Roni Size & Bryan Gee feature – ATM 2005

Roni Size & Bryan Gee feature – Published as cover feature in ATM Magazine, 2005

This is the full length version of a q&a session I did with Roni Size and Bryan Gee, ahead of Roni’s ‘Return To V’ album release. A shorter, edited version of the q&a was published as the cover feature in ATM Magazine.

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Return of the prodigal son

There are defining moments in music that change the way you perceive it. In dnb these moments can be few and far between but they stay in your mind for years after. The first time Marky hit these windy shores, the Latin invasion that followed, the arrival of Ozzy trio Pendulum on the scene, the recent return of Photek to the frontline are just some of these moments. More recently one of dnb’s leading names has returned to his starting ground, joining forces again with one dnb’s leading ambassadors and labels. The names? Roni Size and Bryan Gee of course, and the album is none other than the prodigal Return To V, Roni’s fifth album outing. So what better way to celebrate this triumphant return than by cornering both Roni and Bryan and quizzing them on their origins and the soon to be most famous return in dnb history. It’s been ten years in the making…

How did you two meet and how did you start working together?
Bryan Gee: We met a long time ago, ten, twelve years ago now. And that was through me linking his music, and setting up V Recordings through that after he’d sent me some music. Originally though we met through tapes basically.
Roni Size: What happened was I was sending my tunes to these guys up in Bath, and they used to work at Rhythm King, which was where Bryan used to work. And basically they was giving him the tunes, and they were going round in this circle. And as a DJ, we were following Bryan, and Frost and Mickey and Ratpack, Topboss. This name kept on coming up, Bryan Gee, all the time and eventually we hooked up.
B: Yeah I got the tapes from Absolute, who were in Bath at the time. I mean what’s happened to them now? But yeah they were on a more garage, soulful kind of tip and so they gave me this tape by a couple of their mates from Bristol. I listened to them and at the time it was like Hardcore, Jungle had just started and the Ibiza thing was blowing and Jungle had stared coming through so it was early days still for the UK producers to develop their own sound. And when I listened to the tapes, with my background, coming from reggae, I could feel where Roni was coming from and I could hear things that I really liked you know? It had a lover’s rock kind of vibe, reggae vibe. But with the jungle approach and I was like yeah! I wanted to find out who he was, because that’s what I’m like, I’ve got love for music and I follow new music and I went down there and met him and he turned up with Krust and we went round someone’s yard just to listen to music and we got to know each other. Nothing really happened straight away, first we got to know each other, vibe with each other and we made a good contact and then we pushed them a bit more, because we knew their music was gonna go somewhere and people were starting to pay attention. They just continued making music, all the time, and sending it down to me and it was inevitable that we would start a label after this. At the same time though they were doing stuff down in Bristol. And I think around the same time they started talking about setting up Full Cycle.
R: We was working with a label called WTP, in London you had Spiral tribe and in Bristol you had Circus Warp. So you had these two massive rave scenes going on. The London version, Spiral Tribe, was the real heavy techno and Bristol was more hippified. And the guy who ran Circus Warp, a guy called Chris, he basically started a label called WTP, Where The Party, and we put out our first tune on that. The first tune was some ragga/jungle tune called ‘Wicked Dem Rule’
B: That was a wicked tune!
R: So between trying to put a record out and trying to understand what we were doing, we gave a copy to Bryan and started getting feedback. He would come back and say this is what you need to do to it. So we would go back in the studio and try and adapt to the vibe and so eventually we had a bunch of records out that they were cutting and playing out.
B: I was even cutting them from tapes at the time!
R: And giving em to people like Trace and Ray Keith, Bukem, and loads more. But it was just good to get feedback on our stuff from all these guys. So we just kept making tunes, not even thinking about putting them out really. We weren’t bothered about that, we were still learning. We’d make them and put them on the shelves and it wasn’t until Bryan came down and we sat down and he was like I want to put a label together called Vinyl Experience. And we spoke about it and got to know each other as friends really well before that which is why it happened really. We used to come up to London and we’d go to Bryan’s yard straight away and then we always used to go to Music House and Bryan kind of introduced us to everyone on the scene you know?
B: It was exciting times you know? We was all young heads at the time too! No one knew where it was it going at the time. We was young, it was exciting. Even for me setting up V Recordings, or Vinyl Experience as it was called, but that was a mouthful so we cut it down to V. But at the time it was just something so I could play records, it wasn’t even like anything else. It’s not like we thought we could make some money or anything. It was about ‘let’s just get this record out so we can play it and maybe get some people to get hold of it’. And it was fun, there was no pressure. There was no rules and it was a good time you know?

