17
Skream

OLLIE Jones is an archetype: an urchin, an artful dodger, in every possible way a bit of a lad. And if you think that's a patronising way to talk about a young white working-class man, well, you've never met him. An old employer of mine, Mark Ellen, has a theory that musicians get stuck at the age they first achieve success. Well, Skream was putting out records that defined one of Britain's most important musical movements when he was just 15 – and there's still something of the precocious, provocative teenager about him. Yet he also has an air of being, if not worldly-wise, certainly well adapted to the world that he's lived in his whole adult life. This is someone who has lived a dozen lives, who's spearheaded huge musical shifts, who's indulged in enough partying to kill a herd of buffalo – and also someone who's come through it with insight, a sense of what is best for him, and an extraordinary memory for the specific musical and cultural moments that got him here.

Alone and with his best friend Beni “Benga” Adejumo, those teenage releases from the early 2000s still stand up as tracks as great as anything in Britain's underground rave and bass lineage. They show the moment that dubstep completely untethered itself from its immediate influences and became a new language in its own right. At that point, Croydon became Britain's Detroit, its technological adaptations of musical history and reactions to social shifts creating something that altered the fabric of global club (and pop) culture as much as techno ever has, and which has been bastardised and misused as much as techno to boot. All of this came from a tiny core of friends: Skream, Benga, Mala, Coki, Hatcha, Walsh, Distance, N-Type, Chefal, Cyrus, Pokes, Crazy D, Cotti, Cluekid. A genuine micro-movement from one unprepossessing slice of suburban sprawl genuinely changed the world.

Skream rode the rocket all the way. Already a star in the little world of Croydon before he even released a record, he was out front with each expansion of the sound, on the dancefloor, at the party, in the press. But he also maintained a ludicrously high output rate, consistently making the tracks that defined each new phase in dubstep's growth, as well as all kinds of oddities that have stood the test of time (for example the trio of grime EPs he released as Mr. Kaes in 2005-06 that showed he could have casually excelled in that scene if he'd made that his focus).

As you'll see, he talks at a mile a minute, with few filters, and is completely willing to contradict himself. One minute he's saying he's never rude, the next that he “don't give a fuck” rudeness is a defining side of his character. But this is a fairly accurate reflection of the contradictions that made him a star, first within the enclosed world of dubstep and then within the global DJ big league. He is both belligerent and charming, unhinged and focused, a rampant ravemonkey and a caring, thoughtful dad. And he absolutely loves to tell a story, again with a conflicted mix of self- mythologising and a desire to cut through the bullshit and ensure the right people get their due. He's certainly not a different person when the tape is rolling from when it's not. Indeed, as I pressed record for this interview (in his home on a nice, leafy fringe of Croydon) he was already in full flow…

I still haven't got all my kit set up yet properly because I've got such short patience. I've just got the speakers set up, the keyboard set up. Fuck wasting time. So where do we begin?

Let's start at the start. What part of Croydon did you grow up in?

I originally lived in South Eden Park Road, then I moved to Croydon when I was around nine – no, what am I talking about? When I was five. Or six, eight or something. I lived in an area called Selsdon. Grew up there, with my brother Jack playing music. He's nine years older than me, so it was jungle and hardcore. He was my connection with Big Apple, he worked there from when it opened [in 1992].

So you were hearing rave music

I remember jungle when I was about five, or proto-jungle, and thinking it was a fucking racket. Obviously my little delicate ears didn't understand, but yeah. The first time I remember walking in the shop, I was down on Surrey Street fruit market, where the shop was located. My mum was getting fruit and I was like, “I'll be back in a minute,” and ran in and did the most annoying thing that you can do in the record shop, I asked for the very highest record to have a listen to it and said “Nah I don't want it”, and I walked out. I must have been 12, they didn't know I was Jack's brother. At this point I didn't know Benga, I didn't know anyone, I was just sort of… 12.

Do you remember what the record was?

It was ‘Bizzy's Party’: “Bizzy, Bizzy's Party” [singing] “This one's going out to all the pretty girls.” ¹⁹¹ I'd been hanging about with two girls the weekend before and one of them had mixtapes. Everyone made tapes for girls, it was cool. I remember them singing it, it'd been on Upfront FM – which ties in with Hatcha actually, that's where he was on originally. Then I started to go in the shop regularly, and started working there pre-15. Hatcha was the first person I met from the shop on a personal basis. He woke me up once, my brother was meant to be at work. He must have only been 17 himself, and he come and knocked. I was in bed, got up, angry I'd been woken up. Answered the door and there's this little geezer there standing with a massive grin on his face asking if Jack's there.

Then we become friends, and around that time I started to make music. I was at a friend's house in Penge and we went to see one of our other friends and he was making music. I've obviously told this story loads, but seeing him making music on a Playstation One and thinking, “Rah! I didn't think you could do it this easy.” Not easy in a sense, but easy to get music to come out the speakers, without having a multi-thousand pound studio. I think it was the back-end of garage, the start of 8-bar. When DJ Youngstar ‘Pulse X’ came out, around that time. I guess that record was the start of a lot of young bedroom producers. Maybe I'm wrong on the timeline because I remember making stuff that was more El-B garage before I did a ‘Pulse X’ bootleg. Everyone did a ‘Pulse X’ bootleg.

What were you interested in, apart from making mixtapes for girls?

It weren't until Big Apple that I knew what I wanted. I listened to pirate radio, I was into MCs, the Pay As You Go, massively into So Solid being from South London. Delight FM was the local.¹⁹² There was Upfront but that ended when everything got a bit tougher musically, then it was more about Delight. Occasionally Rinse, occasionally Freek, which had Heartless on – but mainly it would be So Solid Sunday all day, all the MCs.

