20 Questions With Roger Sanchez: ‘The Greatest Currency You Have Is Your Time’

There is a timeline in which Roger Sanchez might have been an architect.

Growing up in New York, this was the career path Sanchez was pursuing until house music came knocking on his door.

His decision to pivot to music proved prescient: it wasn’t long before Sanchez was commanding dancefloors across Europe, doing official remixes for titans of the era including Michael Jackson (“Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” “Dangerous”), Janet Jackson (“Love Will Never Do (Without You)”) and others like Jamiroquai, Daft Punk and No Doubt.

His remix of the latter act’s “Hella Good” won him a Grammy for best remixed recording in 2003.

Meanwhile his own track “Another Chance” became a massive dance world hit upon its release in 2001, going No.

1 on the U.K.

Singles chart.

He clocked another No.

1 in 2006 with “Lost,” which reached the apex of Billboard ‘s Dance Club Songs listing.

Through it all, Sanchez has been a nightclub king, presiding over dance floors from New York to Miami to Ibiza, where he was the resident DJ at Pacha’s Flower Power party this season, and where he’s at when he joins Billboard over Zoom to talk about his life and career.

The reason for the chat is Spectrum, Refracted , a collection of remixes of his third studio album Spectrum, released in June, along with a new song.

The six-track project features collaborations with Mel C, his wife Kristen Knight and an edit from fellow house maestro David Morales, all of it dripping with the house, disco and Latin flavors that have been Sanchez’s signatures over his three-decade career.

Here, Sanchez talks about time as the most valuable currency, Tom Hardy’s skills as a rapper and why he’s optimistic about dance music.

1.