Fireside Chat

Kevin Saunderson

KMS, Detroit

Easily the most dexterous in the stable of Detroit techno pioneers, Kevin Saunderson recorded some of the hardest and most mechanistic techno to come out of the Motor City. He moved from Brooklyn to the D in his teens where he hooked up with two folks at high school who are now considered to be the originators of the Detroit techno sound: Derrick May and Juan Atkins. Initially bonding over sports, they later came back together in music and made no less than history as the Belleville Three. After scoring his first official release as part of Kreem on Atkins' label Metroplex, Saunderson later set up his own imprint KMS in order to get his music out there. In 1987, he went on to found the project Inter City that would eventually become Inner City, and push over six million units of its first release 'Big Fun', which was also featured on Virgin Records' 'Techno! The New Dance Sound Of Detroit'. But Saunderson's pop success did not dent his enthusiasm for underground, cutting-edge techno. He continued to release under a slew of pseudonyms such as E-dancer, Reese and Reese & Santonio, and rock floors all across globe, which kept him in demand as a DJ to this very day... Red Bull Music Academy Radio caught up with him whilst he was in London to play Fabric, and heard a little about his long history as one of the fathers of modern dance music.