But were you sporty, were you arty, were you a reader?

I played football up until I was 15, for a pretty good team. Half of them are professional now. I was never gonna be a professional. Always chasing a girl about somewhere. I was a big stoner when I was younger, which is mad, I haven't smoked since I was 18. I was that kid who was into music and smoking weed. The record shop was where I felt like my life started to take place.

I'm guessing school didn't –

[jumps in] Nah I didn't really get on with them as much as my mum wanted me to. I'm really lucky in the sense that what I ended up doing worked, otherwise I'd be fucked. I talk to people now – I've got a good group of mates I still talk to that I grew up with, non-music friends I call them – and they say, “What would you have done?” I say, “I would have been fucked.”

Do you think growing up in this area doesn't give you many opportunities?

Nah nah, all my mates work. Not one of my mates is unemployed, they're all carpenters, electricians, all fully qualified. I hung about on an estate – which was the pits really, but everyone had a grafting mentality because all their dads grafted. Luckily, majority of people had their dads in their life, which is quite rare. However shitty the estate was, there was still big family mentality there. I didn't even live there, I was an outsider. I lived in a nice house at the bottom of the hill.

So you automatically gravitate to people like Hatcha – who, let's face it, is a bit feral?

Yeah yeah, he was nearer my age. John [Kennedy, founder of Big Apple] and Arthur Artwork were older, my brother's age. They were my brother's friends, so I was doing stuff I weren't meant to be doing. I felt I could get away with more and talk about more naughty stuff.

It's funny you're talking about this sense of belonging, because Hatcha told me they were replacement male figures for him, with his dad not around. People talk idly about musical spaces being a family, but it really sounds like it was

For me it was. Very much a part of the shop for me still to this day – and I take nothing away from my mum or dad who I lived with until I moved out with my girlfriend. I learned the majority of life skills from them – or music industry skills, I don't know how different they are. My dad brought me up not to be an idiot, don't be rude to people, don't be a cunt. There's never no need for it. So I already had that instilled, and I've never felt I've been rude unless it's been provoked. But in the shop I was the youngest until I met Beni – I'll get onto meeting Beni in a minute.

That place was such a hub for people far and wide. You must have met all walks of life there

I learned the majority of stuff that's got me on in life in that shop: I met people who were dodgy, people who weren't, people who were sound as fuck and people who weren't. And the constant interaction all the time, there was never a dull moment. The musical aspect too: if Hatcha was there all you'd hear all day was garage – or later dubstep. Well, it was pre-that but he wouldn't cater for the customers.

He was an amazing salesman because he could sell you shit on a shovel, but if someone came in and asked for something he'd be like “Nah nah this is what you want” and they'd be like, “No it's not.” He used to drive the owner John up the wall but he'd get a sale. But I didn't work with Hatcha a lot, it was mainly when he was off. I'd work with the owner, John Kennedy. They were house heads at the time, I got there after they were all bang into techno: Naked, Azuli, what was turning into funky house, handbag house. Proper house really. Hearing stuff I wouldn't hear otherwise – I didn't have it at home and I wouldn't be hanging about with people that listen to that.

That was the way garage people went. If you weren't young and into grimey noises, you'd gravitate back towards house

Yeah, totally. And you'd meet all John's and Arthur's friends from that side, clubbing-wise. It was just a melting pot, every record shop is. And it was in a fruit market. You'd get people from East coming down, from pure concrete jungle, and go “Fucking hell, in this fruit market?”

Did you start to understand the details of people's tastes as well?

Yeah I think it made me want to explore music more. It was definitely where I found my love for disco. I remember my mates coming round and I'd be listening to a jungle tune, they were strictly garage, they'd be like, “What's this shit?” Just that thing of not being like the average radio listener, who only listens to what the mass listens to. So I thank the shop for giving me an open mind. Plus the part of talking to anyone, regardless of how they looked. You didn't really judge anyone because at the end of the day, you had the common connection which was music. However cheesy that sounds it's the truth.

And you wanted to get them to spend money

Heh, well. But I wasn't a sales guy particularly. My main job was doing the post but I'd stay behind the counter until it shut, until they asked me to leave really. I got the job in the first place because I used to get suspended a lot from school. Even if I hadn't been suspended I'd go in the shop in the morning, I'd have breakfast on the market in one of the caffs, wait for the shop to open and I'd be standing outside. I remember John going, “If you're gonna fucking stand about here all the time, get round the counter and do some work.” It was one of the saddest moments in my life when the place shut.

Did you let the people you were working with know about the music you were making?

OK, so going back to seeing my friend make music, I bought the Playstation programme the next day and I told Hatcha, because Hatcha was the biggest influence on me as a producer at that time. I still hadn't met Benga at this point. I started doing stuff, it was wack for ages. To be fair I got really really bored with Music [2000, the Playstation composition software]. I don't think anyone heard the stuff I wrote on it because I got extremely bored really quick. It weren't until my brother did a garage vinyl, it was called ‘The Loops’. One side was a track he did with Artwork, with a Colonel Mustard sample on it, it was a black label that said Hijak, and the other side was a DJ tool, like 30 garage loops.¹⁹³ It's probably one of the most sought-after now because it was one of the only DJ tool garage ones to come out – like scratch vinyls that hip hop DJs used to do except for garage. Jack used to scratch DJ, and it had all the classic loops on, Masterstepz ‘Melody’, Feel My Burning, the famous one EZ used with the DJ Luck & MC Neat ‘bad bassline’ lyric looped. At the time EZ was the one who killed it because he was a skilled DJ – obviously he still is – so he found use in it. A lot of people knew what to do but didn't really know how to use it.