Jumping a bit forward, ten, twelve years down the line did you ever see yourselves where you are now?
R: I didn’t for one second!
B: No
R: But every year, every time something happened, that’s what was really exciting you know? It was like putting out V001, Krust’s Deceiver’s EP, and getting the artwork back and checking the records. And we used to put four tracks on one record and that used to affect the sound, and we learned to get the sound better. We were learning constantly even when we started releasing tracks on V. It wasn’t until we had one track that everyone was playing
B: I’d say that was ‘Music Box’.
R: No, I think it was ‘It’s A Jazz Thing’. For me personally, it was the one tune everyone was playing.
B: They came at the same time still.
R: People picked up Jazz Thing, guys like you and Frost, and people like Gilles Peterson, people outside the scene as well, which was what made it so important for me.
B: But I think ‘Music Box’ really for me set the Roni size thing. Because it caught everyone. Jazz Thing was a bit deeper I think, it was more different. But ‘Music Box’, when it came out it was like whoa!
R: ‘Music Box’ was by Die and myself. We sat down and spoke about what we was trying to do. Back in the day for me Jungle was this disoriented beats that didn’t gel together and Die kept on bugging me saying put the snare on the one, put it on the one. And we put it on the one and that’s how we got into that little vibe. And I think it was at that time that people started changing the name as well. It switched to dnb.
B: Yeah it went through that phase. When there was what people said was trouble and Jungle had a bad rep which garage kind of took on later on in the 90s. Jungle kind of reinvented itself and that’s the beauty of it that we can go different places with it and come back to where we started. And it was a good thing to happen because it made all the producers go to different places and experiment and made this thing broader and more wide open. I think it was a good thing to happen for sure.
R: I think that what people like Bukem was doing, people like Peshay and WaxDoctor, they started to really put a musical element in the music which was good.

