Disco/Funk/House producer, Dr Packer is an alias of West Australian DJ/Producer ‘Greg Packer’ set up for Remixes & Edits of mainly retro music such as 70’s , 80’s , 90’s Soul , Disco , Funk , Hip Hop & Reggae , Greg although known more for ‘Liquid Drum & Bass’ regularly plays sets of ‘Old School Funk , Disco , Hip Hop Etc’ purchasing his first record in 1982 at the age of 10 ‘Grandmaster Flash – The Message’ whilst still living in the UK (Northampton England) greg grew up listening to his mothers disco records (had no choice really) as a child in the 70’s it wasn’t uncommon to hear music such as ‘Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now’ or ‘And The Beat Goes On’ played in the house so the disco thing really was his first introduction to music , records became his life and has collected approx 25,000 over the years.
Despite creating a household name as Greg Packer, you have an alias, Dr Packer which dives into the blissful world of soul, disco, funk and reggae. How did this all come about?
I had a bad year in 2013, some personal family stuff going on and lack of ‘Drum & Bass’ bookings made me consider retirement, in fact I pretty much did for a few months at least, I had a little side gig (which I still do) playing my old soul funk & disco vinyl 5 mins from my house at a beach bar, one of the other DJs was playing lots of edits and suggested I visit ‘Juno Download’ I started discovering new artists in the re-edit scene such as (Fingerman & 80’s child & Late Nite Tuff Guy) once I’d seen that this whole ‘Re-edit / Nu Disco’ music was actually a genre and certain artists were making a career out of it and touring the globe, it instantly clicked into place for me that I had to give this a shot and maybe there is life in the old dog yet haha !!!! Best decision I ever made in my entire music career.
You used to make drum and bass as Greg Packer, and I’m fairly sure I’ve seen you play at some dodgy warehouses.
Ha ha ha!
It’s a pretty different scene. Why did you make the change?
To be honest, I think it was more a kind of age thing. I’m mid-40s now. I’ve been doing drum and bass pretty much since it existed, which was probably since ’92 onwards, so I was kinda there from the birth of it. I think I did my last d’n’b gig around 2013, about 3 years ago. It felt weird. I just felt like the old guy in the room. You know what I mean, right? My kind of drum and bass was the more ‘liquid’ sound anyway, and I preferred the deeper soulful stuff anyway.
What else contributed to your change in genre direction?
I received an email from one of the big festival companies; I don’t think it was Future Music, but it was something along those lines, one of those big ones. Anyway, they said they were looking for ‘fresh DJ talent’ and they actually listed an age bracket which was 18 to 30. I felt, like, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been around forever, and you actually started drum and bass in this town, but because you’re over the age of 30 you’re not going to get a look-in.
Still, you’re producing and DJ-ing a lot now. Are you doing anything else on the side?
I’ve started doing some mastering for a couple of labels who have approached me and it’s kind of steam-rolled from there. I find that not having a normal 9-to-5 job [gives] me a little more time in the studio to start doing more editing and the Dr Packer stuff. Everything’s kind of stabilised, if not grown to the point that I’m constantly keeping busy and getting paid for it. And I’ve always thought I’d love to do music full-time, whether it’s just DJ-ing or being in the studio, so being around music and doing that for a living has been great. There’s no sign of me thinking ‘oh shit, I’m going to have to get a day job now’.
https://soundcloud.com/dr-packer/dr-packer-live-glitterbox-ministry-of-sound-london-28-07-2018
Talking about your day job, what did you used to do?
I had a number of different jobs. My brother is an electrician so I was helping him. Prior to that I was just doing labouring work on building sites, which is horrible, really. Hard work and minimum wage; it was a terrible job but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do I suppose.
You used to produce a lot of drum and bass from scratch, but now you’re doing more edits. Would you ever consider making original disco?
Well, I’ve actually got one that I’m working on at the moment. Also this year I remixed a track that Bootsy Collins was involved in, and that came out on vinyl. So I’m starting to get more original material sent to me to provide a ‘Dr Packer’ remix rather than an edit. I think that’ll be the next thing for me: to really break into the whole remix thing rather than the re-edit. It would be really hard to make an original disco tune from scratch. You could try and recreate it on a synth, but it wouldn’t quite be the same. Maybe working with samples would be a better option, because then you could grab a bass loop that’s been played by a bass player, and build from that, so you could get a bit of a live feel.
So you know some live instrumentalists?
Believe it or not, I don’t know any musicians, really, other than maybe one or two vocalists. I can’t pick the phone up and say, ‘Hey, come into the studio and record me some riffs to work with’. I don’t have that on hand, to call someone in to work with, but it is something I would love to do at some point.