IT'S TIME TO MEAT UP
HORSE MEAT DISCO’S NEW ALBUM WAS 16 YEARS IN THE MAKING, JAMES HILLARD TELLS SIMON GAGE...
SSO I said to Mick Jagger, “I hope you like our disco. It may not be Studio 54 but it’s honest.”’ That’s James Hillard, one of the founders of perhaps the greatest moveable-feast nightclub, Horse Meat Disco. He’s recalling the night a mate brought the Rolling Stone down to south London to sample what has become a cult night out.
It wasn’t the same night Sam Smith was there, but then he’s there quite a lot...
With regular parties in Hackney, Berlin, New York and Lisbon, and a residency – The Downlow – at Glastonbury, Horse Meat Disco has become arguably the world’s premier disco brand. And now there’s original music, too, with a new album of songs that echo the glory days of the 1970s.
‘It started about 16 years ago’ says James from his flat in Brixton. ‘We were lamenting that gay discos weren’t playing our sort of music and someone said, “Well, do a night.” Jim [Stanton] was doing The Cock in Soho, so we got together and did some parties. Jim was good friends with Severino [Panzetta] and Luke [Howard] was my favourite DJ from Queer Nation, so we all got together.’
The name Horse Meat Disco – raunchy as it sounds – actually came from a headline in the paper. ‘It said, “Horse Meat Discovered In Salami,” but it was slightly covered over so all I could see was “Horse Meat Disco”, explains James.
‘It’s such a genius name because it means nothing but conjures up just what we wanted to project: slightly taboo, a bit weird, a bit wrong.’
The home of Horse Meat Disco is now The Eagle, a pub in Vauxhall, which is transformed into the best gay disco in the world every Sunday with queues around the block on Bank Holidays. You won’t find overplayed gay disco there – no I Will Survive, no YMCA – but rarer tracks such as Was That All It Was by Jean Carn or It Seems To Hang On by Ashford & Simpson. When Queen of Disco Donna Summer died in 2012, a shrine was built and only her records played all night.
‘I cried when Donna died,’ says James. As for The Downlow, that’s particularly special for James as he comes from Glastonbury and has been going to the festival since he was four-years-old. Conceived as a travelling ‘homo-disco’, it has become a juggernaut with HMD at the wheel. ‘It’s like a New York street from a film set with such attention to detail,’ he says. ‘That’s why there are queues outside from the minute they open until the minute they shut. It’s done so much in terms of acceptance of LGBT people. Growing up round there, it was always uncomfortable; when I go back now all they want to talk about is The Downlow.’
The group’s debut album, Love And Dancing, stars among others, Kathy Sledge, of one of the all-time great disco outfits, Sister Sledge. ‘We wanted to do an album of our own music,’ says James ‘but we wanted it to be more song-based than club-track because a lot of our musical inspiration is people like Ashford & Simpson – not that we’re comparing ourselves to them!’
In fact, HMD’s songs sat on shelves unproduced for a long time thanks to the ‘we’re not worthy’ comparisons with their songwriting idols, until they met a producer who just had to hear their songs – and loved them.
‘Then we started talking about names of singers: Amy Douglas, N’Dea Davenport, who I was a huge fan of when she was in the Brand New Heavies. We just let it get out there and the fears we had evaporated. We met Kathy Sledge at Glitterbox in Ibiza and she’s so amazing and sweet and enthusiastic and down-to-earth, an absolute dream. And her voice is still amazing.’ He’s right, it is.
‘Disco is the great leveller,’ says James of the home Horse Meat Disco has built for ‘happy, smiley people’, one that is expanding into new music with a two-day launch party for Love And Dancing.
‘I think people appreciate the sophistication of it: real musicians making real music – not one person sitting on a computer in their bedroom. I never believe people who say they don’t like disco. All the answers to life’s problems are found in disco records.’
The Love And Dancing launch parties are tomorrow and Sunday at The Eagle, Vauxhall, eaglelondon.com