Drum & Bass Down Under, we speak to one of the crew, Nick Robinson…
So first things first, Drum & Bass and New Zealand…not two things the British would really associate with each other – how did this happen for you?
“Well Drum & Bass has always been huge in Aotearoa. Take Christchurch for example – 300 000 people live there and they’ll get 2000 easily to a Drum & Bass gig… hey, have since the mid 90s. The kids go fucking crazy over there for it and a lot of Drum & Bass artists from the UK have told me they’ve had some of their best parties there. But in the early days for us, we were always idolising the Drum & Bass artists (and Hip Hop) coming through town, and one day we were at a Grooverider gig in Christchurch in 1999 and decided to start a band. We had an old Juno2, a Korg MS20 and Redford on drums. I still use the Korg. Its Mean as.”
What is the NZ Drum & Bass scene like? Who are cutting it up, what clubs should we head to, what DJs are the DJs filling the floors at the moment?
“The Upbeats, State of Mind, Concord Dawn, Urban Notion, Vanidis, DJ Kaps,
Liquid Rec, Bulletproof, Agent Alvin, Trei.”
So three albums under your sleeves already, ‘Soulstice’ the last one out in August which smashed charts all over the shop…’Bring Change’ a masterpiece…what has been your best achievement musically?
“Churr thank you..I think ‘Soulstice’ is our best effort to date..we really tried hard to make the album a total musical experience, an album that hopefully people would want to listen to on Friday night – and on a Sunday morning. We all went and lived in this tiny coastal town called Kaikoura in New Zealand for 4 or 5 months and just wrote and recorded the whole thing. It had it’s moments…isolation can be a strange thing. It worked musically, but we won’t do it that way again because we all went nuts. There were punch ups and walk outs and quittings and every fuckin’ drama under the sun. But that’s what brothers do, especially when your all putting a lot into it and it means something. But with us, we can have a bit of a dance (fight) and then the next morning we’ll be happy days. And that became the theme in the album.. the ups and downs in life whether it be the four seasons, day and night…or the ups and downs in us. The soul solstice. Did I smoke a spliff before this Interview ?”
What drum n’ bass DJs/producers have been inspirations to you over the years – and who have you seen recently that we should look out for?
“Definitely Andy C and GQ, Grooverider, Photek, Digital, Marcus Intelex, St Files, Klute, Calibre, Nutone, Matrix, Dilinga, Bryan G, Sonic And Silver, D-Bridge, Ray Keith, Mampi Swift, Dj Hype, Roni Size, Total Science, the list could go on! Lately I’ve been loving the odd tune here and there, Random Movement, The Upbeats, State of Mind, Trei are all making mad beats. I’m in the studio at the moment, and it’s funny, I don’t listen to as much Drum & bass when i’m writing it. I tend to thrive all other sorts of crazy music. All types. Psychedelic 70’s rock, pop music, old sample records, hip hop….”
I interviewed DJ Krust earlier today, he told me that Jungle is back, it’s
getting back to the beats – Drum n’ Bass has served it’s purpose but now
it’s Jungle time – thoughts?
“Yeah bring it on! It’s my era so I might be biased, but the jungle had the magic, then it was gone before its time. Maybe it’s time is coming again!! We did a DJ gig recently and had Jungle dropping before the Drum & Bass and it was deep as… heads down bums up! But still I love Drum & Bass and so do a shit load of people. And it won’t go away fast. An influence of Jungle is good for Drum & Bass, it just means it’ll vary more – there’ll be harder energenic Drum & Bass and Junglier Drum & Bass, the best of both worlds I suppose. New Tracks that have a Jungle influence grab my attention. It’s the rhythms, it’s so much more interesting to me then head bangin’ shit that drops every minute and it just makes me move more…”
Best ever gig you’ve rocked?
“Probably a show in 2006 where we did with an orchestra in Christchurch at The Town Hall, there were a few thousand people there and it had been sold out for a month or something, and everyone was just vibing out and screaming, we felt like rock stars for a day. We recorded it and hopefully it’ll get released eventually.”
What are the best festivals down under we should check?
