From a bedroom to “nuclear”

Dirtybird started in Claude VonStroke’s bedroom; his own third release, “Deep Throat,” broke in Europe around 2005, and for a while he flew over “every other weekend” while throwing free park parties back home. After moving to LA around 2012 he “made the conscious decision to stop going to Europe and to try to make Dirtybird like the biggest American house label.” It worked, maybe too well. “We went from having like four to eight releases a year to like 32,” plus four clothing drops a year and the Dirtybird Campout festival, all self-funded: “My wife and I were fronting all the finances… there’s no financial behemoth behind us.”

The hits that boxed him in

Then house went commercial, and Dirtybird sat at the center of it. He licensed Breach’s “Jack” to Atlantic (“with Breach’s approval”) and watched it become “an international massive hit.” A Fisher demo he “didn’t even really play” until Justin Martin pushed it blew up; Shiba San’s “Okay” landed too. “That was really the point where I saw that Dirtybird was no longer going to be able to be a super underground niche weird fun quirky label anymore.” He was “just a CEO now… making one track a year,” and he didn’t want the road ahead: “I didn’t want to go and sign the next John Summit thing.” He couldn’t turn the fans around: “they just wanted more Fisher… they wanted Dom Dolla on Dirtybird.”

Selling to EMPIRE, and going back to weird

He tried a white-label with Justin Jay and “super weird tweaky tracks,” but “there was no way that this ship was going to turn around.” So he handed it over: he sold Dirtybird to EMPIRE, thanking Ghazi and Moody for the deal, with label manager Darren still running it there, in a deal that “helped our family incredibly.” Now he’s back to “funky and greasy and after-hoursy” house on his new label, Wrong Number Records (album “Wrong Number,” out 22 May), wanting to “play like a German after hours from 4 to 7am and just be weird… I’m not trying to be the headliner of Coachella.” His own verdict: “It’s the worst business decision, but it is the best life decision for me.”

In the video’s comments, John Summit himself replied: “very important telling this story, it’s true house music history.”