Let’s go straight into that then. Your album?
My album. New album and it’s my third. It should be out next year and I’ll have a date for release when it’s finished, but it’s getting there. it’s all come together really in the last couple of months I would say with really good vocals and stuff like that, but I’m not gonna say any more than that. A lot of stuff that people might not expect of me. At the moment, it’s somewhere between an 80s sci-fi soundtrack and 90s Ibiza house.
So you’re obviously very influenced by the 80s?
Yeah, I love the 80s. I was born in the 80s and I think when you reach a certain age, you get this wave of nostalgia so all I really listen to is old soundtracks, and I listen to a lot of soundtracks anyway. I really like ‘em. I also watch a lot of movies when I make tunes. So, pretty much every tune on the album, there’s a movie behind them – whether it relates to them or not is a totally different thing – but, chances are there was a film in the background while the tune was being made.
What films are we talking?
There’s a few random ones and crap ones like ‘Home Alone 2’.
‘Home Alone 2’ is a great film!
It is, and my missus watches it all the time. She’ll watch it every week if she can. Any 80s sequel, she will watch. If it’s a rom-com or a comedy. Can’t forget ‘Sister Act 2’, she loves that. But mostly for me, films like ‘A Clockwork Orange’, anything that looks great. There’s a couple of tracks that are blatantly from an 80s movie scenario, but then there’s all sorts of stuff in there as well, like a couple of house tunes. Thing is, with dance music, you get known for that one thing that you do. So years ago, I was really known for doing drum & bass and then I started making dubstep as well and people were like ‘ergh!’. It’s all a different tempo and apparently a dirty thing to do. So now I want to go and do a bit of house and probably some over stuff. I mean, there’s stuff that’s like 90BPM on there. So I’ve always made different types of music anyway. My first album, the whole 2nd CD was just random stuff, that I made during the year it took me to make the album. I always made these weird tunes, which in this day and age people embrace.
So about the scene, it’s all so very diverse right now. Could that ever not be a good thing?
It’s just brilliant. I love the fact that you’re getting stuff where people are like ‘what is it?’. Who cares? You don’t sit down and analyse any over music by its tempo apart from dance music. It’s just like ’shut up’. If you like it, you like it, if you don’t, you don’t. Simple. I think the whole genre thing has gone out of control. I don’t often, but I YouTube’d myself the other day and the ‘Fighting Fire’ video came up and there was a big argument running for months about whether it was house or electro or dubstep. Who cares? Personally, I don’t think things like YouTube and forums are good for it. It’s such a powerful thing and if someone says a tune is rubbish, everyone else will say the same just to look cool and agree. I preferred it when you used to go into a record shop and listen to the radio and be like’ I like this tune, what is it?’ It was as simple as that.
You must get nostalgic about those days then?
Yeah, I guess that’s why my stuff is how it is. I definitely think things have become a bit too samey. Someone like Skrillex will make that kind of sound, and everyone wants to jump on that and will play an hour of it. You can take elements of things and use them. The way the main part of ‘dubstep’ is going now, I can’t tell the difference, apart from Skrillex. You can hear a lot of people going over to that side, but not doing it as well. The whole Skrillex thing is a marmite subject anyway. I don’t think it’s personally my cup of tea, but I’m not like ‘ergghhhh’. I know everyone says this, but he’s actually the loveliest guy you will ever meet. That’s why I can’t fault him.
But enough about other people, let’s talk a bit more about yourself. We have to talk about the advert…
Which advert? Ahhh, see no one knows – and I haven’t said this before because it’s really funny – but I’ve done another advert before the Renault one. I actually did last year’s music for the O2 campaign.
No way?
Yeah, it wasn’t dubstep or anything; it was just pianos and little bleepy sounds. It was the O2 advert that was talking about phoning your relatives or something and all the words were up in the sky. It was all pianos and violins. So yeah, I did that which I’ve kept under my hat till now and then the Renault advert. I don’t even know how it happened. It’s just a licensing thingy, so I don’t get told about it. I remixed it because it’s obviously not my track, but I literally didn’t know about it and then I started seeing little things on Twitter and stuff saying ’smashed it on the Renault thing’ and I was like ‘what?’ Then, I was at the studio and went to get some food and they had a TV in the place where I was waiting for my chicken katsu and I turned round and heard the intro to it. Then I just saw like Thierry Henry and all the others and was just like to myself, ‘what the f***!’ I went back and went on YouTube and was just like ‘oh my God, I’m on that advert’. Then, within a few weeks people were asking if I’d seen it and all of that. Even my mum knows! It’s really weird.
You must have been real happy about it though?
I was, I was. I’m still waiting for some other. The most impressive one will be Eastenders. When I get my tune on Eastenders, I can retire.
I look forward to that! What have you got coming up, in terms of releases and stuff?
Got a remix coming out of the next Florence & The Machine single. A track called ‘No Light, No Light’. Then there’s a single coming out which I played a bit earlier; a bit of a weird half-techno, half-breakbeat thing. It’s called ‘Telepathy’ at the moment. It’s like a 4/4 old techno tune and it changes back and forth. Really baffles me, and I think it’s hilarious. First time I played it, even Stamina MC was like, ‘I thought it was a mix’. And he was going on about how the switch just works, and he went and did a vocal in the end. So that’s the second single from the album, the first obviously being ‘Fighting Fire’. But saying that, it will be on the album, but I don’t think it counts as a first single from the album. This one will be the first one where I’m like ‘let’s get the ball rolling’ sort of, dance-floor orientated thing before anything vocal related. I want to try and keep both sides happy because some people do like to moan and say ‘ahh, you just make vocal tunes now’, but I’m like, ‘no, we can do instrumentals too’.
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