The Record Store 

Kerri Chandler reminisced about his first experience in a record store, guided by his father. He recalled his excitement as he picked up a few 45's and ran home to play them on his turntable. 

The first record that captivated him was John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things," which remains a benchmark for him to this day. This formative moment sparked Kerri's lifelong love for music and set him on his path to become a world-renowned DJ and producer.

The Welder 

Before embarking on his music career, Kerri Chandler had a job as a welder, even though he was underage. Despite the dangers, he loved the camaraderie and skills he gained at the job. However, an incident with his shirt catching fire convinced him that it was time to move on. He later became a travel agent and took on various odd jobs before ultimately focusing on his true passion: music.

The Porsche 

When Kerri Chandler first started making money as an artist, he indulged his fascination with Porsches and bought one for himself. However, within a week, he flipped the car in an accident. Although he emerged unscathed, he took it as a sign that he shouldn't have the car and gave it to his uncle. The experience taught him to be more thoughtful about his purchases and priorities.

The Sub Club 

Inspiration while creating his album "Spaces and Places," Kerri Chandler found inspiration in the unique characteristics of the clubs he visited. At Sub Club, he was captivated by the sounds of a bingo hall outside and the vibrations from a nearby train terminal. By incorporating these elements into his music, he was able to capture the essence of each location and make them an integral part of his work.

The Sound Guru 

Kerri Chandler's dedication to sound quality stems from his family's involvement in sound systems and lighting. As a result, he often repairs and adjusts sound systems at the clubs he plays at. His passion for sound even led him to recreate the Ministry of Sound system in his studio. Kerri's commitment to delivering the best sound experience has earned him a reputation as a true audiophile in the music industry.

Kerri Chandler: 5 Captivating Moments in One-Minute Tales You Can't Miss

New Jersey house legend Kerri Chandler was only 19 when he got booked to play London's Ministry of Sound. It also happened to be the first time he traveled by plane. And after getting his start—and making waves—at Newark's Paradise Garage-inspired Club Zanzibar, he got to play Paradise before it closed in 1987. Since then, he's played many of the legendary dance clubs across the globe, some many times over. But the longer you're in the game, the more you see some of your favorite venues sadly close.



In 2018, Chandler was walking around New York on a mission to find the buildings his favorite clubs used to be in. He was shocked to find a demolition at the former site of Paradise Garage.



"I put my hands over my face. I couldn't believe they did that. I'm glad I have it as a memory, but if you haven't seen pictures of it, you would never know it existed," Chandler told The Guardian.



This heart-wrenching moment inspired his stellar 2022 album Spaces and Places, on which he honored 24 of his favorite clubs around the world. The ambitious project is a three-hour journey to some of the best venues in the world—some of them sadly since shuttered. Recorded in the spaces each track takes its name from, the songs carry the imitable vibe of these legendary clubs.





He hopes that listeners of Spaces and Places can "go back and check these places, if they’re still around.” The clubs he pays tribute to are: New York's Knockdown Center and Output (now Superior Ingredients), London's Printworks and Ministry of Sound, Milan's Magazzini Generali, Manchester's The Warehouse Project, Helsinki's Kaiku, Porto's Industria, Paris's Rex, Barcelona's Razzmatazz, Eathos, Berlin's Watergate, Lisbon's LuxFrágil, Plan B, Cork's Sir Henrys, Croatia's Barbarellas, Napoli's Basic Club, Dublin's District 8, Amsterdam's De Marktkantine, La Baule's La Grange, Club Qu, Ibiza's DC-10, Glasgow's Sub Club, and San Francisco's Halcyon.


"Never Thought [Printworks]" is an upbeat, jazzy house track written on a piano that lives in the soon-to-be-closed London club's green room. Almost every DJ who's played Printworks has signed the piano, so there was a lot of good energy on that one.

"Dirty [Rex]" is a tribute to Paris' Rex Club and features Rex regular and friend of Chandler, French producer DJ Deep, along with his son. Laurent Garnier opened the iconic Parisian club in 1992. It played an essential role in bringing American house music heavy-weights to Europe as the sound gained popularity across the pond in the '90s.

