photo. Check it out below, and buy the EP here!
Follow Emerson on Twitter: @emersonyeah
