KDC: Tell me about your earliest experiences with music.

Chandler: My family, a lot of them were musicians. My grandfather was a jazz singer, and my grandmother played piano. I’ve always been around music. I had to learn piano - I took up classical piano, and I’ve always loved jazz. My grandmother on my father’s side, she was a singer as well. She actually had records and releases.

My dad was a DJ. A lot of my family were DJs. My dad, my uncles, cousins, you go to a room, there was music everywhere. Turntables, lots of records, you go from one room to another. Then what happened was my dad, I thought it was normal, he had all these friends and one of his friends was one of the people from Kool & The Gang. And there was Pic Conley from Surface, another musician. These were my dad’s best friends. I didn’t know anything about what he was doing at all. But when my dad would leave the house I’d mess around with his equipment. He busted me one day, and that’s kinda how I got started. He was like “oh what do you think you’re doing?” I just got into it.

After that, I used to warm up for him every weekend at his residency, which was at something called the Rally Record Club. From there, I got to meet a lot of the people that would go to the clubs. A lot of them were musicians. I’d never been to a studio before, but one of my dad’s friends took me. I got to see House of Music, and how it was… so many musicians came through. Third World, Surface, Kool & The Gang… I used to sit in on sessions and watch. I’d never seen a mixing desk before. I’m used to the two channel mixer at the club, so when I sat there, it was amazing. It looked like a spaceship, and I’m learning how all these channels work. I became an intern at a couple studios, learning how to do engineering and DJing on the weekends. I began making edits in the studio. At one point I was running a studio called Mirror Image - I was originally an intern, now I’m the lead engineer. I got really lucky and I started playing at Zanzibar and Club America really early on, I was getting seasoned in a way.

I used to do a lot of parties with my dad early on. I started making my first records in 1988. My first records are always my favorite records. “Get It Off” and all that stuff.

Your first records are instantly recognizable as Kerri Chandler records.

Believe it or not, I was doing a lot of hip-hop early on. And what happened was, I had a girlfriend named Tracy. I absolutely loved this girl. I thought that was the end all, be all. She loved house music. I was playing disco and house because of my dad, but I never produced it before. She told me house is her release, her happiness, her happy place.

Somebody killed her. It really devastated me. They killed her at Zanzibar. They took her behind the club, raped her and smashed her head open with a rock. I wasn’t the same after.

She went to Zanzibar. I was at Club America. It was her birthday. I said “I’ll just meet you at Zanzibar when I’m done with my shift at America, and we can do your birthday.” When I got there, one of my best friends Doc, who was the bouncer, said she looked like she was in a panic and she left. I was like “really?” It was odd. A day or two later, I found out it was some stalker, he really wanted to be with her, he killed her.

I needed a release, and I kept remembering how bad she loved house music, every week she’d introduce me to a lot of records. She would religiously come to the club with me every weekend. I sat down one day. She said house is a release, let me see what I can do. I remembered a quote Quincy Jones once said. “How do you speak through your music with the tones you’re using?” Each instrument represents something. And that’s what I did, I sat down and made “Get it Off” from that. The record sounds like it’s being ripped away - that’s how I felt when I found out.

There’s a part of the song, I’m speaking to her killer. It’s going “you are so vicious.” I’m speaking to the guy that did this. There’s another part that’s going “now is the time, now is the time.” It’s a jazz record, I sampled a piece of it. It’s actually called “Time For Love,” and goes “now is the time for love.” There’s another part in there where I’m just talking to myself, internally. I kept saying “I gotta get this off my mind, I gotta set this free.” For me, on the record, saying “get it off, set this loose,” is short for “get it off my mind.” Even with the chords, they were very melancholy. It puts you in a position where, when you hear a certain chord, it makes you choke up. It makes you emotional.

That’s why I began making house music. I found it very therapeutic. Every song I’ve made since then, there’s a story behind it. Every single song. I can’t make music without thinking about something in my life that’s happened. If I have a period where I’m not making music, I have nothing to say. You can go through every single record in my catalog that I’ve made or produced - not necessarily remixes. Remixes, I ask people what they went through.

