Life in Deep Space: The myriad versions of Seven Davis Jr.

There’s something oddly attractive about the fourth prime number. Think days in a week, colours of the rainbow, notes in a musical scale, chakras in a spiritual body, of course, the sum total of Snow White’s posse of pint-sized minions. More than that, it’s a compass for one blooming eccentric to carve his name into the bark of this decade’s vocal house music.

Don’t think that Seven – né Sam – Davis Jr. doesn’t know all this. Born in Houston, TX, but currently based in Los Angeles, Seven has morphed into a devoted explorer of positive vibrations over recent years, dishing out beats that seem to have materialised somewhere above 40,000 feet on a nice sunny day. Last year’s One EP on Jay Simon’s Must Have Records remains out of this world, but we’ve learned a lot more about Seven this year with his tour of nu-age jazz-funk territory on P.A.R.T.Y. and the immediate fidgety charm of recent single Friends.

Details of a 2015 LP are sparse, aside from the fact that it’s already been signed off to one very lucky label. Below, we catch up with the man himself on Skype to find out more about the new record and, in the process, get to know several different versions of Seven Davis Jr.: the singer, the poet, the ghostwriter and the astral specimen.

The Skinny: Hey, Seven, how has LA been treating you?

Seven Davis Jr.: It’s 10am here and I’ve just woke up. I just got in from playing a gig in San Francisco yesterday, and this crazy pansexual electronic party in LA the night before at A Club Called Rhonda. Right now I’m just hanging out with my cat, Tiger. I actually moved to LA about seven years ago, but lived in the Bay Area beforehand. It’s a lot of love in the city, a lot of artists, musicians and creative people, a lot of ideas – like Purple Rain in real time.

Your earlier productions seem pretty far removed from the stuff you’re putting out recently, even the track names. When did you start making music?

I’ve always been singing and messing around on the piano, but I started putting tracks out there around 1999 under the name Sam Seven. I’ve always liked the number seven, and my birthday is 3 April, so 3 + 4 = 7. That period was mainly an outlet for my hip-hop stuff, though. I was a very angry guy back then, too, for a number of reasons. These days I’ve evolved to become more peaceful and Zen-like, so I guess I’ve matured as a person; for sure, actually, not 'I guess.' I know that I’m a different guy now. It took time to live and learn and sort my life out, but I’ve been working on myself for a while now.

How did you get into ghostwriting for other artists and who were you working for?

A lot of it was secret work so I like to keep the names private, but I learned a lot in that period through working in the studio and developing other people’s ideas. It gave me the chance to get inside other people’s heads, but it got to a point where I was helping too many people, when I really needed to help myself. A lot of the time it felt like the work wasn’t being appreciated, or used to its full potential. No disrespect, but it was time for me to do my own thing.

You’ve also had a collection of poems published, have you been writing creatively for a while?

I’ve been writing poetry for a long time now, ever since grade school. That collection I wrote when I was detoxing – I had a drug problem, and a pretty dark, dark, dark past. I was coming out of that, sobering up, recovering and taking charge of my life. While all that was going on I was writing these poems, and I somehow managed to save quite a few of them over the years. I’m glad I did, to be honest.

The collection is called Life in Deep Space. What does that title mean to you?

Sometimes my existence felt like being out in outer space, alone. At the time, I needed to change my life and change the people I was with. For a while, it felt like I was in space, just floating around. I love the concept of deep space in general because it’s got that mystery to it that fascinates me. Space is so unexplored, like there’s so much more to learn that we have no idea about – real trippy.

Tell us how the One EP came about.

Jay [Simon] hit me up about two years ago. We both knew Funkineven and Kyle Hall, and he’d heard Thanks on the Brownswood compilation curated by Kutmah. He found me and that’s when we started chatting about the EP. There was more of a straight soulful vibe to that record. Jay’s cool though, I know there’s other artists he’s looking into releasing that I might do some production for. Must Have Records definitely has its own pocket too, but at the same time I like to put myself in many, many different kinds of pockets.

You’re playing at The Warehouse Project this month, will it be your first time in Manchester?

Yeah, man, I’m excited about it. I’ve been to London at least once a month for the past year or so, but that was mainly hanging around Dalston. I’m actually really looking forward to coming to Manchester, Kutmah will be there, Peanut Butter Wolf, it’ll be fun. I watch Shameless quite a lot so it’ll be interesting to see how the city measures up to that!

I know you’ve got to stay tight-lipped about the new album, but how is the sound shaping up?

I’m naturally dipping into new things, y’know? I call it evolution, and if you want to evolve you have to adapt. It’s not like I’m forcing myself to be different, it just feels that I have to keep experimenting, otherwise what’s the point. I’ll always be open to new styles because I want to contribute something different, something new. The few EPs I’ve put out in recent years are just the beginning. There’s a film to accompany the album, so it’ll be kinda like a movie too. There’s a solid playlist done, the mixes are done, and there’ll be a preview soon. But yeah, I’m incorporating film, poetry and music into something very theatrical.

That theatrical nature seems like it’s born out of the persona you’ve created for your music, kind of like Ziggy Stardust, or Andre 3000. Is it a conscious persona?

Is the persona conscious? I don’t know. It’s like a person I become, organically. When it comes to dressing and visuals, that’s me pushing the character – yeah, like an Andre 3000, Prince the Kid type of thing. It’s still me, though. It’s like my future self in the present. I could call it my superpower. The character is born from the music, not the other way around. I’m not making music to facilitate the character, but it’s a very different guy to the person who writes the poems. There’s a few different versions of me out there; actually, there’s an entire universe.