The Drum & Bass superstars ruling the world in 2015
Interview by Dan Prince
Dan, Chris welcome to DMCWORLD…where in the world are you right now?
We’re both at home thankfully!
What was the first piece of music you heard this morning after rolling out of bed?
Flipped on the radio to hear ‘Can’t Do Without You’ by Caribou, which was nice!
When I told Buzz Chart supremo Guy Garret that I was interviewing DC Breaks today he screamed across the office “fucking love DC Breaks, they own the world right now!” Thoughts on that little comment?
Haha! Well, we don’t know about that! But it’s always great to hear encouraging noises like that – we’ve had a super busy summer across festivals so we must be doing something right!
Two explosive tracks doing the business right now, let’s kick off with the deadly ‘Sidewinder’. Talk us through the sound/production and history of the track…
It came about really quickly, like all the best ideas we do – Chris knocked up most of it from his studio actually, Dan did the arrangement, and we both got stuck in on the production. We switched up the drums sounds on this one to some new kits we had made recently, and had a couple of new synths to try out which is where the lead sounds come from. It was good to use some new sounds and change up our style a little bit, whilst keeping to the epic intro thing that we like to do from time to time.
Another RAM release that is also chart bound comes in the form of ‘Breathe’…again, talk us through this piece of magic….
We wanted to try and go down a slightly more organic route in terms of instrumentation and vocals, to steer clear of throwaway lyrics and make sure any vocals we were going to use had a real voice, something distinctive. Dan was doing a load of writing sessions with various artists, some of whom will be featuring on the album, and had Dave Gibson (who features on the track) in for a few days last year. Dave just has a voice, its his own and you can tell its him on anything he sings – that was exactly what we were looking for. Dave really writes from the heart as well, and sets himself super high standards, to make sure there’s nothing washy in there lyrically or melodically. From coming up with the piano riff to laying down the vocals, again it just happened really quickly, and kinda wrote itself. And again it was nice to branch out a bit sonically from the filthy baselines we’ve become well known for.
A quote from you guys from a while back…”When you’re very busy you have to focus most of the time and you don’t really notice so much what’s happening around you, but it’s great to look up every now and then and take stock of what you’ve achieved.” So guys, take a look around, what are you chuffed about from 2015?
Well I think out tour schedule has really gone to the next level this year (props to Tom at GRAM agency!), we’ve played to huge crowds across the planet, from New Zealand to UK, and that’s where you really feel you’ve accomplished something, that’s when it becomes real. You work hard in the studio all week and then when you’re on stage performing all that work is then fed back to you in the form of atmosphere and energy.
What are the big tunes in your box this weekend…
We’re working up a cheeky Remix of ‘Breathe’ so that’s kinda being road tested at the moment! We thought we would flip the script and go very energetic and a lot harder, to feature the vocal in a more epic setting.
Really feeling a lot of new stuff on Blackout Recs at the moment, particularly ‘Executed’ by Segment & Concept Vision – as the name suggest its not taking any prisoners and reflects the brand of techy, dark high quality energetic production Blackout is known for. Some of the synth programming is genius, big fans.
Noisia and The Upbeats’ ‘Omnivore’ was our fave track off their recent EP on Vision, I’m sure everyone knows this by now! A really wonky smasher of a track but with super tight drum programming. Mixes brilliant with a ton of other stuff we’re playing in a similar groove.
And of course ‘Sidewinder’! Gotta play your latest track right?! We tend to open with it…
A massive gig coming up at The Steelyard in London on October 23rd…looking forward to this little beauty?
Obviously! It’s always good to see the Ram Fam and have a few laughs! Plus we don’t play in London nearly as much these days, so it’s something of a rarity, and really looking forward to playing a new venue as well, have only heard great things so far!
Your highlight of Bestival 2015?
That was just a great show, amazing energy! – we dunno, there was a lot going on! Maybe seeing Jungle on the main stage though, big fans of their sound.
Your anthem of the summer?
Oooooh…. DC Breaks – ‘If This Is Love’ ?!
You are always on the lookout for samples, what though has been one or two that you’ve grabbed and said to each other, ‘can’t believe we’re going to make this cool’…?
This certainly used to be true and we have in the past landed on a couple of samples that turned out to be amazing, but these days we definitely try and make everything original. Occasionally a sample will be the original inspiration for an idea, but then we’d either replace everything with new instrumentation, or the tune would take on a whole new vibe.
An up and coming producer to watch out for in 2016?
Hmmmm…guess there’s a few, Ownglow, Bensley, Segment & Concept Vision as mentioned above – one thing is for sure there is no shortage of new guys coming through the ranks!
When was the last time you had a big argument about music?
Haha! That was a while ago! It used to be fairly common to have disagreements when working up new ideas together, Chris wants it to go in one direction and changes everything Dan has done thus far, Dan gets in a sulk etc etc! So these days we do a lot of work separately, particularly coming up with initial ideas. It’s only when there’s a lot of finishing work to do that we jump in the studio together and get things done – and sometimes that can lead to great things.
And finally, what is coming next from you guys studio wise?
Album is forthcoming, but there’s a lot of ground work to do on the other side of the fence, so we’re taking it slow on that front. Having said that it could be out in two months lol! You never know.
www.dcbreaks.com
www.ramrecords.com
