Dunmore’s been DJing for the best part of 25 years now and has passed through more tribes than Bruce Parry, from ska and rockabilly to New Romantic and soulboy (and he didn’t have to go anywhere near the Amazon to achieve it). Simon cut his teeth working behind the counter at Rayners Lane Record & Disco Centre, which sounds about as glamorous as road sweeping in Rochdale, but in the late ’80s and early 1990s was a crucial store for underground imports (Brandon Block and Street Corner Symphony’s Glen Gunner also worked there) and it was through here that he got his break into the industry working as club promotions man at Cooltempo when a regular customer, Steve Woolf, offered him a job. During his time at Cooltempo he was involved in a range of classic dance records (Adeva, Juliet Roberts and Shara Nelson) before moving on to AM:PM where he delivered many hits for the label, including monsters like Free by Ultra Nate, Give Me Love by Alcatraz and Ultra Flava by Heller & Farley Project. But Dunmore confesses to feeling a creeping cynicism towards music while he worked there. “When you’re working at a major it’s all about having hit records and making money and there’s not much time for anything else,” he explains. “The labels I’ve worked at, they did put out some good records, too, but to the people above you it’s a business. When I left AM:PM after working for Polygram I realised you can sign records that only sell 3,000 copies; if the economies of scale are right you can still make it work, it allowed me to listen to music in a fresher way. You could never do that at a major, although my time there was a great education and got me connected..... on other people’s time and money.” In 1999, Janet Bell and Simon decided to break free from the corporate world and strike out on their own. Defected was the end result. They were helped considerably by scoring a Top Ten hit (Soulsearchers’ Can’t Get Enough) with their first release. Over the ensuing years they’ve racked up a string of chart successes but just as importantly, records that have made the world a better place, such as Julien Jabre’s Swimming Places or Do It Now by Dubtribe Soundsystem or Ame’s Rej. More recently, they have begun exhuming dormant catalogues of some of the finest dance music of the Eighties and Nineties after securing deals with Strictly Rhythm, Northcott and Junior Boys Own. Apparently, there are more to come. “There are lots of catalogue owners that either haven’t got the facilities or don’t want to get involved in promoting their music. So we speak to them and tell them we can promote their music on our website and include the tracks in our compilations and if it’s something they want to get involved it’s good for us too.”
