It’s slow, but it jacks. Bristol’s finest in the house
Interview : Dan Prince
Hey guys welcome to DMCWORLD. Amazing new EP which we shall come to soon, but before we delve into that…Anderson & Sheppard, Bernard Weatherill or Cad & The Dandy. If you had to choose one for a posh wedding, which one would you go for and how far walking through St Pauls do you think you’d get?
“Bearing in mind that our practical knowledge of bespoke suits is sadly minimal, I would have to go for Bernard Weatherill. Cad & The Dandy is a silly name, Anderson & Sheppard are too conceptually similar to our our name, leaving Bernard Weatherill, who has the further advantage of possibly sounding like a funk drummer from Memphis. Always sound like a funk drummer from Memphis. I think St P’s has a natural respect for sharp tailoring – you certainly see some stylish outfits at Carnival each year, so I think everything would be gravy.”
‘Black Jukebox’ swings our way on the Exploited label. The tin says an eclectic mix of house and soul. What’s your description on the release…?
“It kind of takes the established B&S sound – slow motion swagger, garage and R&B influences and so on – and tries to embellish that with some faster and heavier stuff. So as well as the 113bpm swinging vibes that people are used to, there’s our take on filter disco, and a heads down 4AM stomper in there – both of which are a bit quicker than the stuff we’ve been releasing of late. We remembered that we have the most fun when we vary things up a bit!”
DMC are of course the proprietors of the Back To Mine series. The first thing we thought of on first listen of the EP was ‘these guys would be perfect for a release’. With that in mind guys, please serve us your Behling & Simpson Back To Mine 10…
“Great series – if it wasn’t for the Everything But The Girl comp we might never have discovered Donny Hathaway. Which would be a great shame. But anyway, here are ten of our post-club favourites:
Eskmo – From The Standpoint
Neu – Isi
Isaac Hayes – Walk On By
Om Unit – Corridor
Space Dimension Controller – The Love Quadrant
Rhythm & Sound – Never Tell You
Fila Brazillia – Soft Music Under Stars
Desto – Drainpipe
Hyetal – Left
D’Angelo – Send It On
This new project began during a quiet time in the studio when you started messing around to see if you could find your own take on house, hence Behling & Simpson were born. Guys, how long are we talking about here? What did that process involve and did playing the stuff out help?
“We’re probably talking several months, really, because our other projects were still going full speed with gigs and albums and stuff too. Our first release as B&S was on Ripperton’s label Perspectiv, and it was kind of ‘normal’ chunky house, maybe a bit techie. We do really like it as a piece of music, but we felt it wasn’t really bringing anything massively original to the table perhaps. So we started trying out more different styles and tempos. We got to ‘original’ relatively quickly, but it took a while longer to come round to something that was both original and dancefloor friendly. There are plenty of old B&S tracks that were too weird and moody to release!”
Loving the ’spend 30 seconds on Google’ to discover our 100 plus tracks you suggest to journalists when asked what other names you have recorded under. That is a lot of releases! What makes this partnership work so well and are there certain areas one is better than the other in?
“I think just genuinely being good friends for such a long period of time is the key – it would be impossible to spend this much time in a windowless bunker throwing ideas around unless we actually got on pretty well. And I think because of that friendship, we’re able to avoid being too precious about things – we’re happy to hand the reigns over if needs be, or take a track in a different direction. In terms of who does what, that varies depending on the track, but Ed is possibly better at the arrangement side of things – or at least more willing to get them started, rather than staring at the blank screen with a deep sense of foreboding, which is more the Sam approach!”
When was the last time you had a big barney about music?
“Sam’s ongoing obsession with classic Gucci Mane mixtapes has caused issues at barbecues on occasion… I think in the studio, we tend not to go for the big barney, more the slow sink into depression and worthlessness. Which isn’t much fun either.”
Every artist has to do their far share of interviews. You seem to have got the ‘why is the Bristol music scene so important’ answer down to a key. So I’ll ask you this then, is today’s crop of producers the most important since the first wave of the likes of Massive Attack, Smith & Mighty and Portishead?
“No, they’re all rubbish! Obviously these things are impossible to call without the benefit of hindsight, but we can probably safely say that the likes of Bashmore, Hyetal, Kowton and Joker are going to leave a fairly sizeable footprint on British dance music. How much that crosses over to the mainstream in the way that Massive Attack did is another story, although Bashmore’s halfway there already…ask us again in a couple of years!”
Every time you are asked to big up an up and coming artist on the Bristol scene you come up with a different name. Who’s today’s choice?
“OH91 – there’s a real resurgence of interest in classic-sounding instrumental grime in Bristol at the moment, and I think Omari is on course to bring something pretty interesting to the table. Plus we share an appreciation for Herbert’s Bakery in Montpelier, through all its ups and downs.”
