DJ Zinc feature – Published in ATM, 2004

Faster, Faster, Zinc, Kill, Kill!!

“If this album didn’t even come out, I have had so much fun and I have learnt so much from doing it that I’m happy.” This sentence seems to sum up perfectly the state of mind DJ Zinc is in, since finishing his new album. Over 3 years in the making, the LP ‘Faster’ is a welcome surprise from one of D&B’s most prolific and influential producers. He seems very relaxed and happy about it, sitting in the sun discussing the trials and tribulations that have brought him to release an album on a subsidiary of Polydor, P Records, which is the label that signed Ms Dynamite and shot her to fame. But rest assured that Zinc has no intention of selling out, as he explains his main motivation for releasing an LP outside of Playaz and his own Bingo imprint: “I said to myself ‘what do I want to achieve by putting this album out?’ My bottom line aim all along was to try and get the music to as many people as possible.” Let’s rewind back a few years to what started as a seemingly innocent favour for a friend of his.

As Zinc explains, the ‘Faster’ LP started as a side project of his, back in 2000. By then he was already an established DJ and producer on the scene, as well as having his own label, Bingo Beats, launched on the success of the ‘138 Trek’ track. “I’m doing D&B and that’s wicked and I’m doing breakbeat and that’s wicked as well, and I thought to myself ‘I like doing both of those so why don’t I do something a bit different to put on the b side of the D&B?’” And as the tracks were growing more and taking shape he realised that there was no scene where this music could be played, but he was enjoying making it nonetheless. After doing 5 or 6 tracks that were non-D&B and non-breakbeat, but with elements of both in them, he put them together on a CD for friend of his. “After putting them on the CD I noticed that I’d put them in tempo order. And I just thought ‘f$*k it! Why not make this the actual thing of the album rather than something that I happen to have done’, and by that point half of the album was already done. So it was just a matter of filling in the gaps.”

And so from then on the concept only needed a bit of refining. “I did six little instrumental numbers, and what I really thought it would end up like is a little CD you put on when you are having a bbq, a little summery thing. Some nice chilled kind of stuff, so I started doing that and then naturally I do more dancefloor stuff, even when I try and do chilled stuff I just can’t help it. So it started getting more dancefloor orientated.” And the next thing that was to happen was for the label to propose to add some vocalists to the project. And at this point Zinc thought “who is going to want to put a vocal on one of my tunes? Fu*$ing no one!” But even though he thought it impossible he managed to get MC Dynamite interested after letting him hear some tracks, and they both sat in the studio to work on the 1st vocal track of the album. As Zinc recalls: “The track that he voiced was meant to be an instrumental at first, but where he wanted to voice it I was like ‘that’s cool’. So he came in the studio, and he was like ‘so you’re gonna have to make a chorus bit here’, you know I had no idea what I was doing. We’re sitting in his studio with an engineer, this big, fat studio, with a massive mixing desk and I’m sitting there like I have no idea what I’m doing. So he helped me with the structure of the track, which was really helpful.”

Having never worked with vocalists, getting the vocal tracks for this album together was a whole new experience for Zinc. “Once I started getting into the vocal thing I couldn’t get enough, it was a totally new thing for me, I had no idea what I was doing but I was really interested in learning.” And it turned out ok in the end with 6 full vocal tracks out of a 16 track LP. Another vocalist on the LP is Slaughter John, who got hooked up by the label. He had done some work with Basement Jaxx before and again Zinc recalls: “when I had to send him some stuff to listen to I thought ‘he’s never going to want to do it’, it turns out he knew about me through D&B which was flattering but I still thought he’d never do it. And he picked a tune out that he liked, and he went and smacked it!” The other vocals come courtesy of a female vocalist from NY that was also signed to the label.

