Ben Watt

Half of multi-million-selling duo Everything But The Girl and with a career spanning more than twenty years, Ben Watt's route to international DJ status came after EBTG's superb interpretations of electronica in the mid nineties (Missing, Walking Wounded, Protection with Massive Attack, Temperamental).

Encouraged by DJ/producer Howie B to start spinning, he cut his teeth in London in 1995 mixing freestyle sets of jazz, drum n bass and deep house. Guest sets followed at top London nights such as James Lavelle's Dusted, Movement, Fabio's Swerve and Howie B's own westside Sunday parties. US DJ dates followed in 1996-7 for Giant Step in NYC, On The One at DNA Lounge in San Francisco, Bossa Nova in Santa Monica as well as numerous after-hours parties during EBTG's world tour for their acclaimed Walking Wounded album.

In 1998 he established the seminal London deep house Sunday club and compilation series, Lazy Dog, with Jay Hannan. Moving away from EBTG's mainstream eclecticism and effortlessly into club-oriented dance music production, he turned out an accompanying string of acclaimed dancefloor remixes including 5-star re-rubs for Sade, Sunshine Anderson, Zero 7, Maxwell, Meshell Ndegeocello and Sandy Rivera. Lazy Dog folded at the top after five untouchable years of sell-out shows around the world (incl the Miami WMC 2002 memorable Nikki Beach performance) and compilation sales of 100,000.

Unfailing in his energy and enthusiasm for music, in April 2003 Ben launched his new independent record label and club night, Buzzin' Fly - a new benchmark on the club scene with a cluster of revered underground hits including his own ‘Lone Cat’ and 'A Stronger Man' (feat Sananda Maitreya aka Terence Trent D'Arby) and a best-selling mix CD (Buzzin’ Fly Vol 1 – ‘A house music classic’ - BPM / ‘A sublime mix’ - iDJ). Committed to new talent, the label has already unearthed Justin Martin (Breakthrough DJ nominee at House Music Awards 2004) and Lyon's groundbreaking Manoo and Francois A. The label won Best Breakthrough Label at the House Music Awards 2004.

Now a central figure on London's club scene, Ben is also co-owner and creative director at two of the capital's leading venues - the intimate lounge-bar Cherry Jam, and west London club and live venue, Neighbourhood, where he DJ's regularly. Outside London, he has played all over Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Bulgaria, Denmark, Portugal, Russia) and North America with regular sell-out shows in NYC, San Francisco, LA, Seattle and Chicago.

Although EBTG as a recording/touring force remains on ice, as partner Tracey Thorn has, for the time being, happily stepped back from the spotlight to focus on family life (the couple have three kids together), the duo recently made a welcome low-key return to the limelight in a refreshing back-to-back DJ set at west London’s Cherry Jam in Aug 2004 spinning an eclectic 20 year journey through their influences taking in post-punk, vintage disco, 80’s soul and electro, nu bossa and underground e-pop.

2005 promises further Buzzin’ Fly releases, including new Ben Watt club-oriented productions and a new mix CD, plus his long-awaited and much-anticipated first trip to Australia as a DJ in February. EBTG have no new material in the pipeline but released a 10 year remix retrospective (1995-2005) in the spring of 2005.

Ben Watt is best-known as half of the duo Everything but the Girl, which first performed together in 1982. That year, EBTG's Tracey Thorn released her solo debut, A Distant Shore, while Watt released his, North Marine Drive, the following year. Watt's LP went to number one on the U.K. indie charts and included a cover of Bob Dylan's "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." Everything but the Girl's early material was lite-jazz, but their major international breakthrough came in the dance music genre with Todd Terry's 1995 remix of the song "Missing," which originally appeared on the album Amplified Heart. ("Missing" went to number two on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1996.) Everything but the Girl successfully made the transition to the "new jazz" of techno, house, and trip-hop. That shift can be seen as a rebirth musically and personally. After the completion of the duo's 1992 album, Acoustic, Watt contracted the rare autoimmune system disease Churg-Strauss Syndrome, which nearly killed him. Complaining of chest pains, Watt was hospitalized for eight weeks and in that time lost more than 40 pounds and 85 percent of his small intestine. Recovery took a long time and was never a certainty. Out of his struggle with the deadly disease, Watt wrote a personal memoir, entitled -Patient: The History of a Rare Illness, which was published by Grove Press. Able to look back with humor, Watt wrote of Churg-Strauss Syndrome: "To paraphrase Joseph Heller," Watt wrote, "You know it's something serious when they name it after two guys." -Patient contains his observations about the struggle with the mental as well as physical hurdles of recovery. The book is very much a look at how trauma can force a person to become a new individual. One of the new additions to Watt's post-illness life was an engagement with technology. He immersed himself in the World Wide Web and even managed the EBTG website (www.ebtg.com). The interest in technology affected the band's music and Watt began to work with sequencers and computers more in his compositions. With the encouragement of friend, producer, and DJ Howie B, Watt began spinning in the world of underground DJs. His boredom with traditional approaches to playing and arranging music, a sense of isolation from an emerging generation of young music fans, and his illness set the stage for the new version of Everything but the Girl. The band had explored soul and bossa nova in the early '80s and began to experiment with downtempo funk, deep house, and jazzy drum 'n' bass. Watt actually remixed a version of "Missing" under the pseudonym Little Joey and fully submerged himself in the U.K. drum 'n' bass scene in 1994. The new techno approach was flushed out on Walking Wounded, their Virgin Records debut. The title-track and "Wrong" both cracked the U.K. Top Ten. Because of Watt's dedication to the club world, the follow-up, Temperamental, was three years in the making and retained much of the same style. Watt has produced and added vocals, piano, and guitar to releases by Chicane, Deep Dish, Adam F., Beth Orton, Roni Size, and Massive Attack, among others.

Watt attributes his ability to stay energized and young at heart to his remix work and DJ side project, Lazy Dog, an ongoing club event that is hosted regularly in London. Watt and DJ Hannan (who also co-hosts Lazy Dog) released a two-disc set which included the UK hit "Tracey in My Room," on Astralwerks in the fall of 2000. The birth of Watt and Thorn's third child kept the duo busy and away from the studio for a time. Watt's remixing eased him back into recording with work for Sade, Sunshine Anderson, and Maxwell. In 2003 he formed the label and club Buzzin' Fly and began to record a series of deep house singles. Released a year later, Buzzin' Fly, Vol. 1 began a series of CDs featuring music from the label mixed together by Watt. ~ JT Griffith, All Music Guide