Produced with love: Joey Negro is riding the recent disco revival

Do you know when you’ve written a hit?

No… Yes. I think most of the things that have been hits I thought would be hits, but there are quite a lot of others that weren’t hits that I thought would cross over as well.

What about ‘American Dream’ by Jakatta, though? That seemed like a surprise crossover record.

I did think it had something about it which was just a bit different. Obviously it was the Thomas Newman music with added drums and I added the Indian vocal later. But then Pete Tong started playing it on the radio and then Jo Whiley. I do wonder how well it would have done if it wasn’t connected with the movie [American Beauty]. People loved the movie and its imagery so I think that helped.

What’s happened to all of your aliases? ‘Distorting Space Time’ on this album is totally a Sessomatto track, isn’t it?

Yes it is. And the Linda Clifford is an Akabu track, too. At one point I was thinking of releasing it as an album and having different artist names like Akabu and Sessomatto etc. But then I just thought, ‘is that just a really stupid idea?’ There were a few of my old aliases that were worth keeping, but others like Prospect Park, Mistura – they’re all interchangeable. They were useful when I was releasing loads of singles close to each other. Also, although I thought it was obvious, loads of people didn’t even realise half of these aliases were me. Is it better to stick with one name? I’m conflicted about it. Todd Terry released everything as Todd Terry, didn’t he?