You got credited for that too.
R: Yeah I feel more like I was a part of the machine man. That’s the way I look at it. I think what it is was that we all used to go to Music House and everyone there used to say ‘yeah it’s ragga’ or ‘yeah this week it’s hip hop vocals’. People used to talk about what it was and everyone sampling the same stuff and talking about it. And that’s what made it what it was. Whereas now, no one is in the same room as everyone else anymore. We’re all online, but being at Music House you didn’t have a choice but to chat to Kane and Mickey and Groove and everyone had to talk you know?
B: It was different back then.
R: And sometimes it was ugly and sometimes it was really creative as well. And I think that’s how the music changed so much over those years. It was all because of Music House. It was like its own forum, it was a forum.
B: Definitely! And you also got to meet people and that was important as well. So that things could develop, because everyone might have had their camps and all that but it’s not just about that. Music House made people integrate and bounce ideas off each other. Just learn as well, because what I didn’t know about the scene the next person might tell me about it. Everyone was doing different things and you have to remember we all came into this young and there was no rules or nothing so a lot of people came into this very inexperienced, a lot of people just wanted to make music and didn’t know the business side of things, nuff things people didn’t know about. Even now people are still learning. But it was good.
R: It was the hunger, that was the hunger. You knew you’d go to Music House and cut ten plates and do five gigs in that weekend and you knew that at the end of that gig you’d know what your tunes would sound like, what worked and what didn’t, what the crowd was having, what they weren’t having. What you had to work, people would get back to you the following week and you could tell when a tune was hot because every DJ you went to went to pure X, everybody played that tune the same day. Same thing as now really but the personal touch back then was what made it. Nowadays I don’t see a lot of the scene because simply there isn’t a common place where everyone goes to share the music. In a club you can go to it but you can’t really talk to someone in there, it’s just too loud these days.
B: The only time I really get to hang out with anyone nowadays is when I go abroad and we’re on a plane together. It’s the only time you really get to hang out with people and chat and cut shop. In the plane or in the hotel.
R: The last person I saw was Zinc.
B: That is worrying because we’re in times now where everyone wants everything right now, fast, no one’s got time to go to Music House or places like that. People want to send things down the line because it’s quicker. It’s easier and quicker but you’re losing the personal, human touch.
R: I don’t think we’re losing it, because you could never recreate it. Because I still chat to people online, when we first went online it was a bit weird but now everyone’s got used to it in a sense. Now when it’s necessary you can go online and chat to people and catch up.
B: At the same time being online is beneficial as well because it enables me to cut shop with people from around the world. It’s got its advantages whereas before it was like, let me put it this way before when I played tracks everyone’s records in my set were my friends’. Back in the days. People I knew really good. But now half of my set is from people I’ve never seen before in my life, just all over the world, something just popped through my AIM or whatever. So it’s good, because it’s opened up the door it’s made it easier for people out there to get in, you know? Because if you wasn’t part of the Music House click you wasn’t part of it at all.
R: In Music House when you heard a foreign voice it stood out!
B: Yeah you’d be like ‘what you doing here?’
R: Or you’d see someone sleeping in a corner, and you’d be like ‘why’s my man sleeping on the chair like that?’, because he’s jetlagged, they would come straight in and fall asleep, waiting twelve hours for their cut.
B: What was funny too was that everything was on Music House dubplates and they used to have their own sticker…
R: And everyone thought it was a record label didn’t they!
B: Yeah that’s it, people around the world thought it was a record label because all the DJs were playing Music House stickers! That’s how strong it was.
R: What’s this record label called Music House? We should start a label called Music House you know?
B: We should have done that!
R: Yeah we should have done it.
B: We would have sold nuff units. Yeah I saw Roni and Andy C play that, I’m gonna buy that tune! That’s a bad label you know! It’s all good you know what I mean?
R: The thing was, me and Krust would get up in the morning, get our gyros and come straight up on the bus and straight into London, hit six or seven shops and a few stalls. So you’d have Lucky Spin, Section Five, you’d have Horris down in Camden, Blackmarket and there would be a couple of shops on Oxford St.
B: Mash.
R: Mash. There was so many different shops you could go to and each shop you would see different people. On a Friday especially you would see all these people all over the place going for the promos. We’d stop in Reading as well.
B: The word would be out that something is on tp and everybody would be going from shop to shop.
R: and you’d see everyone, so it was like a maze back in the days. And the one thing now is I don’t think there are as many shops as there used to be.
B: No man. It’s definitely slowed down.
R: Everyone standing in the room was there for the same reason. It didn’t feel like you were standing upstairs in Blackmarket waiting for a jungle tune, and a couple of people would be waiting for a House tune. It was just all jungle in that shop. Especially when you had Music House and Lucky Spin just up the road, everyone would be fending for the promos.
B: We used to be waiting at Horris’ market stall for the next guy to come with a box of records. You’d be waiting hours because you knew this guy was coming with this box of records…
R: And it was cold as well.
B: Those were the fun things about it.
R: I can honestly say, I wasn’t there at the beginning but I was fortunate to be able to experience some of the things and the characters who were dedicated to this music way before I even knew about it. These people like Horris, all these names we’re talking about, like my man who I still see around today, he was like his bodyguard, they were shouting our tunes, and you could hear them saying ‘brand new Roni Size, brand new Dillinja’, you could hear them in the market shouting out the tunes. And that was a part of it.
B: Yeah a very important part of it.
R: And during that you were tuning in to Kool FM, dialing in Kool FM all the time.
B: Yeah there was no 1xtra. To know what was going on you had pirate radio.
R: And maybe Lightning.
B: Yeah but it was more Kool.
R: Yeah you’d hear all the tunes on that. You’d hear fifteen, twenty tunes on there. It wasn’t until me and Krust started hearing our tunes on there that we were like ‘wicked!’
B: Yeah when I had a show on Kool it was legendary and that was partly a lot to do with Full Cycle and the freshness that you guys were bringing in at the time. The Full Cycle sound was fresh! And we put it out on Kool FM, and everyone listened to that, DJs, producers, everyone I don’t care who they were, they would listen to that show because it was so important because of the music that was coming through at the time, you get what I’m saying? So it was a really good exciting time.
R: And me and Krust used to go round Bryan’s and drop the bags on the floor and keep on the sofa, always arguing about who would keep on the sofa! Sometimes you’d end up on the floor, cold on the floor. Back in the days! Wicked! And that’s what it was, stamina, endurance. Get up in the morning, nine, ten and back on the road again.

