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Christopher Lawrence’s accolades are plentiful. He’s been called “An American progressive house pioneer” (Mixmag, UK), “America’s top trance DJ” (Muzik, UK), “One of the best American DJs” (URB, USA), “The US trance master” (Remix, USA) and “The number one trance DJ in America”  (The Scene, USA). DJ Mag simply stated: “In the United States ... he’s the man.”

So beloved by America, Christopher Lawrence is doing the seemingly illogical: he’s leaving America behind.

While  currently lives in Los Angeles, he’ll be taking advantage of wife Sara’s Australian citizenship within the next two-and-a-half years with a planned move to Oz. It’s not that they hate America, mind you, but they do dearly love their son, two-year-old Damian.

“I don’t want him to go to school in the U.S. I want him to grow up in Australia because the quality of life is better there than it is here,” he explains. “I love the people here, but I just don’t like the government and its policies – and it seems to be getting worse and worse.”

Of course, Lawrence didn’t come to the decision to move all by himself. The American electorate helped him make up his mind in the last election by giving U.S. President George W. Bush and his Republicans another four years in office. “It just seemed implausible after all the atrocities committed by our current president that he could be reelected,” said Lawrence.


That implausibility is matched by a certain irony with Bush predicating much of his campaign on the idea that he was the only person who could protect America. Lawrence contends it’s Bush who’s largely responsible for creating that atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in the first place.

More irony Lawrence points out is the vote-swinging religious right in the U.S. and the Middle East’s feared fundamentalists are more alike than either would probably care to admit.
“I would say the zealousness with which the Christians pursue their religion is not unlike the fervor you find with Islamic fundamentalism. They found each other and it’s quite sad because there are a lot of innocent people who are going to suffer because of it.”

It’s a message Lawrence, along with other American DJs like D:Fuse, were trying to get out leading up to the election. While no political message was implicitly carried through his music (nor is it ever likely to be, he says), Lawrence would regularly wear a ‘ReDefeat Bush’ T-shirt at gigs to help make his views known. The fashion statement wasn’t always met with open arms.

“In Atlanta, I almost got beaten up because (of it),” Lawrence recalls, adding the threats in question actually came from an old fan of his. “He said, ‘I’m never going to support you again!’ I said, ‘Dude, we live in a democracy. The beauty of it is I can have my opinion and you can have yours. I hope you go out and vote because the act of voting demonstrates the very validation of democracy.’” Unfortunately, says Lawrence, the dude had to eventually be dragged out of the DJ booth by security...

However, that event was more the exception than the rule, Lawrence said, adding the response to his message was overwhelmingly positive for the most part. Instilling that kind of message isn’t just new for Christopher, but dance music in general.

“(When it started out), electronic music had absolutely no political message whatsoever. The only message it had was one of acceptance, and the music. It’s escapism from everything that exists outside of the dance floor. That’s why it spread so quickly.”

However, those same utopian ideals typically never parlay themselves into anything meaningful in a political sense beyond dance floors, Lawrence laments. “It’s still pretty devoid. People in electronic music are pretty much apathetic.”

Lawrence isn’t necessarily advocating that parties turn into rallies or that party music become propaganda, but he would like to see more people pulling their proverbial heads out of the sand and exercising passions with more common sense.

“There are a lot of ignorant people in (the U.S.). I’m not saying everyone that voted for Bush is ignorant – there are a lot of intelligent people (that voted for him) that have their reasons. There are also people, regardless of what the news says, that still believed Iraq posed a threat with weapons of mass destruction. There will be people that look at Bush and say, no matter what, he’s going to lead us – he’s right in everything he does.”

“I was watching CNN and there was a person who was a Christian Republican and they said that God spoke to Moses through a burning Bush and now God is speaking to us again through another Bush. I mean, like wow man! If people just looked at their pocketbooks and said, ‘Am I better off today than I was four years ago?’ The overwhelming answer (would be) no. But (people) didn’t look at it (when they voted) and the media didn’t draw enough attention to that.”