And so what started as a little weird project for some b sides, turned out to become one of the biggest experiences of his life as well as being a really good showcase of just how talented Zinc really is. “I’ve tried to incorporate the D&B into this album, but ultimately this album is something that happened naturally. I didn’t think to myself 3 years ago that I want to do this. This is totally a natural progression of my work.” And it sounds like it as well. Listening to it after the interview, it really sinks in that this is a totally different experience to any of the other DJ Zinc material. But at the same time it retains the same punch and energy that a whole generation of heads have come to expect from the True Playa. There is something for everyone on there, from the slow Hip-Hop influenced intro, to more House influenced beats and total chill out vibes. His breakbeat and D&B styles are also there, with one full on dancefloor number and the original version of ‘Fair Fight’, which was originally written for this album in 2000, before being retouched for the D&B massive.

But the one thing that really plays on his mind as he explains how the whole thing came together is how the LP will be received, especially by the D&B community. He knows that it can be hard for a lot of young people who have followed him and his work for years to fully understand what he is trying to do with this album. As he explains: “I’m not going to stop doing what I enjoy the most which is playing and producing D&B. So I think that the kids who are into D&B, when they hear my album they will be a bit disappointed. I think they would hope that if I sit down to make a 16 track album it will all be out and out D&B. So when they get an album with 2 D&B tracks on it they will be disappointed. There are positive ways to look at it, but I think that generally the people who are into D&B might buy the 12” with the D&B track on it, but I think they’ll be thinking “what is he doing? Is he trying to make money?” But there are also enough people out there who are into the music and who can understand and appreciate that someone like him is doing something a bit different. Already some of the more down tempo tracks from the album have been picked out by both Gilles Peterson and LTJ Bukem, something that makes Zinc feel really proud, “to me getting Bukem to play your tune, you don’t get much more recognition.”

When talking to him, one thing that really strikes you is how modest and down to earth he really is. For a man responsible for so many anthems, you can really tell he loves what is doing. He doesn’t need to boast as he is fully aware that getting Hype, Andy C and Grooverider to champion your records is one of the highest forms of recognition any producer can get. “The big DJs have got their status from years of playing records and being good selectors. And to me when they choose to select my stuff, that is a big recognition. I’m not saying I’ve conquered it and all that, but I’m lucky to have had the success that I have had.”

Producing D&B is still the biggest thing in his life, “I’ve enjoyed doing the other stuff, but D&B is really my first love. I will continue to produce at different tempos, but D&B has the best tempo. It’s a wicked speed to produce at. I have really enjoyed doing all the other stuff for this album, from 90bpm all the way to the top.”

So what is next for Zinc? Firstly a Dopeskillz EP on True Playaz, coming out in September, described by the man as “all standard Zinc material”. Also Bingo Beats is not to be forgotten. The label has enjoyed steady success since its beginnings, something Zinc is keen to continue improving upon. He will be releasing a couple of D&B 12”s on Bingo as well as Zed Bias offering his take on a D&B 12”, out by the end of the year. He is really happy about the new Playaz website: “I’m really proud of our website, people are always on the forum and it’s a nice interface with the punters. You can have some nice exchange with the fans; it’s a good platform for communication.” There should also be a new True Playaz 4 Real album out early next year, with contributions from all the people on the label.

There will be a remix of Ska coming out soon, following the recent dub he did with Fearless on the vocals. As he explains the vocal version was made for Fabric, as a little special thing, but he doesn’t want to release it without first refining it a bit more. “I don’t want to be cheeky and get people to pay for a remix that is only slightly different to the original. So I went back in, changed it a bit more, added a new break, I try to be conscious not to take the piss out of the buyers you know. If people love it so much and spend their money on it, it’s not fair to go ‘here’s a remix with 2 different notes’”. There is also the possibility of a track with Ms Dynamite, following the success of his Freenote dub. It has been a good year for Zinc, and he is very excited about going back to work on more D&B projects following the ‘Faster’ detour. As he tells me at the end of the interview, he feels as strongly about the music as he did when he first got into it years ago, and he really enjoys its recent successes. “5 years ago we were some weird people making underground music and now we are respected as being part of an established genre of music. D&B is now a worldwide force, and we own it. And it’s a force because we own it and not some majors.” The future is bright, the future is Faster…

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written by Laurent