DJ Champion Wants To Touch Your Family

03/09/07 6:30pm

by Phil Villeneuve (CHARTattack)

Montreal's Champion is a different kind of DJ. Sure he knows how to assault dance floors with punch-in-the-face beats and climactic electronics, but he also wins awards, is accompanied by a troupe of merry guitar players and embraces pop. We're not talking Fatboy Slim beats-for-dummies pop, either. Champion is thought-out, researched, experimental and, most importantly, universal.

"I'm not afraid of pop music or pop culture," Maxime Morin (a.k.a. Champion) declares. "Just because something is popular, it doesn't have to mean easy.

"It can be pop and good. I just be myself and if it's pop, well then good. Good for me, good for pop."

In light of a pop-friendly life, Champion continues to be adamant about keeping his dancing feet on the ground. He's toured the planet with his ADISQ Award-winning guitar-infused dance album, Chill 'Em All, and received high praise for his genre-defying electronic stylings. Now with a Juno-nominated remix album out and a new record slowly being created at his home studio, Champion hopes to remain independent.

"We're indie right now and we're very happy about that because it means that we do all the work ourselves. Of course, I want to make this project big, but not at any price. We gotta keep our heads up, stay real. All powers are corrupting all minds at all times, and I'm one of them, so we have to be careful."

The next Champion album will be a force to reckon with now that fans and critics are closely watching him and his G-Strings (made up of four guitarists, a bassist and Academy Award-nominated vocalist Betty Bonifassi) band, who he wants to incorporate more of.

"I don't want to have an album of full-on rock-outs like when we play live. People are going to listen to it at home, cooking dinner, while having sex, with friends, in many situations. I just want to go a step further."

As far as DJs go, Champion has already gone further. Not strictly looking to impress hipsters and club heads, I let him know that my dad is a really big fan and he's ecstatic.

"That's something that's cool man," Champion exclaims. "I'm so freakin' proud of that, and sometimes at concerts I see 13-year-old kids with their parents and with their granddad. That's it!

"I know that I've done my job well when you can touch the whole family. And it's a way of not taking yourself too seriously. It's universal. I can die now."

Here are DJ Champion's tour dates:
March 10 Collingwood, ON @ Blue Mountain Ski Resort
March 25 Victoria, BC @ Sugar Nightclub
March 26 Vancouver, BC @ Richard's On Richards
March 28 Calgary, AB @ The Warehouse
March 29 Edmonton, AB @ Dinwoodie Lounge
March 30 Saskatoon, SK @ Odeon Events Centre
March 31 Winnipeg, MB @ West End Cultural Centre
April 3 London, ON @ Call the Office
April 4 Toronto, ON @ Phoenix
April 6 Montreal, QC @ Spectrum
April 7 Quebec City, QC @ L'Imperial