For instance, I have a song “Inspiration” with Arnold Jarvis. He told me he went to a hospital and saw his friend dying. But he was still so full of life, and he was really some kind of inspiration. How can you be on your deathbed and still so happy? And he explained the story to me, and I sat at the grand piano in the studio with him on the bench. And as he’s saying this, I’m playing chords. He says “my god, what is that? It’s beautiful.” I said “I’m just listening to what you’re telling me and I’m playing what you’re saying. This is what it translates to.”

He wrote three or four words on his hands with a marker: inspiration, celebration… I just started playing, I had a beat running, and he was like “can we do this for real? Can you record me making this up as we’re playing this?” I normally don’t record live, but I said “it’ll be fun. Lemme bring the tape machine back, set us up with a couple tracks.” It must have been seven or eight minutes. I played the piano and he sang. That song was a one take song. That song took maybe one hour to put together. Because of what happened, because of living life.

How do you craft the emotional journey of a DJ set?

The first thing, it depends on how much time I have. Some sets are short - two hours. I have to figure out first of all what the crowd is like. Some are younger, some are older, some people’s classics aren’t my classics. When I do New York, I like to do the entire night. That way I get to pace everything and go across the entire gamut of everything I love to play.

I’m used to New York hours, and having longer sets. I don’t get started, really, until the third hour. And then I get my pace, and figure things out. Because early on, when you were a resident, that was your thing. You did the entire night. We didn’t have these short, two, three hour slots.

Now with festivals, the shortest I’ve ever played is 45 minutes, an hour.. Because you get a million DJs and everybody wants to cram it in. For me, I’m flying hours and hours to get to the place, and I’m like.. “Oh, I’m only playing an hour?” That’s strange for me. But Tony Humphries gave me a really good suggestion, and I’ve always used it ever since. He said if you keep the women happy the guys are fine. Women like to sing and to have their drinks. Things are different if it’s a room full of guys - they want to hear a lot of tracks.

I meet a lot of the people in the crowd. A lot of the fun stuff for me is when people put up their phones, and they tell me what songs they’d like to hear. That gives me a gauge - I’m like, how do you know that song? You're only 18, 19 years old. How do you know “Hooked on Love,” or “She’s Crazy” or “Climax 3?” How did you figure this out?

(laughs) You may be the only DJ who says they like it when people request songs on their phone.

They could be doing anything they want to do. But they came out to see me. They spent their time, effort, money to come and hear me play music and share a night. That, for me, means everything. They could be on the couch, or in a bar somewhere. But they came to hear the music and support what I do. I don’t take that for granted at all. I get to do what I love for a living.

Being rooted in funk, disco, soul and gospel… does that core music you were raised with stay with you today?

Absolutely. I have a silent prayer before I start anything. Because I’m very grateful for what’s happening in my life. I don’t really follow a particular religion, but I’m a very spiritual person, and I love putting out positive energy.

My prayer basically goes “I want people to come, and leave in a better way than when they came in, and I want everyone to be safe.” And I’m thankful for being where I am. Then I start, and I see where it all leads, and I like to see smiling, happy faces. I like to see unity in the room. If somebody took the time to say “hello” to me, I’m saying “hello” back. I’m the first person in the club and I’m the last to leave. I go out into the crowd, and I meet a lot of people. I go out into the room to see how it sounds, I might have a little dance with people and I’ll run back to the decks. I want to hear it from the perspective of what they’re hearing, what happens in the room. I never wanted to be a selfish DJ. It’s a communication, and again it’s therapy.

This is your seventh time coming back to Knockdown Center…

Oh I love that place, that place is second home to me. They let me get away with murder in that place, and I love it.

That’s really one of the places that gave me hope for New York. It’s been a hell of a journey, and everyone - the staff - is family to me. The last song for my album, they were very gracious and they let me come there with Dolby and record the last song from my album, with my cousin. I’m so happy I could do it at home, at Knockdown.

Whatever comes to my imagination in that club, if I want to do the whole day, outdoors in the summertime, indoors, I get to do both sections. They’re wide open for my suggestions. That’s what it is - a freeing club for me. There’s nothing pretentious about it. A lot of my friends, family come to the parties in New York. It’s almost like a family reunion. I always have the best time. I’m happy they feel the same way about me.