So with this new LP, with the theme of you returning to where you first started and all that, did you plan it? How long was it in the works for? Did you know you’d go back to Bryan one day and say we’re gonna do another V LP?
R: I think more importantly, I don’t think it felt like I was gonna go anywhere else. It wasn’t until I was somewhere else that I realized that it’s been great, we’ve had a blast, we traveled the world, we had a great journey, being all over the place. We were lucky to be a part of what happened with Talking Loud and Reprazent, but it’s not until you come right back and you start to actually reflect on things, look at all your press, your photographs, you can settle down and think ‘yeah this feels right.’ I was always going to put an album out on V, even before I put an LP on Talking Loud I knew I’d put one out on V, the only reason I got a deal with Talking Loud is because of the music I was putting out on V. It was as simple as that.

It was always an integral part of who you were

R: Yeah. It was like a blessing as well. It might be the word of the moment, blessing, but at the time Bryan had been offered a deal with Talking Loud to do an album and we thought of what to do and he said ‘you know guys this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity’ so we all tried to do it and do it correct.
B: Personally I think that was the right move. The experience and everything else that we picked up and learnt from it, we managed to bring back to V, to Full Cycle, and to his peeps.
R: Going with Talking Loud and XL, and touring the world, because we did a lot of tours together and we always made sure we carried V and Full Cycle with us. They were never, ever left aside. But it got to a point where it was so hard to keep things rolling together because each time we took a step forward with Reprazent, our labels took a few step behind. Until the gap got bigger and bigger until we thought ‘we’ll go with it now and learn as much as we can’. Because you know that when you go to a major that’s limited time man. Unless you sell pop records and you’re willing to compromise your sound. So we always knew there was gonna be a point where we’d come back to Bristol or to London and focus on the music and our labels. For me putting out this record is a testament to that. I would love to have done a third Reprazent album because we had so much support out there. It was getting bigger, we almost put the flag in the mountaintop but we fell short and had to go back and start again. And that is why for me Return to V is about trying to find who I am. Because when you travel to Brazil, to Japan it’s gonna influence your music. People will come up to you and sing the lyrics to all your songs in a foreign language and if you don’t let that affect your music then you shouldn’t be doing this. Meeting people like Zach De La Rocha and Rhazel was great and we’ve got a lot of friends abroad now.

You did spread the sound a lot
R: We just did our bit man. Everyone’s done their bit for the music.

With all the vocalists on this LP it kind of links back to what you were doing with Reprazent and how you brought the music to more people by having this vocal element.
R: I look at it now and I’m not sure how these people would have found out about our music otherwise.
B: That’s right.
R: If there was something that really adopted what we were doing and carried on that torch then yeah. But there is not really much there. When we went to America, and Japan and Brazil we didn’t go there to do what they were doing already. We didn’t go to the States to make Hip Hop. We went to America and we took Meth and Red and put them on Jungle. We put Zach and Rhazel on Jungle, everyone we worked with we went on Jungle and Drum n Bass. We didn’t put them on Rock or Hip Hop. I think that’s the only way we could have done it anyway. I think that was the way that people clicked onto it.