Rex has remained one of the city's oldest and longest-running venues dedicated to house and techno, and Chandler has continued to bring his soulful house sound there over the years. (Although, one infamous time in 2013, he had to remind the crowd what house was.)



“There was one club in La Baule, France, called La Grange where we’d do all-night parties, and you never know what to expect. It’s me and my friend Nadir, who’s a saxophone player,” Chandler told Mixmag. “The song on the album is called "Morning Heat" because it was always such a hot, steamy club, no air. By the time you're done in there, you have to have a change of clothes.”



The Stevie Wonder of House has been booked regularly at Glasgow's long-standing Sub Club since 1993, so of course it made the cut with "Subbie [Sub Club]."



"When I was [recording] at Sub Club, I had the ceiling rattling with different notes that I was playing. Then outside I recorded the train that goes past in the middle of the night, you can actually feel it rumbling the building,” he told Mixmag with a laugh. “These are elements that everyone knows if you’ve ever been in that club—you know what it is. If you hear someone call "83!" you know that’s the bingo hall next door.”

Kerri Chandler's Sonic Love-Letter to His Favorite Clubs 

Back in the '80s and '90s, the groovy sounds of house music were blossoming and echoing in clubs in Chicago, New York, and its neighboring stepbrother, New Jersey. While it all came from disco, the Jersey sound was a more soulful, gospel, and R&B-influenced version. Over in Newark, the famed Club Zanzibar was the epicenter of the Jersey sound, led by resident DJs Tony Humphries and Kerri Chandler.



Newark and the nearby East Orange, where Chandler grew up, were tough cities filled with violence, and music and church were the solace to many. For over a decade after it opened in 1979, Club Zanzibar, provided a safe haven for the queer community (the iconic 1990 documentary "Paris is Burning" was filmed there) and beyond, filled with disco and house. It was modeled after Larry Levan's iconic New York house cauldron, Paradise Garage, and even featured the exact same sound system.





"New York had infamous clubs… I got to play at the Garage when it was closing, back in the '80s… There were so many places. They popped up overnight. New York was more like, I can’t say a fashion show but they were more upscale than we were. It was like decadence, cash, sex, drugs. All we had was hope, gospel, and some kind of raw talent," Chandler told Attack Magazine in 2014, explaining the difference between the different house scenes.



"Chicago, same kind of thing: a lot of vocals, a lot of gospel but the difference is it’s cold as hell. They got the fucking Hawk [wind] to deal with! They wanted to have to fun too. They got everything there: good, bad, ugly, gospel. It’s about how you grow up in the culture around you. You make what your surroundings are."





You can hear the New Jersey sound in the music of homegrown house singer Adeva, who brings soaring, gospel-inflected vocals on her 1988 funky house cover of "Respect." On "Walkin'," from her 1995 collab album with Chicago house legend Frankie Knuckles, Welcome To The Real World, they go full gospel house with a choir backing her.



At Zanzibar, you'd also hear the soulful grooves of Brooklyn-born house singer Barbara Tucker, like her 1994 No. 1 Dance Club hits "Beautiful People" and "I Get Lifted," produced by New York house legends Masters at Work. Those lucky enough even got to witness her performing these house classics live at Zanzibar.





Humphries began his DJ career on the radio at New York's WRKS 98.7 Kiss-FM, and after landing a few gigs at Zanzibar, convinced its owners to give him a Wednesday night residency in 1982. He soon became the king of Zanzibar, using skills he'd learned as a radio DJ and from watching Levan play, with the goal of keeping clubbers dancing for hours on end.



Chandler was born into a family of jazz musicians and a DJ father. He grew up surrounded by talented local artists, like Kool & The Gang, who he got to study working in the studio. Chandler's dad caught him playing his prized turntable setup at age 13—a big no-no—but was wowed by his skillful self-taught selection and his mixing. So, Chandler got his first DJ gigs opening for his dad at the local racquet club, after which he spun at Club America, next to Zanzibar.



