Category: Interviews

(Continued from Part 1)

RS: On the street singing live, dancing, DJing. How important do you think the Winter Music Conference is for you as an artist?
Ultra Nate: I’ve always thought it was very important. It’s grown experientially over the last few years and there’s so many parties going on that its impossible to do everything you want to do. It’s become very commercialized and there are a lot of people there who are not actually industry people who are all up in the parties and all up in the mix. You can look at all those downsides of it, but I feel it’s always a good thing because a lot of people in the dance music industry come from all over the place and merge on this one little plot of land and just network, get in the mix, be out and about talking to and seeing people. That makes a connection that makes a very big difference down the line with what’s happening with your records. I always believe that out of sight is out of mind and I don’t feel like you have to be up in peoples faces to the point of being sickening but people definitely need to feel your energy and your presence, and I think that makes a really, really, really big difference.

RS: About you DJing, a lot of people don’t realize that you have a whole Sugar Crew in Baltimore. How did you DJ career kick off?
Ultra Nate: Actually, Sugar really kind of launched that whole situation. I had started DJing about six months before I started Sugar and that was really experimental. I had some records and my home girl DJ partner Lisa Moody had some records, and we didn’t feel like going to a club that night so we wanted to hear some music and just kind of chill with some friends. We just called all our friends up, told them to come over to my little sister’s house because she was the only one who had turntables in our crew at that moment, and we brought all our vinyl and we just started. It was an absolute disaster on everybody’s ears that first night, but it was enough to catch the buzz. Then we really got tenacious about it and really got the skill for mixing and it just kind of grew from there. The next thing I did was start the Sugar Party and that gave me the platform to DJ and to really hone my skills and grow much, much quicker than I guess a lot of people thought could happen. That’s mostly because I grew up in the club scene hearing DJs all the time, I knew what feel I want to bring to my set.

RS: Do you think being a DJ affected the music you made for this album?
Ultra Nate: I don’t think so that specifically. It’s really two different disciplines. Although they’re both grounded in the music situation, it’s two very, very different things.

RS: My favorite song on the album is “Slow Grime.” When I heard Grime in the album tile I thought of the whole UK grimy two-step thing and with Slow Grime you totally delivered on that. What was in your head when you were writing and making that track?
Ultra Nate: “Slow Grime” for me was more of a trippy kind of vibe. With the track, I had a little reggae kind of skank thing going on to it and I just wanted to come up with something that was a little ethereal almost moody kind of sexy vibe but still with a bit of edge to it.

I kind of go off into these little tangents sometimes and let whatever’s going to come out come out no matter how crazy it sounds to me. Slow Grime is one of the songs on the album that I was most nervous about whether people would get, because it’s so left of center. It’s not your typical screaming black diva, house-y, churchy, four to floor kind of track. I wondered if people were going to get this and be receptive. I just do what I do and let the chips fall where they may.

RS: Well that’s because you’re not your typical church wailing diva, you’re so much more than that.
Ultra Nate: Thank you.

RS: You also collaborate with other vocalists on this album, Chris Willis and Dajae. How did they get to be part of the team?
Ultra Nate: Chris is managed by my manager Bill Coleman as well. He’s an extremely talented vocalist and has great up there kind of feel to his vocal style and I really wanted that element on the particular song that he’s performing on – he really brought those background parts to life. When I heard the song I was like this song is really going, and Chris brought this really great element to it. The texture of his voice brought this really great soulful and pop kind of tinge that I wanted for those particular songs.

Now Dajae, that’s my home girl and we’ve been home girls forever. I love the resonance and power of her voice. When it came time to start writing for this album, I really wanted to specifically write something for Dajae and I to do together because I always loved and respected her as an artist.

RS: I want to ask you about working with Stonebridge on “Freak On,” that really was for his album and ended up being part of your album too, how did that work out?
Ultra Nate: I’d say it worked out great for both of us because the song gets to see the light of day on both sides of the water, I don’t think it was released by Hed Kandi over here through any US labels, so it gets a chance to get another lifespan over here. That was part of the original deal when he asked me to do the song and I asked if I would be able to use this song for my album as well. Stonebridge is an awesome producer, so I definitely wanted to have something by him on the record. We had worked together previously on a couple of different projects, including a top ten record for Mardi Gras in Australia, so this probably the second or third project that we’ve actually done together.

RS: It says on your album ‘mixed by Stonebridge,’ what exactly did he do on the full album?
Ultra Nate: After each individual producer finishes the production of each song, they have to do a mix down of it which is where you tweak all the elements of the song. I wanted that to be done by one person specifically because there are so many various producers on the record that I wanted there to be some continuity and a common thread in the overall feel or the sonic value of the record. It’s easier if you have one person interpret that for the whole record as opposed to everybody’s different interpretations of it.