Bryan did you have any say on the LP or were you happy to let Roni do his thing?
B: Well what happened is that the LP changed right (laughs). Two years ago it must have been, we sat down and Roni kept doing track after track and every now and again we’d say ‘Yeah this one, this one’. But the album was more of a long player, club cuts and DJ cuts, instrumentals, rollers, that type of thing. Which to me at the time was a good album. But now I look at it just as a long player or tracks on their own. I don’t know what happened but personally I think it’s when he went to Jamaica. That’s when I think he changed, that’s how I look at it, because before you went to Jamaica you said to me ‘master the album’.
R: It’s true, it’s true.
B: And it was practically finished. But I didn’t master it and you went to Jamaica and someone told me about the vibe you got there working with certain people and just the vibe in general. You came back and you was like ‘Nah, vocals’ and you just had a different outlook with what you wanted to do with the album and I left you with that and it just came together how we wanted to, you know? With more vocals and more of an album feel really. Certain tracks, which you had already, that were for other projects ended up getting used.
R: I was working on three or four different projects at one time, but they weren’t really full on projects more like guidelines. There was one thing called Movie with No Name and I was working on the Hard Soul, but the thing is I was just searching for vibes. And what I did is I took two or three different vibes from each tune and started to piece them together. When I went to Jamaica I was listening to the album and the rest of my stuff and also getting people to listen to it, and I found it hard to play them instrumentals because I could see they were waiting for vocals.
B: That’s what I thought.
R: And that’s when I thought ‘I can’t put this record out.’ Because there are people in higher places who won’t get it they’ll need a bit more. So I thought ‘what am I waiting for? I need to put out my best music which is on my computer right now!’ That’s it. That’s my philosophy for life now. I will put out my best music, I don’t care wherever it goes. I will go to my computer, take out my best tunes that are finished (laughs) because I’ve got to chat with Victor Duplaix about this track, which is bad and this tune is not finished. He kills me man, the man kills me.
B: So yeah the album changed. There was a few vocal things and he added more vocals. When I’m in the car with friends it’s one of those albums where as each track comes on everyone can sing. Whereas before it was different, and even with most dnb albums I don’t get that vibe because either there isn’t enough vocals or whatever, but this album gives me that vibe. Everyone’s got their little sing-along. And that’s the beauty of it.
R: The only time you and me can sing is in the car!
B: It’s such a feel good vibe. You’ve got legends on there like Jocelyn Brown from my House days, from my days as a DJ. She was a diva back then, like Lolita Holloway, and to know that I’m running a label and she is on one of the tracks it’s just wicked! That’s too much.
R: It’s only recently since I started talking about the album that I realize what it is to me as well. I call it my ark, where I’ve taken two of everything. Two soul vibes with Beverley and Jocelyn, but it’s one from my past and one from my future. And then like Sweety Irie is a bit of my past and Wilks is a bit of my future. For me there is almost two of everything. Darrison, Rodney, Fallacy and it’s like my Noah’s ark. Vikter is part of my future, Sweet Pea is part of my future and there’s people on there that have influenced me, and I’ve tried to fill the gaps. So it’s like my Noah’s ark a little you know?

Was the first version of the new album done before Touching Down, because that was an all-instrumental LP?
B: No Touching Down was first.
R: Touching Down was at a moment where I had all these tracks and I just wanted to put an album out to say thank you to all the DJs, all the producers that have supported me. And it was also essential to generate some income for the label. When we came back from tour with Reprazent we looked at the label and we thought ‘ok we need to do something sharp, quick’ to be able to do other things and keep the label going. And the thing is it sold 60, 70 thousand effortlessly just like that. And it’s still selling. And it was unintentional. Some things you can’t force because people can sense you’re trying to force it, but you get a wish list and sometimes you get your wish. So now I do everything as naturally as I can and I don’t try to force it. I think V is doing that as well, a lot of the music they’re putting out at the moment is naturally building another sound.
B: That’s always what I’ve been about and there is a lot of good music around these days. My input is just to give people the label as a platform to come through and ambassador as a DJ. Doing what I can do.

And how’s the label running for you both?
B: Yeah I’m happy at the moment. With the new LP is definitely injecting a lot of interest back into V and all that. It’s good to have Roni back too, because he hasn’t been on the label since Planet V, and V has always been about the Full Cycle sound, that’s how it was born, so that’s special to me, really special. At the same time Liquid V is going well and it’s exciting times. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do, is push new music you know?
R: I’ve always been adamant when I went away to Talking Loud and the other labels, it was always to learn about how to survive financially and I think even now we’re still trying to adopt the ways of the majors and how they work in that sense. Like the live shows, we have the tour bus, we do videos and so we try to emulate the majors in the way we try to push the label. Trying to make sure the foundations are solid. What we have right now is a loyal team, people like Andy and Simon, Karl, Gerard, Becky, we’ve had a lot of people along the way who helped make the foundations of the label strong, because if your foundations are weak it’s gonna collapse. And this year alone, distribution companies, record labels, DJs and producers have all just disappeared. And we don’t want to go that way. The way we see it at the moment, is that the fact that we’re still up there and people are still buying our records is a good thing.

