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Building Trus'
With two labels, a global party and a fest in Croatia, Trus'me's no novice.
“Imagine being at a party where everyone knows the records and no one’s making requests,” says David “Trus’me” Wolstencroft, outlining the vision for his global party brand and record label, Disco 3000. “Everyone will be completely on the same tip. I haven’t experienced that enough!”
Currently stateside for the New York edition of D3K at the très chic APT club, the industrious 28-year-old Mancunian expounded, via Skype, his philosophy on the future of dance music. “Every DJ is a DJ’s DJ, but not everyone gets the chance to play like that,” he says. “We give the green light to do something different, anything from jazz to boogie to house to hip-hop to reggae…anything you can dance to that’s just good music.”
It may seem a whimsical fancy, letting DJs do whatever they want, but Wolstencroft has put hours of calculated effort into ensuring that, far from a potential free-for-all train wreck of sounds, Disco 3000 is helmed by competent and thoughtful DJs. They just may not be the big names you’re used to seeing. “It’s an old model,” he says. “Like Ministry of Sound, it’s a concept, a style, an image, and it doesn’t matter who’s playing because you know what kind of scene it is and what you’re going there for.”
Old or no, that blueprint has resonated throughout the industry. With satellite parties on three continents, D3K’s efforts culminate this fall with a three-day festival in Petrcane, Croatia. Sponsored by more than 12 labels—including DFA and Versatile—this meeting of minds promises politicking and dancing on land and sea at the beachside locale.
Born and raised in Manchester, Wolstencroft credits the city’s diverse culture as a key musical influence. “There’s a high musical taste there,” he explains. “It’s good to be surrounded by people who have such great taste and you can learn from.”
He’s also kept an ear tuned to U.S. movements, especially Detroit’s. His gritty, sample-heavy house and techno productions often get compared to the output from the Motor City. “People always say, ‘You’ve got a Moodymann vibe,’ but it’s more than that. I have a sampling mentality that runs through Manchester and hip-hop, and it comes out like the Detroit sounds: deep, edgy, soulful and rough.”
Musical comparisons aside, his entrepreneurial zeal is all his own. After wrapping up an undergraduate business degree, he returned to school for a master’s in business enterprise while juggling night classes at the respected School of Sound Recording. “That’s how I got my label where it is in under two years,” Wolstencroft says. “I put all my studies together to run these things and manage myself.”
As strategic as he’s been, there have been missteps along the way. In 2006, he sent out a slew of promo CDs to labels around the world in hopes of getting a deal. One landed at the offices of Chicago-based Still Music, where he was signed and released his first three records. The relationship quickly deteriorated. “I’m past it now,” he says of the situation. “It’s all summarized in the EP I released on my own label, which is called ‘$till No Check.’ Read into that how you want.”
Yet the exposure led to a successful touring career as well as the launch of his label Prime Numbers, where he focuses on U.K. talent—“just good stripped-down stuff that I’m into”—and his Disco 3000 venture. Still, he maintains a humble attitude. “None of this stuff I’m doing is new. It’s just old formulas that people seem to have forgotten,” he says. “I’m just trying to bring the old-school mythology back.”
Trus’me plays Cuatro Saturday 20.
