Pacha

Seal performed at both Lío and Pacha Ibiza. Here are the words he shared with us about his career and his first visit to the island.

You first came into the public consciousness soon after the UK height of acid house. How did dance music inspire your songwriting and sound? Well, to be honest, those times were all a little bit of a blur! It literally changed everything for me. The whole scene was so incredibly exciting and adventurous, and as a youngish bloke at the time growing up in west London, I just couldn’t help but be taken in by it. It was all about the music of course, but it really was also a way of life. Every Wednesday you’d start thinking about which parties we were going to hunt down at the weekend and by Thursday night you were up and running! By the time you finished on a Tuesday morning, you’d have about a day before thinking ahead to the next weekend! So, did it inspire my songwriting? Absolutely. It couldn’t do anything but!

Who influenced you musically during that time? Really, the whole scene. You know what it was like back then, so much music being made but such a wide range of different people that had all been influenced in one way or another by raves.

Killer and Crazy stand the test of time – can we expect a return to the dance sound that first made you famous? Absolutely. Dance music is something that becomes part of you. When you have the kind of experiences that we all did back in those days – almost religious experiences in some ways – it doesn’t go away.

Your voice is one of the most distinctive in music. When did you realise you had singing talent? Thank you for saying that, and it’s an interesting question to ask. I wasn’t really hugely confident about my voice as such, although I knew it made an interesting sound. I’d had a couple of bands that had done, well, not much, but nonetheless, music was becoming more and more important to me. It was actually a girlfriend of mine at the time who bought me a guitar and gave me the impetus to really focus on my music, and quite quickly from that point everything started falling in to place.

What themes most engage you when you’re writing songs? You pull from everything when you write. Everything around you: friends, family, memories, fantasies, concerns, issues, happiness. I have to admit though that my default is always towards the more melancholy. I simply prefer the feeling of chords that are in a minor key, with nice crunchy suspensions and stuff.

Your hits have spawned numerous remixes – do you listen to them? Well, the ones I loved most recently are Jimpster’s remixes. He’s done two for me, mainly because I loved the first one he did so much [Here I Am] that I asked him to do another one! Remixes are great. I always listen to them, and we’ll be getting a lot more done soon.

Have you been to Ibiza before? Unbelievably, I haven’t ever been before, and I can’t wait!

So what expectations do you have of the island? Obviously I know a lot about it, and I’ve been told about all the places I need to go and see, so I’m just going to go with the flow and see what happens... ...and this is what happened:

Text by Pacha Magazine number 38 August Video by Pacha Multimedia