Since he was still a teenager, he wasn't allowed on the dancefloor where he DJed, so he'd go dance at Zanzibar after, where he knew the staff. He fell in love with the music there and would soon be making his own contributions to the Jersey sound. In the '80s, he got his own residency at Zanzibar, where he'd DJ reel-to-reel tapes, a tedious skill he recently began revisiting.





In 1988, before Chandler even had an official release out, Humphries started playing his edits on his radio show. Then in 1990, Chandler gifted the world with the first taste of his immersive, infectious grooves, with the Superlover / Get It Off EP, as his Three Generations trio. Chandler is also responsible for unforgettable house classics like his 1998 remix of "You're in My System," 1998's "Atmosphere" and "Rain," 1995's "I Feel It" and far too many more to name. These can all be credited to the Jersey sound cannon, but much of his music also had a huge influence in New York, where he spent many of his DJ hours.



His music was not only an important part of the Jersey sound, but also of the emergence of deep house. When digging through his extensive catalog of pure gems, all with an intricate musicality and uplifting energy, there's no wonder he's been named the Stevie Wonder of House.



Being influenced by and breaking into the New Jersey scene was pivotal in his career. As he told Attack Magazine, it was "the springboard." He continued:



"Tony was kind of the voice of all of us at the time. I guess Frankie Knuckles was Chicago’s voice for those guys. We had Tony and David Morales. Once I met one person and they knew what songs I made, everyone welcomed me in. I guess I was the kid and a lot of people thought I was going to be a flash in the pan. That was a fun part for me, trying to make it understood that I wanted to be around for a long time."

Kerri Chandler, Club Zanzibar & the Jersey House Sound

Kerri Chandler is true house legend, and has been putting out timeless, soulful house records since 1990, bringing his joyous sound and positive energy to clubs around the world.



On his stellar 2022 album Spaces and Places, he honored 24 of his favorite clubs around the world, recording each song in a hallowed rave space. "Dirty [Rex]" was a tribute to Paris' Rex Club and features Rex regular and friend of Chandler, French producer DJ Deep, along with his son. Laurent Garnier opened the iconic Parisian club in 1992. It played an important role in bringing American house music heavy-weights to Europe as the sound gained popularity across the pond in the '90s.





Rex has remained one of the city's oldest and longest-running house and techno venues, and Chandler has continued to bring his soulful sound there over the years. But in 2013, at the peak of the global EDM explosion, he decided to give the kids a lesson after a clubber requested EDM during his set.



"I'm gonna take y'all motherf***ers back to when we started in this b*tch…If you don't want New York, get the f*** out," Chandler announced to the crowd, even offering to give people their money back, out of his pocket, if they didn't want the real deal. "You ready for some deep shit? All you commercial motherf***ers get the fuck out."



The "Atmosphere" producer is typically calm and laid back behind the decks, but that night he, rightfully so, felt the need to draw a line in the sand. He'd already been in the game for a long time, and he never chased trends to try to stay fresh. He was one of the architects of a sound that had inspired these new superstar DJs, but a lot of fans didn't know that.



“I guess I was a little bit bold that night,” he told The Guardian in 2022. “This girl comes up to me and says, ‘Do I have any EDM?’ I didn’t know what EDM was. I was like, I’m sorry, I don’t do drugs. Then she said, you know, like David Guetta or – I can’t remember their name, those three guys from Sweden [Swedish House Mafia]. And I just stopped the music. And I was like, look, anybody who wants to hear this EDM shit gotta go. I’m not playing any of that. By the time I landed home, my phone was on fire.”



His rant went viral, and the message was received. He hasn't gotten any requests since.



As The Guardian aptly put it, "At that time, there were more white producers selling out stadiums than you could shake a glitter cannon at." And there still are. The highest-paid DJ lists continue to be topped by white men, other than Steve Aoki.



However, Chandler tells The Guardian that he's never felt overlooked for his contributions to the culture. “I’ve never gone starving in my life,” he told them. “I’ve turned down more work than I could get. Honestly, thank God for that.”



We are beyond grateful for Kerri Chandler and all he continues to give to house music.



Kerri Chandler

GA Editorial Team

Ana Monroy Yglesias

Ana Monroy Yglesias

Ana Monroy Yglesias