From the glittering pulse of downtown nightlife to the grand stages of Lincoln Center, Bill Coleman has spent decades shaping the soundtrack of dance culture with fearless taste, legendary collaborations and an instinct for what moves people emotionally and physically. Whether spinning euphoric disco under the Manhattan skyline, producing genre-bending projects through 808 BEACH, championing emerging talent or keeping listeners locked in weekly through SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen’s Kiki Lounge, Coleman remains one of nightlife’s most influential and enduring tastemakers.
Now, with the release of 808 BEACH’s shimmering new single, “Here’s Where The Story Ends,” a wave of major Pride performances and a summer packed with Lincoln Center events, Coleman is entering yet another inspired creative chapter—one rooted equally in nostalgia, reinvention, community and the ecstatic power of music. In this conversation, he opens up about honoring The Sundays, the timeless magic of disco, the evolution of DJ culture and why, after more than four decades behind the decks, the connection between artist and audience still means everything.
You’ve got a new single, “Here’s Where The Story Ends”. What inspired the track, and how does it reflect where you are creatively right now?
The Sundays are one of my favorite bands ever. Their 1990 debut album, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic is an alternative bliss pop classic. When thinking of a followup to our last single, “WHATEVER DADDY SAYS,” John Carr and I (808 BEACH) thought it was important to showcase a different layer to what we do. We had been sketching out ideas of a reverent but danceable cover of the band’s “Here’s Where The Story Ends” for a couple of years now, going back and forth on direction. Once our friend and frequent collaborator Belle Humble agreed to grace us with her vocal talents, we were beyond inspired to finish this idea with a clarified vision. “Here’s Where The Story Ends” as a song is already perfect, both lyrically and melodically. Belle’s colorful tones and approach provide just the right feeling of honoring the Sundays’ original while comfortably embracing our more dance and club-oriented productions. It was an absolute joy to complete this.
Creatively, I am feeling fertile and inspired and continuing to tap into various facets of my musical tree. John and I have just wrapped a new original followup to “Here’s Where The Story Ends” – a collaboration with new production duo DANK & GLADIUS, which features ’80’s heroes the Waitresses. I’m DJing out at the Ice Palace in Fire Island on June 20th with special guests Ultra Naté and Inaya Day. I haven’t DJ’d out in F.I. in quite a number of years, and it’s actually 40 years since I was introduced to the island during my college years. We’ve also been excited to be working with the Illustrious Blacks, a forthcoming Ultra Naté album, doing a bit of writing again, digging into my vast archives and ephemera for a possible exhibit and I also loved composing the juicy house theme to ‘The Cutting Up : A Kiki With Connie & Lina’ podcast.
You’re playing multiple high-profile sets at Lincoln Center during Pride and beyond. How does performing in a venue like that differ from a traditional club environment?
I’ve had the fortune of collaborating with Lincoln Center in varying capacities for over a decade. It’s never lost on me the sheer magnitude, history and cultural relevance of working with such a legendary team. For the summer parties I’m spinning this year – Sunday Pride and July 2Disco, the audiences are truly a cross generational microcosm of New York City. I do my best to keep it festive, fun and upbeat and focused on the audience. We don’t have a lot of time to experiment or get too deep as we may in a club environment. We keep our sets pretty direct with no filler. There’s absolutely nothing like singing along with the city under a New York night sky.
Your all-disco set on July 2 and the seventh anniversary of your Donna Summer-inspired party, “Love 2 Love”, celebrate a timeless sound. What keeps disco alive and relevant in today’s scene?
Donna Summer and disco are plates that everyone is still eating from. The music and artists of that era are timeless, musical and delivered so many prototype anthems that effectively captured the freewheeling urgency and sexy abandon of nightclubbing and dancing. They also celebrated the art of DJ-ing during an unprecedented time. Disco remains foundational to what contemporaries strive for and are inspired by. It’s a fantastic amalgam of sound and a colorful ethos that reminds us that we’re all the same (“all the sluts and the saints”) under that glitter ball.
You’ve worked with legendary acts like Deee-Lite and are now producing new artists. What do you look for when developing fresh talent like Dee Diggs and Brandon Markell Holmes?
It’s always fun to collaborate with new and emerging talents, in addition to creatives we simply vibe with. Dee Diggs and Brandon Markell Holmes are both exciting new talents signed to the Brooklyn indie toucan sounds and requested we (808 BEACH) contribute to their respective albums.
After all these years, I still love helping an artist develop a musical vision or provide the space for them to find their voice.
Through my Peace Bisquit label with Angelo “Pepe” Skordos, we’ve had the fortune of working with a wide variety of talent in varying production/ A&R/ consultancy and management capacities.
Artists such as Cazwell, Amanda Lepore, Ultra Naté, Julee Cruise, Jody Watley, Vanessa Williams, Lenny Kravitz, Beyoncé and Brooklyn Funk Essentials, along with cult film features such as Party Girl, The Watermelon Woman, Party Monster and All Over Me have all been through the Peace Bisquit influence machine.
You’re curating a full week of DJ programming tied to World Cup festivities. How do you approach building a musical experience that connects with such a global audience?
WORLD CLUB at Lincoln Center runs from July 8 through the 19th. I approached curating the evenings as a rare opportunity to not only celebrate the competitive global unity of World Cup, but to also bring a broad array of talent and music selectors I adore to our iconic stage. Many are making their Lincoln Center debut! We could not be more excited to host the delicious skills of Madame Gandhi, Keys N Krates, dj.shErOck*, Béco Dranoff, DJ David and Arty Furtado of 1bd and many more throughout the week!
With your weekly show on SiriusXMin Andy Cohen’s Kiki Lounge, how has radio shaped your relationship with listeners compared to live DJ performances?
Programming a weekly three-hour radio mixshow has kept my ears sharp. Our FRIDAY NIGHTDANCE show tends to focus on new dance, electro, disco and hits, so it has helped me maintain a steady pulse of what’s happening or percolating. We as consumers are saturated with thousands of releases per week, so fine tuning the effort to not only discover and support new music and dance artists but develop a flow to the set that is engaging and informative but still a party has been the mission. I’m thankful to Andy and our show’s producers for their continuous support over the last five years. Keeping our shows listenable and visceral for an audience I don’t physically see has helped fortify and inform my DJ sets when I’m playing live by my forging an immediate connection from the first notes to the last and taking an audience on a journey. As a kid, I used to listen to the radio obsessively before I ever started spinning – so ironically enough, my DJ training wheels were initially influenced by radio. So to be on SiriusXM supporting the dance culture we love so much is a gift we don’t take for granted. I’ve been fortunate enough to DJ a variety of music genres since high school – that’s over 45 years of rpms and bpms! It’s a life calling and still so satisfying, whether broadcasting over your airwaves or live and direct!