Yeah, it was when I seen him using Fruity Loops, I think it was Fruity Loops 2. I was always scared to ask for help, I don't know why. I think it's that nine-ten year gap, he was a teenager, practically an adult. I waited for him to go out and I opened it, figured it out and voilà, I'm still using it. That was like breaking the ice, I felt a lot more free asking about it. Basically I kept fucking with his loops, I kept opening the projects where he'd set these loops up and fucking with them. He was like “Look, fuck's sake, let me show you: don't touch these, these are my things, but there's some samples, go through them, you load each one into here.” People started hearing what I was doing, mainly Hatcha. So at this time, musically it would have been pre- start to Ammunition, Sarah at the time, Neil Joliffe.

So what was your approach building beats?

The easiest way for me to think of stuff is the music I was copying. This was pre Wookie ‘Storm’, or around that time, a lot of the El-B remixes. The tune that fully got me into wanting to make the stuff I started to make was Darqwan ‘Confused’. Actually saying that, I knew Beni at the point I heard that track, so maybe I should go before I met Beni. I was working in the shop on a Sunday. I knew Benga's brother, the one older than Beni but not the oldest – but then his other brother Flash came in and was like, “You're making tunes right?” I'd made a tune and played it out at a social club party, and he came in and was like, “My brother's making tunes, Beni G.” And funnily enough at the time, my brother had just played back to back with Benga when Beni was about 11, at a club called The Blue Anchor in Croydon. So he knew my elder brother and I knew his elder brother but we didn't know each other. Then he give me his house phone number and later on that Sunday after the shop had shut I rang him up. We just started talking and playing music down the phone to each other – kind of underground garage, mutated I guess because we wasn't as good as the people making the garage but we still wanted to do something. Conversation down the phone is probably the equivalent to IMS messenger now, or whatever you use to send tracks back and forth. As soon as we start something we'd ring up like “Listen to that” and he'd be like, “Fuck, right, I'll call you back.” Then an hour later “Right, listen to this I've just done.” So there was always an amazing creative competition but in such a fun way, it was purely excitement. Then we sort of started a crew, Smooth Criminals – but most people were playing garage, then the start of Pay As You Go type records. It weren't necessarily grime but it was leading that way. We always wanted to play really dark stuff. The b-sides, which were the El-B.

This was start of 2001. I had a time of MCing pre-me and Benga. I started DJing when I was 12-13. Kutz has tapes of me MCing somewhere, I'll fucking kill him if that ever come out. But everyone wanted to MC at the time, it was the start of glorified British MCs – garage MCs anyway, not like hip hop artists. Club MCs because it stopped being hosting and started to be lyrics. Then we was making what Hatcha was playing on the radio, which was still Upfront FM. Him and MC Easy Rider – RIP. Before there was Hatcha and Crazy D, it was Easy Rider and Hatcha. I'd wait up on a Sunday night or a Thursday, 1am, fall asleep listening, wait until my tune gets played. It was very dark, as dark as you could possibly do it. Benga was heavily inspired by Wookie and I was influenced by Oris Jay ‘Confused’. Darqwan, El-B, then Horsepower, – fucking loved it, and when I heard ‘Confused’, the bassline on it, “wuwub wub wub”. I'd heard wobble basses but not like that, like constant heavy…

So basically me and Benga were replicating these basslines we was listening to on a plug-in called the TS 404. This one was pure monophonic, it was solid, we remade these basslines and we was like, they've got to be using this, they can't be making this bassline on anything else – stupidly not understanding anything about synthesis at the time. I remember meeting Oris Jay and going, “You use Fruity Loops?” He was like, “Nah, I use Cubase mate.” Then the start of FWD>> was all stemmed off the back of a Big Apple Christmas party. I think I was 15. It was a dubplate-only set. They came up with this idea: all the DJs play dubplates only, Heartless Crew, Hatcha. Time-wise, 2001, that was still predominantly garage-y. I didn't have a record played out, I think Benga did, ‘Dose’ – which came out on his first release, but the proto-version before it had been beefed up in the studio.¹⁹⁴ That was when we were fully on making tunes, we did it every day or as much as we could anyway. Then obviously FWD>> started in earnest, Hatcha was a resident. He might have been the only DJ who had a dubplate box and only played dubplates, that was his thing. He wouldn't play a record anyone else had heard. Which meant we couldn't give music to anyone, which didn't turn out to be a bad thing.

So you were literally making music for Hatcha

Yeah. And that's where the story properly begins for dubstep I guess. Because the term still didn't exist at this point. There's a slight debate over the creation of the term. I believe it was Hatcha in the record shop. The record that started it for me was Elephant Man ‘Log On’, the Horsepower mix. I'd never heard nothing like it at the time. It was fucking unbelievable. Benny Ill brought it down. When I started making music, I become very good friends with Benny Ill. I must have done his fucking head in. I'd be round his house all the time. I'd just sit at the back of the studio and just watch him for hours and hours. Yeah, he brought this tune in and, like, Benny's an unconventional-looking person.

Is he called that because he looks ill?

I think it was just a clever name. Now he looks pretty fresh, at the time he had a long ponytail. He just looked like a stoner really. He brought this ‘Log On’ tune in – it was Friday, the day the distributors come in, there was a pub opposite, go get some beers, be there until half eight, nine, ten, whatever. And a lot of people brought tunes in, like “Oh have a listen to this.” Friday is when me and Benga would go and test the music on the speakers. But Benny Ill brought this tune in. I swear to god, to this day I'll have a reaction go through me hearing ‘Log On’. It got played about four times.