And Christopher knows something about exposure, after all. His website, www.christopherlawrence.com, is the second-most accessed DJ page on the net, bested only by the world’s #1 DJ, Tiësto. Some credit for Lawrence’s traffic owes to his own ranking of #7 in the DJ Mag poll. The rest goes to 2advanced Studios, the team that designed Lawrence’s webpage.

“My website was designed by Eric Jordan at 2advanced. He’s considered one of the absolute best web designers in the world.” (And, no shit, his stuff is fucking cool, man – if you’re a geek or just like art, then do yourself a favour and also check out: www.2advanced.com) Of course good exposure doesn’t come cheap. “It’s some of the best money I have ever spent,” says Lawrence happily. “I’ve had people tell me they’ve bought my CD just because they liked my site so much.”

The year 2004 has been his busiest yet. He released two albums – "All or Nothing" on KinkySweet and "Un-Hooked: The Hook Sessions" via Hook and System Recordings and toured more extensively internationally than he ever has in support of them. It’s that touring, and not album sales, that Lawrence says is his financial backbone. While he confesses to diminished returns from online piracy’s effect on album sales, Lawrence notes it’s a small price to pay for people who are still listening to his music.

“Would I prefer that people bought my albums? Absolutely. If they’re not going to buy my albums, would I prefer that they download it for free and listen to it? Yes. It just makes me more accessible and available and that’s what the Internet has done, especially for this genre of music because you have an audience that is very computer literate. As a DJ, there is no better promotion than the Internet.”

There’s also no bigger boon to the dance industry as a whole than the net, Lawrence adds. Through FTP clients, Lawrence is downloading tracks and burning them to CD. Live, he’s actually playing a fifty-fifty split between CDs and vinyl, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for him to rationalize the latter.

“There will always be a place for records. The old audiophiles will still want vinyl. But I’m going to be starting my own label soon and do I want to put out records? I don’t really care right now. I’m happy to go all digital.”

Compared to records, CDs certainly lighten the load travel-wise and it’s hard to dispute their practicality. Digital media could also potentially un-encumber the scene by getting rid of the middleman, namely distributors.

Making records is too expensive and conventional distribution and sales for them will never be as precise or convenient as ordering MP3s online, Lawrence says. “Digital download stores are the future. There are a lot of DJs that don’t want to go all digital, but they’ll learn.”

Christopher’s forward-thinking and adaptive approach to the industry bespeaks of his optimism, an attitude he’s kept up through dance’s drought over the last few years. Being one of America’s favourite DJs (Lawrence is a fixture in BPM Culture magazine’s annual best DJ poll, too.), has really been a case of relativity – he’s still doing well, but gigs aren’t as prolific or profitable as they were, say, from 1998 to 2000. Still, the future looks bright.

“This last year, I’ve seen the numbers increasing on the dance floors and there’s more people producing good music. It grew strong and fast and maybe now there’s a weeding out of dead weight surrounding the scene. There were a lot of people who thought they’d get rich quick … a lot of promoters who thought all they needed was a square room and they could get rich. For (some of) the DJs, it wasn’t the music that drove them – it was the money and (the idea that), ‘Hey, I can be a superstar DJ.’ Those guys all disappeared when the scene kind of collapsed in on itself. Now, we’ve got a good solid core and it’s bringing people back in.”

Lawrence isn’t sure where he’s going, though. No, really. “I’m at a stoplight looking at a map,” he explains with a laugh over his cell from somewhere in Burbank, a city suburb of L.A. Lawrence is on his way to the studio of friend Dave Audé, former Moonshine Music production guru. All around Lawrence rests a Los Angeles divided, but with one tie that binds.

“The city is still fairly segregated. There are a lot of white people, but they still live in white neighbourhoods. There are a lot of black people, but they live in black neighbourhoods. The gay area doesn’t mix really with anywhere outside of Hollywood,” Christopher explains. “But on the dance floor, all these groups are coming from all over and hanging out together ".