After making a name for himself on the happy hardcore scene, AC Slater—the DJ, not the character from Saved By the Bell—decided he had had enough of playing and producing frenetic tracks spiced with chipmunk vocals and piano riffs. He quit the genre and reinvented himself in bassline house.
Conventional wisdom says that it’s difficult for a DJ or producer to make a lateral career move in dance music. Make your name in one genre and it’s difficult to find acceptance in another. Aaron Clevenger, who is better known as AC Slater, is the exception to the norm. While the past two years have consisted of a flood of high profile remixes for Moby, Robin S., the Freestylers, Stanton Warriors, and Schwayze, as well as other of floor-rockin’ productions and DJ gigs all over the world, few know that before this phoenix rose from a loft space with a low ceiling in Bushwick, he was a major player on the happy hardcore scene.
“I had a moment where I was playing a big rave in Brooklyn at Club Exit; the club was packed, and everyone was 16, and I’m 27 at the time,” says Clevenger over a cup of green tea at an eatery in Williamsburg. “I didn’t want to be there, and I was getting sick of the music. I felt weird, out of place, and creepy. I needed something new.”
In what now seems like a former life, Clevenger started DJing at parties when he was 18 or 19. He grew up in a small college town in West Virginia, about an hour’s drive from Pittsburgh’s then-happening party scene. The city was known for throwing huge rave parties and was also the home to popular weeklies like Steel City Jungle. Clevenger was so enamored with the energy and sound of dance music that he decided to pursue a career as a happy hardcore DJ; he later launched Pitched Up Records, one of the few domestic labels championing the sound.
Though his career was holding steady, he had an epiphany two years ago that changed his life. “I had a moment where I was playing a big rave in Brooklyn at Club Exit; the club was packed, and everyone was 16, and I’m 27 at the time,” says Clevenger over a cup of green tea at an eatery in Williamsburg. “I didn’t want to be there, and I was getting sick of the music. I felt weird, out of place, and creepy. I needed something new.”