It was an official mix at the time, which was rare unless it was a new pop act. But for something like Elephant Man, vocal samples like this, that he'd actually got legitimately and did this mix – for me, that was the start of dubstep. There was either going to be a term raggage, like ragga garage, which thank fuck it didn't! Sounds like a disease don't it? “They've all got raggage.” Dubstep was the term came about. I think it's been linked back to Martin Clark – but just for the fact of something so simple as putting two words together, it sounds so Hatcha. I did a remix for Kode9 and off the back of that I did this tune called ‘Dubstep 3’. He was like, “No you can't call it that because that's what the sound is called.” I was like “Yeah but so? That's kind of what the tune is, it's like dub stepping.” He was like “But that's what the music's called.” I was like “Alright”. I remember it stemming from Hatcha. There's probably going to be mass debate. Actually there won't, it'll only be between him and Martin.

It was first in print in XLR8R, I guess that was Martin Clark.¹⁹⁵

That was a really good article actually. And then it was fucking such good times. It was my first time going out. I'd been to under-18 raves, but this was Velvet Rooms in Charing Cross. We'd all go up in a limo because it was cheaper than everyone getting cabs. I was out with the older boys, I started to feel part of what was happening. It was still the back-end of garage, very slick production. It gave place for Zed Bias and that. They did used to play like that up at Sidewinder, but this was about dubplates, it weren't about MCs. I think Slimzee and Maxwell D played the first one and it was pure grime, pure 8-bar. It was still a bit champagne. But by the third one the girls had gone, it was a man-dance. It didn't bother me at the time because I couldn't have pulled any of these birds anyway. It felt like grown women at the time and I was properly a kid.

We'd go there, me, Beni, my brother, loads of us. A Croydon crew out, with Hatcha's mates, we'd all go up together and it'd be wicked. Pitch black room, sit in the back, I'd get drunk and stoned, wait to see if one of my tunes got played. The first one out of me and Beni to get a tune played was Beni, ‘Dose’ that I was talking about earlier. It was once a month – or fortnightly – so you'd make records up until the day. I knew when Hatcha was going to cut in Transition, so I'd get in the car with him and we'd listen to my tunes on the way. So it'd be like “Right, you're cutting this one or this one or this one?” It started off as one, it'd became ten of mine at a time, ten of Beni's. That was 2002, the big tune was El-B and Juiceman ‘Buck & Bury’ – it got made in 2002, released in 2008.¹⁹⁶ Another important party for me as Skream was FWD>> takeover at Fabric Room 3, when Hatcha played. I made so many tunes for this because it was like, “This is going to be a big one, I can feel it.” It weren't packed but it felt packed. I'd never really been in a big room. At the time, it was great. That would have been 2002 as well.

I think Hatcha played about four of my tunes, it was going off. If you listen back now the tunes sounded cheap, but they still had the vibe or whatever. I remember Juiceman going, “It's all about that kid there, Skream.” I didn't even know him at the time. I think Hatcha had pointed me out.

At that point, dubstep must have been another of these half-formed things, like sub-low and 8-bar

The clientele that got into it were the WARP fans. Very much boys is what I mean, the man-dance. It weren't a mass thing. You knew or you didn't, you was interested or you weren't. If you were into mass popular music at the time, it would have sounded like shite, the rhythms and everything were just out, it was like your own timing almost.

Going back to the grime influence, you said ‘Pulse X’ changed things. It's a bit like a punk record. It shows anyone can do it. It's so simple

Yeah and it sounds like shit.

But you can still play it and people will dance to it

The kick drum is distorted because it's coming out of the computer too loud. The claps distort out – so yeah, very much a punk record. And everyone likes it. I've got a version of it with Elephant Man over the time. Arthur did it, it's a fucking killer. But yeah, dubstep – and grime, very much grime – was the spawn of the bedroom producer. On a bigger level, I think me and Beni was at the front of that, when we met Zed Bias and people. When Arthur and Hatcha played records, I know Zed Bias in particular was like, “These kids are doing it in their bedrooms.” He was fucking really surprised. We were the only people who knew we were making tunes in our bedroom, even people who come into the shop. Silkie was the one we met from coming to the shop who made tunes on Fruity at the time as well.

We knew Youngstar made ‘Pulse X’ on a Playstation. It very much got focused on. By 2002 we left off with the fabric thing, by 2003 we did ‘The Judgement’.¹⁹⁷ Which very much felt and sounded bigger than most records at the time, it sounded fat. That was Benga's fucking magic. And that was the start of us, we were in. That was the start of Dubstep Allstars 1, the intro tune. It was Hatcha's intro tune everywhere. And then we had people hitting us up for tunes. Every other tune we'd make would get a rewind. We were the lads. I still don't think we were 18 yet. It was great.

Did you think “This is what I'm gonna do”?

I knew that about three years previous, there was never going to be anything else. Even if it hadn't happened, I'd still be making tunes. But I felt like I had made it, especially when we did ‘The Judgement’. We did our first magazine feature, I was just 16, Beni was 15. I could finally show my mum something, because they were panicking. All they know is I was coming home, “Oh my record got played last night.” To them, it was like, “OK, that's all good and great, what does that mean?”

Like me saying “I sang a song down the youth club” as far as they're concerned

Once ‘The Judgement’ came out on Big Apple I had something I could hold. Then in the magazine we had the record of the month, cross-genre – in Juice magazine. I finally had something I could go, “Look, I'm on the cover of that and I've got a record.” And since that moment it's never felt like work, up until the year I took off. The bit that felt like work was dealing with people. With pricks basically.

You said on Twitter not long ago that around this time, in the early FWD>>s, you would be like, “It's going to get bigger and we're going to build on it like this.” Was that bravado or did you have a battleplan?

