House legend Marshall Jefferson spoke to Italian website Soundwall this week, touching on his origins in making music.
“My friend needed a ride to Guitar Center” he explains of how he first got into producing music. “I gave him one. The salesman told me I could play keyboards like Stevie Wonder with a sequencer, even if I didn’t know how to play. The sequencer was a Yamaha QX1. I believed him. I wanted to buy it but it cost about $3000, which I didn’t have. He gave me a credit line when he found out I worked at the Post Office, which was a great job before email came and screwed everything up.”
“I bought the QX1, some keyboards, some drum machines, and some other bits, went home and locked myself in the basement until I knew how to work everything. I wrote my 1st song 3 days later, got a few hits after that, quit my job at the Post Office and I’ve been making a living doing music ever since.”