And do you involve yourselves with the labels?
B: Yeah all the time man. I’m full on with V. Thing with V is we’re still a small operation you know. Since the time we started running it’s always been 3, 4 people that really run V. We got the artists coming in and doing stuff for us but we’re still a small operation.

Happy to do it that way?
B: Well that’s just the way it is at the moment you know?
R: I think we’d all love to expand. We want V towers, Full Cycle towers! There is a lot that we want to do and this is why this album is really important because this album’s success will help us take shit to the next level. We have plans to do a lot of stuff but if there is ever a time we need support from our people it’s now. All those people who wear the t-shirts and got their tattoos and those that come out on the rainy Tuesday nights, well we kind of need your support right now more than ever because like I said labels are falling. And this is their cue. Without asking too much.
B: Buy the album and support it, because it’s easy to copy or download it.
R: It’s not like the financial drive that says go out and buy this record, it’s just asking for people to stay loyal to their support of us. I know some people who may come to see one of our shows and they’ll bring their records, sometimes 5-6 of them, and ask us to sign them. I meet those people and so I know that they’re out there, and that’s who I’m talking about. I think back in the days I was all about trying to turn heads, when I was at Talking Loud it really was like that in a way, but not now I’m not bothered about that anymore, I don’t want to switch people on. Maybe as a DJ Bryan is because that’s where he’s at, but as a producer all I’m trying to do is stay loyal to myself as a producer. Not trying to adopt any newcomers to this game.

The live work you started a while back, what was it that attracted you to that originally? Especially with a music like Jungle and DnB which is a producer’s music.
R: The first thing was seeing Goldie at Glastonbury on the main stage and I was so in awe! And thought ‘that’s the shit!’ Live drum n bass on the fucking main stage at Glastonbury that was incredible for me. That was one of the first things that brought me to it, the second thing was reading a lot of the negative press where everyone in the press was saying this music is bedroom DJ music, it’s never going to come out of that. And the third thing was the pressure of being involved with a major and having finished your album they turn around to you and say ‘when we going live then?’ And I was speechless, nothing came out. It was like spaghetti letters. And that challenge I rose to, you give me a challenge and I’ll rise to it. I won’t eat snails or slugs but I’ll rise to a challenge. Once I sat down with Krust and Die and the others and we all started to work out how we were going to do this, once we worked it out we took the A-Dat away but that took fifty shows! Fifty before we took it away. Because we were figuring out how to do it, and it was on our first tour. Our first show was at Universe and every show since until the one last week has always involved a certain amount of learning and adapting and fixing things. Now when people ask me that question I do say that it’s all because nothing sounds as big and powerful live, no other music. Heavy metal, we crush them. We sound big and the energy we give out I love it. For me it’s always been about trying to get the sound right, and in the studio you can get the sound right a certain way and vinyl always sounds great but live man, it never sounds the same twice.

It’s a challenge for any artist, especially a producer, to be able to play their music live.
R: And for me to make a record with Beverley Knight and then for her to come on stage and sing it, that’s wicked! I’ve had that experience as well with Rhazel, Zack and Bahamadia, you know?
B: In New York innit!
R: Really what I’d like to do is a MTV Special with all the artists from the album so people can actually see. The problem we’ve got at the moment is that people can’t see it, can’t see what we do. They can hear it, you could play me Juju all day but I can’t see him. I can’t see dnb, I can hear it and I want people to see it to help its understanding. We’re using Tali and we’ve got three beautiful girls on stage, and I wanna see more beautiful girls on stage, you know? Don’t quote me but I’m tired of looking at man!
B: It’s true, for years we’ve been saying dnb is faceless…
R: I’m tired man!
B: And we need to have a face, it’s time. And this album can help with that, help put a little face on it. It’s got big names jumping out at you.
R: What I could do now with this record, I could invite a lot of these people. We’re doing Jools Holland next week, I’ll take Beverley and Jocelyn with me if I can. If someone says to me dreams come true I’d be like ‘you’re fucking right!’ The question is now about live, it’s so important because it’s one of the main ways in which we’ll get people to take this music seriously today. Not the only way, but probably the best.
B: It’s a different way to get to it, it’s more visual, it’s good.
R: Much more visual.