We never used to look too far forward. It just all started happening. I genuinely loved it. That whole period. I still love the music. Some of it's got a bit monotonous because they're trying to replicate a period in time, but it's in my blood, it'd be like me disowning a child. I get the shock when I said I wasn't doing it any more, but I never said that fucking quote – the “Dubstep is dead” quote – and any interview says that I said it is bullshit. At the time it was fucking magical. It all started happening. It started and then stopped. That whole time up until ‘Request Line’ it felt like the bubble was happening, bubbling under the surface. But then you started to notice parties that had got really busy, half the time were dead again. At the time, I guess 2004, it felt like it had fallen off. Hatcha was playing garage sets, the same records everyone says are old school now. Beni had started making hip hop for Crazy Titch. It felt like it went on a bit of a lull. Then Digital Mystikz came and gave everyone a kick up the arse. They were older, they'd studied production and stuff, so it was wicked. It was the best thing that ever happened. It had been such a close knit group, and you start not getting inspiration because you're all around each other playing the same stuff.

Was there anyone from outside the initial group of friends at that early stage? Mark One?

Yeah, but you didn't see him all the time. You only really heard his tunes.

He was almost a grime producer

Yeah yeah yeah. Virus Syndicate, Slaughtermob too, I'll give them their due. It wasn't always just a South London thing – which I know a couple of the West London and North London lot used to get annoyed by. But it felt like for us at the front of it, it started to get a bit bored – not bored because we were still making tunes, but it needed a fresh injection. That was when it went a bit techy. I never really made dub- influenced stuff, Horsepower was the dub influence for me. Then Mystikz came in with ‘Mawo Dub’, that first Big Apple EP ¹⁹⁸. I remember Loefah bringing ‘Indian Dub’ in, there was me behind the counter, Chef sitting on the stairs, Benga in there. He could not have felt more intimidated in his life. He was old enough, but it didn't matter: he'll tell you now, it was probably one of the most nervous he's ever been. He played ‘Indian Dub’ and we was just like, “This is sick.” The intro's like four minutes long, that was weird just in itself. They added a whole new dynamic to production. It was fat, it was just wicked, and then obviously they're all sound as fuck as well. Like family. I remember meeting Mala in the winter, I went to buy my first MIDI controller from Turnkey 24-hour sale when everyone would queue outside all night. That was when I heard the tune, I was like “Fucking yeah.” That Christmas is when I did ‘Request Line’.

So 2004 still? ‘Request Line’ came out in 2005

There was the two Rephlex Grime compilations, I think they were both in 2004. No, second one must have been 2005, then it had all Digital Mystikz.¹⁹⁹

It was totally different to the first

The first one was Mark One, Plastician ²⁰⁰ and Slaughter Mob. That was when it all kicked off. For me it was ‘Request Line’, but that's when it went [zooming noise], the Mala stuff, the Coki stuff, the Loefah stuff. 2005 was the year. And it only got bigger from there.

That was when you lot started reaching Laurent Garnier and Ricardo Villalobos, all these people already established in techno

I see Ricardo a lot now and he's fucking bonkers. Lovely, lovely, lovely guy. He decided to tell me the other day he did a remix of ‘Request Line’ that he was too scared to send over. There's a Villalobos remix of ‘Request Line’ somewhere, which blows my mind! But it wasn't just that record they picked up on, because a tastemaker doesn't pick up on the biggest record. They'll hear it before it's the big record. Laurent Garnier would have known already at that point. ‘Request Line’ wasn't the best tune about, in all means it wasn't – as I've said many times, it started off as a grime record, and then I thought, “Why am I writing a grime record?” But I kept what I had and added more.²⁰¹ It was melodic. A lot of the stuff was one-note basslines then, even the Mystikz stuff. Coki's was always ultra melodic but Mala's was always like chamber music.²⁰² It was all about the dynamics, the bass was here – everything else was wherever. But yeah, 2005 was the year everyone started to make a living.

And it had well taken root in Bristol as well?

The first place I went outside of London – not in my life but on a musical thing – was Bristol. They were all doing their own records, it was very much a dubplate culture in Bristol: Appleblim, Shackleton, Wedge, White Boi, Komonazmuk – it wasn't HENCH at the time, it was just them lot. It was Skull Disco, because I remember the Skull Disco parties in Stoke Newington. That added a whole other dynamic because it was like, we went minimal and they went even more minimal. It was intense.

Sam [Shackleton] and Laurie [Appleblim] are like old-school squatter psychedelic punks

[laughs] Well, I met them at a squat party. It was then you had Pinch, that dub background in Bristol, they really took on that side of, it whereas we were starting to make bigger records. I was adding more hooks, more catchy melodies. We was looking to go bigger. Then I released the first album.

What were the first bookings you got outside of the dubstep scene? Plastician got the Rephlex ones obviously, and that was a whole world of its own

Yeah! He'd be like, “I'm going to play in Vienna.” I'd be like, “Fucking Vienna?” As if it was alien. But for me, Bristol kicked it off. My first international gig was Brussels, which blew my mind. It was sold out. The Belgians were always really on it. Leeds was 2006. We went up there on the coach together. As there wasn't that many parties, if there was a big one we all went together: full unit. We did the first Leeds Subdub gig, two coach-loads of people, got on in Norwood. My hair stands up talking about it. It was fucking epic. We went up there, tore the shit out of the back room, absolutely smashed it to bits.

And you would mostly play your own tunes?

Just my own tunes. It was the first place Quest's ‘Hard Food’ proper played out. I didn't even really know him, he sent it to me, or I think Heny.G might have given it. There's someone I've completely undermentioned: Heny.G. I've known that boy when I was about 14. He knew me and Beni for years, he's come down the record shop. He used run for pirate radio and work for pirate radio.