“We’re putting on our own gig down in the South Island at Lake Hawea with Shapeshifter, Tiki, the Sunshine Soundsystem and Pacific Heights for about 5000 people. It’s sold out already but you should come next year. We’ll do it again. There’s always lots of folk from the United Kingdom around those parts in that time of year. There are a lot of good festivals to catch in New Zealand each summer, -‘Phat’ which has always got a a lot of big Drum & Bass names and goes for about 5 days, ‘The Rippon Festival’ which is this amazing winery on a cliff-top looking over Lake Wanaka, always a hot sunburnt booze up. ‘Splore’ is one of the best festivals set in Tapapakanga Regional Park…beautiful places, sun, swimming – New Zealand summers are filled with festivals and gigs.”
What did you make of the Grooverider situation?
“I think it’s completely fucked up and I personally will not set foot in that place again. I don’t smuggle, the airport officials wanted to make a point with a famous personality and he got time. I’ll try not to fly through Dubai which is a shame, I love the Emirates.”
What music did you listen to growing up?
“I listened to old music, old vinyls that my parents had, Pink Floyd was probably my favourite band of all back then. My older sister’s boyfriend gave me ‘Dark Side Of The Moon on vinyl and told me that if I got stoned and listened to it, I would hallucinate that I was in a spaceship hurtling through space – and I was only 10 years old so couldn’t get stoned because I didn’t know where to buy it. What he said fascinated me and I listened to it at least three times a day for a long long time. I never saw any spaceship though – even later when I did get blazed and listen to it. But I loved everything from The Sex Pistols to The Beatles. I listened to a lot of Jazz when I was quite young too, became familiar with lots of Jazz and old R&B like Luther Vandross, Marvin Gaye, and funksters like Maceo Parker. I think all five of us in the band are complete music geeks, and it was worse when I was growing up. I just listened to records and smoked tonnes of weed and spent all the money I could muster on shitty old instruments – drums, guitars, amps, trumpets and flutes. Mum and Dad sat me down for the drug talk once, “You’re quit sports, you quit your job, you’re selling all your stuff (I sold like one thing to pay for something!) – are you taking drugs?” I said “no, I’m a musician now”. I suppose I was taking drugs but that wasn’t the reasoning for all the quitting and selling of shit. Then when about 17 years old I was getting old cassette tapes off a friend that had DJ Randal from the UK on it…it was recorded off Kiss FM. It just changed my life, flipped me upside down and inside out. Jumping Jack Frost, Photek, old Aphrodite… Then there was Jungle on Christchurch Student Radio on Saturday nights with the DJ D’erb, that man is probably responsible for Shapeshifter, he’s a Londoner who had moved to Christchurch with his New Zealand wife, both of them being Hip Hop, Jungle and Drum & Bass DJs. D’erbs got rooms full of Fuckin’ every 12 ever, and each Saturday it would be class in session, ears to the radio, listening to this blend of sounds, samples and breaks, creating the perfect music of the future I thought.”
Your ‘Long White Cloud’ video was amazing, who was behind that?
“Thank you, a guy named Ash from Sydney. Yeah great animation and yeah it looks top notch. But he got Digsss to mouth the words, and P Digsss didn’t really want to because he didn’t sing it on the record, Joe Dukie from Fat Freddy’s Drop sang it. I thought 10/10 for artist brilliance and animation and general visual eye candy, but 3/10 for the singing along part of the story.”
What is next for Shapeshifter?
“We are currently in the studio working on our fourth studio album, we have our studio on the Cudgen River mouth in Northern New South Wales in Australia. It’s a tiny town. It’s all about making music, surfing, snorkelling and eating. We’ll just finish this album, see what comes out of us and see where it takes us. We’re going on tour over the New Year period in New Zealand and Australia then we’re coming back to the UK, Holland and France in May. Long term we don’t know, we’ll just keep having fun and hopefully we can get the travelling circus round to everyone who wants to come and see us and just keep having parties around the world and meeting lots of people – and spreading the positivity.”
“Churr Dan, thank you for the questions, more fun to answer then the normal stuff I get asked…”