And how do you both see the scene today, with ten plus years behind you?
B: It’s good out there, I ain’t complaining. There are new scenes, new territories I’m going to where people are really into the music. The whole thing, they’re into everything, it’s growing and I’m happy with the scene. I got no complaints with it, personally I think that TV, Radio and stuff could pick up on it a bit more but I think that’s down to us as well to inject a bit more to give them. Maybe show or play on radio a bit more, put more vocals into the music, which is happening, do more videos. But I’m happy in general.
R: I think the way it works in the music industry in general is that most people have to buy into the artists, they want the t-shirt, the dvd, the first, second, third albums, the live album, the greatest hits… And that’s what we don’t have in our scene. We have so many producers and DJs, great ones, good people, presenters, peeps like Fabs and Groove, radio people, but we don’t have any real artists, we’ve got three or four artists maybe. And to me an artist is when you can start to have a catalogue of their accomplishments. And I think someone to me who’s growing and really making a difference is High Contrast. Already he’s come in so late in his career, and he’s on his second album, already I’m excited about the third one because I know as an artist I can start connecting the dots from the first to second to third album. This scene needs to breed artists. People need to take risks and put the album out. I found my first and second Shy FX LPs the other day and it made me think about it. Every scene has artists, House etc…
B: That’s why Garage grew so big and popular because it came with artists. The production might not have been all that on some of them but they had artists.
R: Can’t wait to get Goldie’s third album, can’t wait for Dillinja’s solo and their next LP. The last artist I really got into was probably a hip hop artist, probably Eminem for fuck’s sake!
B: And that’s a problem.
R: I want to have my box CD set of Andy C! I want all the Nightlife CDs and whatever but I want Andy C 1 the album, 2 etc… Because that’s me. I want my Peshay albums, my Bukem albums, I want those and I’m waiting. And I’m their biggest fan and that’s why I say this and why I came from Bristol to London. And that’s the reason why I make albums. People can go and buy all the albums.
B: They can buy into it.
R: Absolutely!

Someone like Dynamite is an example, with his work with all different genres, across the board.
R: And he’s already halfway through his second LP! It’s exciting, when you look at his first one knowing another one is coming. My shelf is starting to get heavier already. It’s all about the artists, for me the scene right now needs this to happen. I’m waiting for Groove’s second album.
B: The thing is dnb is getting its own artists as well like vocalists, like Tali, Jenna G, the MCs. Before we used to sample a lot and now that’s stopped a lot. Everyone’s taking chances, all producers are bringing in friends to chat or spit on some tracks and it gives the whole thing a different feel already. When you have a good tune now you can go all the way with it, you don’t have to worry about finding samples, clearing them and all that shit. It’s all good for the music. It’s slowly but surely going in the right direction, maybe not as fast as we’d want it, but I think sometimes it’s good to be slow and build it properly rather than a quick fix solution and a crash later on.
R: Now that we’ve done this I think we’ve got to keep the momentum, we’re doing this and that and we need to keep the momentum going. Keep people interested.
B: You have to also because there are so many other things going on elsewhere with other genres that if your stuff is exciting people will want to come back and not go look somewhere else.

And what about the global aspect of the scene and how it’s expanded in the last few years. Do you feel that it’s been a long time coming the way in which the music is getting back to the UK and influencing people here?
B: Yeah thing is up until a few years ago everything I got from abroad was wack! Most things I got from abroad was not on it at all, it’s only in the last few years I’m getting quality stuff from abroad, which is all good as far as I’m concerned. As a DJ in my set now, 3/4 of it is from people I don’t even know. Good music is coming from everywhere, it’s good and the influence from music coming from everywhere is great too. Because it’d be boring if the music had stayed a UK thing with only UK people doing it. Dkay, Marky, Pendulum all these people are bringing good things to the scene.