He still bloody does, he puts the hours in

But it's sad how much he forgets to get mentioned, so I have to stress that he has been around forever. Anyway I got Quest ‘Hard Food’ off of him, I had ‘Kalawanji’ which came out on Deep Medi three years later, but I played that that night. They were the only two, all the rest was mine. I don't think I even played any of Beni's. It was unbelievable. When you feel like an outsider because accent – clubs that you're not used to being in, you don't know how the security work, I didn't really know Simon Scott at the time – you feel like you're out in someone else's club. At Plastic People I used to run round causing riot – in a nice way – and you feel like it's your hub, your home. So when we was out of there, we didn't have a point to prove – but we fucking proved it if we did have! We absolutely annihilated it. It was wicked. I can't remember who played before me, it might have been Distance. He's another person I've failed to mention a lot.

What did I make that weekend? It might have been ‘Stagger’, off my first album. It was sick, I've got the recording, and the Digital Mystikz set after. It was just electric. They were going off because that night was so dub heavy, steppa heavy. As soon as you went up there and introduced a bit of enhanced bass – I mean there was a big drum’n’bass crowd up there anyway so it was just the mutation of it all, and it went off! Every tune. I played ‘Tapped’ for the first time, ‘Request Line’, tunes like ‘Dutch Flowerz’, ‘Irie’. I went up with a dubby head on, but quickly switched – I hate giving everyone what they want, I always have done, so I switch to playing my remix for Distance, ‘Cyclops’, it was a fucking beast! Mary Anne Hobbs was on the coach, Crazy D, Sarge [Sgt. Pokes], Coki and everyone. I was very much known as the partier side of the scene then, weed and whatever – but I was from a different background, very much pub kid, not kid but you know what I mean. So we was out having it on Es all the time. Me and my brother were just having such a great time. I remember going to sit at the front, I sat next to Coki, didn't really know him – Coki's one of them people you never really know until you know him. We're really good mates now obviously, but I've gone and sat next to him, “Don't care, want to talk to someone, and I want to talk to Coki!” Because I think one of his tunes had gone off that night. I just remember sitting there fucking chewing his ear off, and my face off to be fair.

And he's just deadpan

Yeah yeah yeah. I didn't give a fuck what his reaction was at the time. I just kept talking and he kept laughing. Then I was like “Alright see you later” then going to the back of the bus was like going home. So yeah it was just an all-round really fun journey. Then it become an annual. Everybody made sure they was on that bill and luckily I managed to be on the majority of them if I was around.

And from that Outlook came?

Yeah but this was before, I didn't do the first Outlook I don't think.

But that's the root of it. Did you start travelling on your own as well around that time?

Yeah. I didn't really have an MC, it was a while until Sgt Pokes became a regular. It was Digital Mystikz and Pokes, and Crazy was with Hatcha. I never really had an MC.

Where would you play? Was it mainly back room of a drum’n’bass club to begin with?

A lot of the back room in drum’n’bass clubs was in London. You'd go to smaller parties where the last DJ might be drum ’n’ bass or jungle but it was pretty much garage or dubstep and then it'd be smaller.

So for most towns, what became known as post-dubstep or bass music was really the way it was anyway – that people would have garage, dubstep, jungle altogether

Yeah, playing grime too, it would be just not the mass. It would be very much underground.

It was small clubs

Yeah. You wouldn't have got away with playing cliché garage tunes that people play now at cool parties, it wouldn't have gone down, you'd have got booted out. I remember playing a basement in Glasgow a little bit, me and Pokes. I was playing plates and it was [makes puffing noise] we got there: there was free Bucky punch ²⁰³ on the side and it was tiny, my kitchen is wider. Me and Pokes come out covered in mud, you'd be sweating. The venue's still there, the dust turned into mud. We had it up our necks, behind our ears – but it was a fucking good party. Parties like that, if you knew someone at the gig it was a bonus. Luckily from the record shop I could fucking talk to anyone. I still do, It's why my fucking phone book's a nightmare. I didn't really want to sit in my hotel room alone, I'd go out with the promoter and make sure I go for dinner, drinks, meet as many people as possible. That'd be it, then you'd be in an after-party somewhere you've never heard of with people you've never met before, but somehow you knew it was alright.

You must have a strong constitution. You go out and you're up the next morning working

Yeah yeah yeah, I'd be on the train. I never used to miss my trains or things like that. I could only really do one gig a weekend then because I didn't have anyone driving. Eventually my mate started driving for me, then you could gig all weekend, it was great. You could go home whatever time you wanted. It was a magical time. It started to feel like it was a thing. It was cemented. You didn't have to explain what you played any more. My mates were the hardest, my non-music mates. They'd say, “What you play?” I couldn't say “dubstep” because it wouldn't mean anything, but if I said “garage”, they'd be like “Ah yeah let's hear some then!” Then you'd play it and they're all going, “What the fuck's this?” But then people started to hear about it and review columns come out and it was a thing.

I'm trying to think when Mixmag got its own dubstep page. Originally it went on the experimental page with anything from folktronica to breakcore. The dedicated dubstep page was probably end of 2006… then it was the end of 2007 when Caspa and Rusko FabricLive came out

That was another peak. It was just like in drum’n’bass, True Playaz, when it went more Hazard, Tax Man, the Clipz Bristol stuff.²⁰⁴ It went a lot noisier. But as much as people like to slag Rusko and Caspa, whatever, me and Coki made very much mid-range heavy fucking tunes, they just wasn't particularly noisy. There were frequencies which was lower too. It still had fucking bass. But it's the thing, if that fabric CD wouldn't have happened, the bigger boom wouldn't have happened. So it helped everyone. Everyone started to earn more money from then, you could play main room in a drum’n’bass club on a drum ’n’ bass bill. I used to have to check who's playing before me, but then you'd have the local dubstep DJ warm-up so it was alright. I was a big Rusko supporter, I'll tell you that. It got to that point where there became a headline slot, and more was expected to make everyone go mental. That is where that emerges from that CD. What a lot of people don't realise with the CD is they had 24 hours to do it – from finding out they were doing it to mixing it was 24 hours. The Justice CD was meant to be coming out and for some reason fabric weren't happy with it – and fair play to fabric really because to keep up with deadline they just went, “Right, we need to get something!” And it happened to be something that became possibly one of the most important or milestone CDs of any in this whole thing, other than Dubstep Allstars Volume 1.