RS: A few more things, are you active on MySpace or your website?
Ultra Nate: I am, very much so.

RS: How much response do you get from your fans and how often are you able to write to them, that kind of stuff?
Ultra Nate: I get a lot of eMails from fans and obviously I can’t answer every one back, but I do make a concerted effort to get a few people back here and there. People really appreciate when you reach out and are quite surprised more often than not that you actually answer them. I think it’s an important link to people that are actually feeling your music and that are trying to be one on one with you and what’s going on with your music and things like that, which I think is really important to do.

RS: What would you like to say to all your fans out there?
Ultra Nate: Well, I would definitely like to thank everybody that has been part of Ultra Nate’s experience as an artist. Whether they came in from the beginning during “It’s Over Now” and “Scandal” from or whether they just found out about me in the mid 90s through the success of “Free” and “If You Could Read My Mind,” it’s all wonderful and I hope that they continue to enjoy the music that I put out. They really make my career happen and make it work. When I get to go out and perform live and people are there and they tell me how much they appreciate my music and I see when I’m performing all the energy that’s there – that’s what makes all of the drama behind the scenes worthwhile. I really feel the gratification happen when I create these works, using ideas and elements that come out of my mind and now become physical, tangible pieces of property that people make their own. To me that’s a really precious and awesome gift to have that kind of opportunity to do. A lot of people work their whole life and never get a chance to do anything that they enjoy or that they feel gratified about, I am truly blessed because of all of the wonderful fans.

Interview originally posted – May 21st, 2007

With the release of her fifth album Grime, Silk & Thunder, club veteran Ultra Nate presents a mature sound respectful of her roots while pushing forward with new sounds. Ultra is not your ordinary dance diva ? she writes, produces and even DJs with her Baltimore-based Sugar crew. Already spawning two club smashes “Love’s the Only Drug” and “Automatic,” Grime Silk & Thunder will be one of the soundtracks of Summer 2007.

DJ Ron Slomowicz: I love the new album Grime, Silk & Thunder, what was on your mind when you started working on it?
Ultra Nate: Pandemonium. It was pretty tumultuous at that point, as I had just left Strictly Rhythm after having a really great success with them. Strictly had signed the label over to Warner Brothers and I knew that was going to be an absolute disaster, so I saw the writing in the sky and asked to be released from the label. I decided at that moment to go out on a limb once again and start my own label using my own money, so that at whatever point I put out my next record I would have ownership of my masters unlike before. It was a really big moment of decision and taking on more responsibility on the business side of things and trying to balance that with being creative. So that was pretty much where I was when I started making this record and that is the reason for the title being Grime, Silk & Thunder. It’s really about those various elements in your life that are always happening when you’re going through rough spots, when things are coasting along and groovy or when everything is just like hardcore. It’s just madness, that’s what it’s all about.

RS: Or “One woman’s insanity?” I thought Grime, Silk & Thunder was describing you and your voice.
Ultra Nate: A lot of people seem to think that, but that’s not where it initially came from- all of those things encompasses me as an
individual.

RS: Let’s start with the song you chose to cover. How did you choose to redo the Pointer Sisters’ song “Automatic?”
Ultra Nate: That was the last song on the album to come in and it really happened quite spontaneously. I was just riding around in my car with my satellite radio on, and I listen to The Big 80s very often. The song came on and I thought the song was so fly that it really deserves another moment in the sun. I felt like it was a song that I could put my perspective on and it would still compliment the original. I didn’t want to dilute it or to make it into some cheesy pop kind of obvious attempt at a cover to try and get a hit record. I don’t think there’s any artistry in that. I think when you choose a song to cover it really needs to be something that makes it for you as
an artist.

RS: With “Scandal” and “It’s Over Now,” those are your two earlier records, what was the thought to bring them back?
Ultra Nate: This album is so pivotal in my career because of the circumstances that it was born out of and being a in a very different place, I wanted to have a couple of my old tracks on the record because it’s kind of a full circle. It’s a kind of moment where I’ve been doing this for a number of years and this is the fifth record that I’ve put out. There’s a big evolution happening in the music industry itself on the business level and on the creative level – we’re in a period of massive change and I think sometimes looking back to the past of where you come from helps you to adjust, evolve and move forward with where things are going in the future.

Those two particular songs are really favorites of a lot of my fans and I’ve got all these eMail where people tell me that “Scandal” and “It’s Over Now” were their songs. They deserve another moment in the sun. Its also for people who never heard those records because they found out about me because of the success of tracks like “Free” or “If You Could Read My Mind” and they never got to hear like the soulful underground stuff that I started with.