You were once asked to decide on a small dark club or a festival. You replied ‘you own neither so you couldn’t possibly answer’. You did say though that if you did own a festival it would be on a beach. Go on then, here’s a million quid. Pick a beach and a headline act…
“Sam’s got family in South Africa, so he’d probably fly us to a sub-tropical beach over there and get a braai on the go, get some nice boerewors sizzling away, while Stevie Wonder goes b2b with Prince in the background. Would possibly need sponsorship.”
How important are the drum generals Sneak, Derrick Carter, Inland Knights, Kerri Chandler and Sneak to you guys? What is it about their production you love?
“DJ Sneak is a don, as far as we’re concerned. We love all those guys because they recognise that it’s all about groove. At their best, those producers can pretty much write a one bar loop that you can listen to for 6 minutes; the drums bump and jostle against each other, the hats practically have a melody of their own, there’s enough interest in just the drum loop and the processing to keep you occupied. We’re both drummers anyway, so probably biased, but it’s massively important. And it’s proper dance music – as in, you play it, and people dance. An obvious point, but surprisingly easy to overlook.”
You grew up listening to music in the 90s. Did you ever leave the house half way through that decade when Radio 1 bosses finally woke up and realized there was a lot of interesting music out there and started programming cool radio?
“We were both into mountain biking, and obviously Future Music magazine couldn’t just walk itself home from the newsagent every month, so we probably missed a couple of shows. Fortunately we now have an extensive archive of One In The Jungle mixtapes, so if we ever need to check up on which venue in Ipswich that Brockie was playing on some random Saturday in 1997, it’s at our fingertips. Seriously, we’ve said it before, but late 90’s Radio 1 really does seem like a halcyon era as far as mainstream radio is concerne!”
Most deals in the music industry today are done over Skype, e mail or in colourless label offices. Your deal with Futureboogie Recordings happened down the pub. Is it true though you hadn’t heard of these guys until Julio Bashmore stepped in?
“It is! We came to the scene almost deliberately naive, if that makes any sense – we got the tunes heard by sending them to local DJs, rather than approaching labels and names. I think that worked out quite well, cos the tunes found their way to the right people organically…
What is the current top 10 you are spinning?
“Leaving out our own stuff, here’s a selection in no particular order…
Hackman – Lost From Me
Marcus Marr – Pleasure Moon
Shanti Celeste – Need Your Loving
Delroy Edwards – The Fast Lane
Pike – Good Feeling
IMYRMIND – Heavy Cruiser
Joss Moog – Drummin’ It
Lukas – Rock Right
Floorplan – Never Grow Old
Omar S – Income Tax Refund Dance
What is coming out next from Behling & Simpson?
“Well, coming up first will be the digital release of the Exploited EP, which has been shown love by everyone from Maya Jane Coles to Dark Sky. After that we’ve done a remix for Exploited, a couple of remixes of an absolute house legend that we’re proper hyped about, and later in the year another EP on a really exciting new label. Then after all that, we’d like to start working on something a bit bigger in scale – but we’re keeping our lips sealed on that one for now.”
“We’re basically frustrated junglist’s at heart”. Discuss…
“The best jungle combined breathtaking rhythmic interest with pure dancefloor sensibility and was born from, and reflects, a multicultural stylistic melting pot that couldn’t have happened anywhere but the UK. If you were going to write a manifesto for what you wanted to do within dance music, that wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”
Your DJ sets it’s fair to say settle around the 115BPM/rum and spliff vibe. What was it like that first club you entered and tried the new style? Shit yourselves?
“Yeah, pretty much! Our first gig was the launch party for our EP on Futureboogie. We were following Eats Everything who was tonking it out to a packed dancefloor at about 128BPM, and we were stood at the back planning to start with a 105BPM tune that we’d only just finished. It’s fair to say that it was a bit of a leap of faith! Fortunately the dancefloor stayed full; later that set we played our Faith Evans edit, which got the same reaction it got every gig since, and by the end it was clear that 110BPM house music could really work. Which was, and continues to be, a relief.”
Where have been some of the stand out gigs for you these last few months?
“We played on a boat in the English Channel and everyone who saw the pics assumed we’d been to Croatia… We played in York and were given home made cake during our set (so yes, we are the opposite of Steve Aoki)… And we were lucky enough to play on the big stage for Love Saves The Day on a glorious weekend in Castle Park, right in the centre of Bristol. Oh, and let’s not forget Glastonbury – still an unbelievable, amazing festival.”
What is on a Behling & Simpson rider in the summer of 2013?
“Just the usual! A few beers, maybe some gin. We’re simple souls. Who quite like lager.”
And finally, you are known for needing to explore new areas of sound, have you your eyes on the next project already?
“Er, we might do! In fact we’ve already had releases under new aliases. But we don’t want those to be distracting from the B&S stuff, so we won’t go into them here. We don’t have any intentions of stopping Behling & Simpson just yet!”