I went to Tel Aviv with Rusko just before it came out, so I heard the whole story of that. There was no time to plan it, they literally rolled into fabric and mixed it live on the decks in the club. But it's an outstanding mix, it's fucking brilliant. And they were not really more extreme than others around them. N-Type's Dubstep Allstars is hard and heavy and fast and furious mixing. Even your Rinse:02 mix has got plenty on it that's just as hard. That was the sound of the time. They weren't taking it to an extreme, but everyone who latched onto that CD did. People who'd never made dubstep or been into it had that as a starting point, and ratcheted it up from there

That's where it became about the drop. I never hid from the fact, I used to play big drops. When people go back to making old-school shit now, what old school-shit are they talking about? Stuff that had the big drops? The odd melodic tune? Mala chamber-dub tunes? I used to make fucking tons of music, and the ones that went off were all kinds of things. But in that time, big drop, big noises, big fucking reaction. Still, if you look back, it was a great time, it was mental because parties were getting bigger and you'd see more dubstep on the bill and then a full dubstep bill everywhere, or it'd be like me and Andy C or Mala and Gilles Peterson or Annie Mac.

We did that Mixmag cover in 2010: you, Caspa, Rusko, Beni, Joker. In the interview for that you said you were really into the fact the bills you were playing were more like a festival lineup

Right yep. And a lot more money started to come into it.

Exponentially up and up between 2007 and 2011-12, basically

Yeah 100% yeah yeah yeah. And Skrillex was another jump. Actually we've jumped quite far ahead but we'll go back. So we became headliners in our own rights really and that was it. Up until Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites is a blur. From 2006, from the DMZ first Birthday – one of the highlights of my life was when that moved upstairs. Then what happened from 2007 was more people went towards the light. A lot more producers who were better at making noisy stuff cleaner, a lot of drum’n’bass producers came in. They'd still make it to send us, to the close- knit control. Control is a bad word because that sounds like we're the fucking Illuminati or something, but it wasn't just 10-15 people, it was going to thousands of producers really quickly. The amount of dubstep tunes I get sent, it was like, it was happening, it was everywhere. America. We was all going to America at the time, non-fucking-stop.

We'd started going before it went really crazy. My first tour of the States I weren't old enough to drink there, I think I was 19 or 20. It had a presence there, the Dub War, Dave Q, Ken Seckle, Joe Nice obviously. So it was kicking off. Not like it ended up kicking off, but you could go out, sell out, have a really good night, feel like a fucking king. You had that in England, but you're still there with everyone you know. When you get taken out of that, you're like “Fucking hell!” I was going like Romania, it'd just be mad and they'd know every tune.

Another thing with dubstep, it was very much the internet: the dubstep forum was the hub online. Before that was dubplate.net but no one really used it. Forums felt very specialist, people would go, “What you doing?” I'd be like, “Listening to some tunes, listening to the previews” and that was weird to people. But dubstep felt very internet-led. I met Kode9 through dubplate.net. I posted a thing looking for [audio editing software] Soundforge, he said I'll send it to you. Then he emailed it to me. No, he posted me it with a CD on! But other people like Pavel – he used to come and rave from Czech Republic – I remember him emailing me and I fucking got really scared and showed my mum. My mum was like, “What you doing emailing people?” I was like “I haven't, he's emailed me.” She's like, “That's fucking worse!” But I mean, dubstep was always going to get massive because of the interaction it had online.

It was documented from early on as well. The Barefiles DJ sets being online so someone getting into it could reverse-engineer

There was everything. He fucking grafted. It all ended up becoming a problem, he fell out with the Rinse lot which was a shame. It's one of them things that happens in anything that becomes more popular and more people get involved. He worked hard. If he wasn't listening to your show, if you didn't get a message or text, you'd be like “Shit why's he not recording it?” That's where I used to get my sets from, of my own show!

So post-2007 you were gigging several times a week presumably

At one point round that time I did 13 shows in 2 weeks, which was [thousand yard stare].

And you were making tunes all the time

Whenever I was home. I had no responsibilities. I had a girlfriend, but I'd work in the day, see her at night. That was when everything was full systems go all the time. That was the one downfall of the radio being online, you had to keep having new tunes. I'd play ideas on the radio – loops, unfinished tunes – but then people had heard that creation, so you need something new to play out. It was kind of shit on my behalf because I was forgetting loads and loads of ideas. I was like “Shit, I've played that already.” I would've had a lot more tunes if I'd just taken a breather and finished stuff. Mala and everyone, they wouldn't play anything until it was finally done – but that was an age thing as well. Yeah, it was non-stop, pissed every night, either travelling or asleep, DJing or pissed. You was always involved in some sort of social interaction out. Whereas if I was inside, I was making music. If I was outside, I was DJing. It's not that different now but then everything was a big show because it was your headline show every time. You had to be on point. Not saying I was on point every time –

You survived a reputation for wrecking things on occasion!