RS: Well, with that underground sort of edge and all things new and looking to the future, you’ve always had an ear to work with up and coming producers. How do you find the producers that you work with?
Ultra Nate: My manager Bill Coleman is really instrumental with having his hand in the pot of different places of who’s doing what, feeding out songs to different producers and making new opportunities with new people. I think it’s really important when you’ve been doing it for so long because it takes you out of your comfort zone and it forces another level of perspective of your creativity to come to the fore.

RS: Working with the producers, what is your songwriting style? Do you usually write to a track or do you send vocals over?
Ultra Nate: I pretty much work both ways. I can chill by myself for a while and brainstorm on some ideas and do what I call a free-thinking writing session where I’m not worried about structure or specific content – I just write from a constant stream of thought and then go back later and pull bits and pieces from that and then create structure out of it. Or I may have a track that someone gives me and write something from it that’s inspired by what the track is doing.

RS: Give me an example of a song on the album that you wrote to someone else’s track.
Ultra Nate: With “Love’s the Only Drug,” the producer and I talked about a direction the song that I wanted to come up with and then he went and created a song out of the ideas that I gave him and he gave me the track. I wrote what I was inspired to write from the track that he came up with, which was “Love is the Only Drug.”

RS: When I first got that song I swore it was a Grace Jones cover.
Ultra Nate: Thank you. That’s a great compliment, I’m a big Grace Jones fan.

RS: Were you sort of playing a character or channeling her when you wrote that song?
Ultra Nate: I probably was. You kind of lean towards your icons when you work on things. It’s a creative thing but your own particular influences filter through regardless. But yes, I’d look to people like Grace, Chaka Khan, Donna Summer, Barbra Streisand, or for that matter Bobby Womack, Marvin Gaye, or whoever I’m kind of feeling the song demands, I go there.

RS: Another aspect of Grace Jones which you definitely have in you is the whole idea of being beautiful and presenting yourself in a creative way. With your videos, like the “Love’s the Only Drug,” the first one with the pool scene – were you part of making that video or what was your role in that process?
Ultra Nate: That particular concept was more from the director, Eric Johnson. He had been a long-time friend of mine who shot me for both my photography for album covers and video stuff. He did a previous video of mine from the Stranger than Fiction album called “Get it Up,” which was really good too. So he came up with the concept based on Grey Gardens and that was totally his baby. That’s just a matter of trusting that particular individual, because that’s not something that I do every time.

RS: That makes a lot more sense now because there is that same sort of 70s porn vibe with the motorcycle in “Get It Up.”
Ultra Nate: Yes, exactly, that’s his aesthetic.

RS: Whose aesthetic is the, erm, autoerotic video for “Automatic?”
Ultra Nate: That’s from Karl Giant and he has done some of the artwork, actually, for the album cover, and his vibe and aesthetic is much different from Eric’s. I try to work with people whose aesthetic I trust and who come up with really creative and really interesting things. I don’t want the standard kind of very middle of the road and regular things. The videos are different in feel but they make sense with the particular tracks that they are done to.

RS: Is that you in the “doll costume?”
Ultra Nate: Yes, it is.

RS: That must have been comfortable.
Ultra Nate: That was my favorite one actually, I love the doll costume.

RS: That’s a good lead-in; I don’t know if you read this, but when I interviewed Lady Bunny she said that you’re the best-dressed diva out there.
Ultra Nate: I did. Someone actually called me when she put that out there.

RS: Do you spend a lot of time working on your looks and your fashion?
Ultra Nate: I do and I don’t. I do care and I do pay attention to what’s happening in fashion but I’m not such a fashion freak where I can’t go out the house if it’s not altogether. By the same token I’m very like ‘whatever, this is me, this is just my vibe and as long as my hair’s pumped and my makeup is done, whatever.’ There’s definitely times where it calls to do the fashion thing and it’s not so much the point of trying to be this major fashion leader because I don’t work that hard at all, but I think it’s a matter of being comfortable in your skin and comfortable in your clothes, even if you’re just wearing jeans and tennis shoes and a wife beater…

RS: Those eyelashes that you wore at the Tommy Boy party, they were amazing.
Ultra Nate: I got a lot of comments about those lashes, they really wigged people out. I think people were really bugging at the fact that I’m a DJ and had those lashes on.

RS: I also gave you the honorary Barbara Tucker “Hardest Working Diva” award for the Winter Music Conference, because you were just everywhere, girl.
Ultra Nate: I really was.

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