I was thinking about it in the sense that you’ve both helped bring foreigners into this as well, Marky and Tali for example.
B: Yeah totally, look at how much doors bringing Marky over here has opened. And people bounce off that so it’s all good.

And you Roni, you said earlier that you took influences from going to Tokyo and other places.
R: Yeah absolutely, what you come to realise is that this music may have started on the underground and now it’s become a worldwide music. I do a lot of interviews in places that I can’t even pronounce the names. And they always ask me if I think this music is underground, and it’s hard for me to say because it’s so widespread but I’ve been to people’s houses in New Zealand and listen to what they do on their computers and they might not be putting it out, but they’ll be playing it out and about and they’ll use didgeridoos, and whatever their native sounds are. And that’s classic Marky, what was astonishing is how people in England started using the Brazilian sounds, and that to me was a testament to the music and how it’s traveled from one place to the next. How people that I know who were making ragga jungle are now making Latin jungle! And that goes back to the beginning thing of people going to Music House and talking about what they were doing with each other, you know this week is amen break, etc…
B: I mean right now I’ve got Brazilians making ragga! (laughs) And I’m like what!? They’re getting influenced and it’s all good.
R: For me, the way I draw from my influences is that I draw from eras. So maybe in ten years time right I’ll draw from the 98-01 dnb set. And maybe in ten years I’ll do a Latin dnb project to reflect what was happening in 01. I use funk from the 70s or the 60s or the 80s, I like to draw from eras, I don’t necessarily take a sound and go that’s it. I kind of take a ten years span and use them. Return to V is embracing the whole picture and the last three decades in terms of influence. I need to be inspired now by this decade just gone and in ten years but the 2000 decade. I’ll be listening to LK and be like ‘ok, I was using acoustic guitars way before that!!’ (laughs)
B: You know that!
R: I’ll put my one up there.

Any plans for the future you wanna let people know about?
R: Yeah we’ve got a lot of downtempo stuff coming out soon. What’s happened is that a lot of the people we’ve taken on board over the last few years are people that like jungle but don’t wanna make jungle. They like hip hop but don’t wanna make hip hop. They chat lyrics, but not in a hip hop or garage way. But they wanna dance in one way to the drums and another way to the bass. And that’s the kind of people we’ve got making music for us now, so we’ve got kids making music that is doing that (slow) but with the bass doing that (fast) and the lyrics coming out are street lyrics but it’s shit that I didn’t know about. I’m 35 and they’re 20, so we got a lot of downtempo stuff man, some people might call it grime, but to me grime is something that is still coming out of London. The people I’m talking about…
B: What like Dizzee Rascal and that lot?
R: I wouldn’t say Dizzee, but I’ll say Davinche, I’ll drop a name on you. Davinche, you wanna know about a producer then check him. Pirate session on 1xtra. So in the way you’ve got this thing going on in London, you’ve got kids in Bristol listening to Full Cycle, and some people say Full Cycle has got cheesy basslines, but it’s all about how you listen to it and on proper speakers the bassline isn’t cheesy. You’ve got those kids listening to our blines but putting slow beats to them and they’ve got their own little slang, from Bristol. Did you get that CD I gave you, there was stuff on there did you listen to it?
B: Yeah there was some different stuff on there.
R: That’s what I’m talking about.
B: Ok let me get back to that CD. I thought it was the wrong CD! (laughs)
R: See!
B: I thought this ain’t the right CD, because it’s not like what I’d normally expect.
R: Thank you! You’re saying all the right things bruv! It’s different and there is a lot of it. The first time, second time you might not get it because it’s new. I’m a little bit nervous about letting it off at the moment but it’ll come out. It’s not me doing it though, all I’m doing is offering the platform. People have come to me because they’ve been directly influenced by Full Cycle, jungle and the Bristol thing you know? And that’s what it is. They hear the basslines and you go ‘it sounds a bit like Krust’ and we turn to them and tell them to go and do their thing. Some of these guys are wicked. So that’s the future man, future anthems.