I worked, regardless. I get shit done. Arthur says I'm not normal, he's never seen anyone like me. But I've never worried, never thought “Fuck I've really done it this time.” The way I see it, as long as your family's cool and you're not getting wrecked in the week, what you do at the weekend is fine. I've definitely calmed down anyway. That whole time I was doing a bottle of vodka straight before I played, a bottle during, whatever else after. Even the thought of that makes me feel sick now. I'm nothing even close to what I was. But back then, if I turned up to a club pissed, I still played my show. Might not have been my best show ever but it definitely weren't the worst. The Boiler Room in Texas, that's the only one where I go, “That was too much.” But there was personal issues going on there.

But going back again, early days of it going crazy in America, I remember seeing this video, Sonny Moore, From First To Last playing a dubstep tune. Amazing, I don't give a shit what anyone says. It has one of the best riffs and it samples Aphex Twin. That was the turning point – I didn't know who he was, I never heard of Skrillex. He played it at a 12th Planet show and that was what made me watch it, because 12th Planet's a really good mate of mine. It was a big deal. I liked the record, that was all I knew about it. I didn't realise it was going to piss off so many people to be honest. It tapped into a white America – it was very much frat boys, red-cup holders, almost a generation, a side of America, unpopular kids had been given a voice via this small kid with black hair and glasses. Obviously I didn't know his history, but his fan base got on it because they loved him as the band leader.

From that moment, it was a whole new ball game. And for me, money got much better – you were going to these fucking festival shows, this was before Skrillex was doing Skrillex DJ shows or playing out. It was just more people on it, and they needed people like us to feed this. But it also meant this harder side had come in, and it was like, “Fuck, shit's gotta get harder!” Or noisier. It's mad I say this because Skrill learned everything from Noisia but the frequencies got a lot higher. For me and Beni especially, we started to write a lot more noisier stuff. Not necessarily less hard than I was writing because that was my thing. But yeah, it completely changed. That whole time's a blur because it was big rooms. You'd end up on bills with your mates a lot more – you'd be able to share these big experiences abroad.

Things like Exit festival and festivals in Belgium?

Not necessarily Exit. Me and Beni DJ'd there after Pharrell to about 30,000 people, and we played what we made at Exit. I'm talking about the EDCs, the big American ones because the impact it had on America, it didn't have in the UK at the same time. It weren't until the artists that were big there became big here that it happened. We were still cool in England, we were still alright. It just started to mutate into something it wasn't, it started to become not what we created. But what ever does? Look at jungle up until 1996 when it went drum’n’bass, then from then till 2000 when it was Twisted Individual and John B beefing on soundsystems in clubs. Everyone outside of the people that made it go “Skrillex ruined everything!” It weren't, at all. We didn't help. I didn't help. I went out and played harder and harder, to keep up with what people wanted. It was past the point of being the ambassador of the early sound – because you was playing to 6,000-7,000-8,000 people. Who want to go mental because that's how they associate the music.

The festivals I was playing, you wouldn't have seen Mala on. I got held up as the poster boy of dubstep for quite a while. I didn't think nothing of it, until the point where I said, “I'm not doing it any more.” I'd been there the whole time, stayed around longer than a lot of people, and managed to be still fairly relevant. I had to smash it when I was out. I couldn't go deep, I'd be playing a prime slot at a festival. Most of the club shows became like festival shows, big shows, 2,000,-2,500,-3,000 people. I was down for deep sets but I was never in the position to play them. Some people go “Yeah but that's what a real DJ is.” No it's not! A DJ is there to make people dance ultimately. If playing fucking mental tunes is making them dance and everyone went home having a good time, that's ultimately what your role is.

You can throw curveballs in, which I always did. I'd always make sure I played something of mine that I believed was really good – better than the ones being spotlighted. Towards the end, I'd play a deeper one, with maybe more of a tribal feeling. Skreamizm 3, with ‘Filth’ on, that was like tribal. It was like the old stuff, it used to go off. I'd have to throw it in, it was all about timing. All DJing is about timing. It just became very much about the drop. Sets got shorter as well, a standard hour, you rarely got 90 minutes any more. The fans that started to come, it was like ADHD crowds. You couldn't have anyone on too long. It was like boom, on, off. You'd hear so many 16-bar loops in a night.

And for the promoters, it was more like a sausage factory, cram it in, get as many names as possible on the bill, stack ’em high and sell ’em expensive

The thing is, how am I gonna turn down headlining a tent at Creamfields, for example. I still had a good time, I've always liked seeing people go mental. You feel like you're on top of the world. I don't ever regret any actual set or show.

It took longer for you than for most to go, “OK, I've had enough of this.” There were certain people tried to play harder and you could see they were uncomfortable with it, like Chef and Quest. Quest was obviously one of the first people to really go off and go, “I disown this.”

Yeah, but also they were never part of the same thing I was by that point. Different people was doing different circuits. The people I were playing with were the people I was hanging out with, and the people sending me tunes and who I was sending tunes. Beni was who I always looked to, we talked to each other more than we spoke to anyone else. And the last two years of that was Skream and Benga. We rarely did solo shows any more. Not counting Magnetic Man we'd only ever done one release together. As us we only did one release together and never made records together.

I guess Magnetic Man was kind of tied together at that point

Yeah. I loved doing Magnetic Man, we were allowed to be fully creative. It wouldn't work now. It wouldn't have worked a year later. It was timing. La Roux had happened – I might be biased but it was the first one that daytime Radio 1 grabbed hold of.²⁰⁵ They were backing for it to be number one which was fucking unheard of. Magnetic Man was a continuation of that. I've been able to write songs. I've always wanted to, it's a really fun process. Working with the two people who I've been closest with for years was natural and it fucking worked. It's a great album. It stands the test of time. It's a good album, good songs, we worked with some amazing songwriters. ‘I Need Air’ is fucking, it was a festival smash.