Rewd Jazz_Hands01

Rewd Adams & The Last Skeptik

How not to make a living

Hi guys welcome to DMC Magazine tell  us about the concept behind ‘How Not To Make A Living’ your new album.

Rewd Jazz_Hands01Skeptik: Both me and Rewd have been doing music for a long, long time. The album’s title was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek ode to the fact that trying to make a living from the music game is probably not the best idea. We love doing this shit – every minute of it. We’re not out here moaning about the state of music, but I know a lot of people will relate to the albums vibe – no matter what job they do. Every song kind of reflects that mood in some way

Rewd: Yeh, like Skep said we love this shit and wanted to make something that showed our love for the game, i think that was definitely paramount in helping us choose the overall direction sound wise because its like a nod to the ukhh we grew up on.



How did you two meet?

Skeptik: Ancient history now! Haha. Rewd actually came on to my radio show when I was at university. We did a session with me djing and him rapping and remained friends since then. Just took quite a while to get an album together (about 8 years).

Rewd: He’s lying, really we met back stage at a Def Leopard gig… I was their roadie back then and in the process of looking for the drummers prosthetic arm and in came Skeptik with his one armed girl friend… He kindly lent his girls spare arm to the drummer and we’ve been friends ever since.

Skeptik: Yea. That is true. Except she had one leg and three arms. It was really weird come to think of it.

What was the recording process like?

Rewd-Jazz-Hands02

Skeptik: extensive and full of Sun Exotic juiceboxes. We just went down to Forest Hill and bugged the fuck out of our engineer Chemo until he had call the police to get us removed from the studio…

Rewd: Pretty hassle free which was a change… I’ve had some stressful processes in the past but this one was pretty smooth. For two very driven people working together creatively you’d expect to have lots of bumps and disagreements with the outcome but it was anything other.


Did you want to keep the guests on the album to a minimum on purpose? If so – why?

Skeptik: Definitely. For this project we realized we are a self contained unit of music – I make sick beats, Rewd is one of the best emcees in the country. We don’t need anyone else! For the posse cut, we were lucky enough to be blessed from guest verses from Awate, Stylah, Ramson and Little Dee who smacked it, and Mai Khalil’s wonderful vocals on a couple tracks. Also biggup Mr Thing on the cuts.

You’ve both performed extensively, what have been your best live experiences, together or separately?

Skeptik:  Recently – performing together at the DMC London heats was sick. But on my own as a DJ nothing beats being part of Africa Express – on stage with Damon Albarn, Flea, Hypnotic Brass and Tony Allen. Yup!

Rewd: Yeah man the DMC london heats was sick! I loved that show man. Umm… Solo stuff i’ve had some pretty amazing support slots with Raekwon, Guru, Styles P & Immortal Technique but my best experience of a show has probably got to be when i was a fan in the crowd while watching someone that i loved or respected on stage. I’ve been blessed to have seen some awesome shows in my time

Skeptik, you host Livin Proof which is on the up and up. Which do you prefer, Djing or hosting?

Skeptik: Very different things to me! Hosting I can get smashed and shout at all the poor bastards in the crowd. To me, I love it, but I can relax with it a bit more. Nothing beats Djing to me though – there is no single experience that competes with it in my mind.

Rewd, the topics you write about are extremely diverse, what type of song do you find easiest to write to?

Rewd: I’d say the ones where i just let it flow, mostly they would have to be songs that have been born from some kind of emotion i was feeling rather than writing for the sake of writing, you know, like in a freestyle or something.

Rewd-Jazz-Hands03The whole project is brilliantly diverse. Is this the direction you are both aiming for?

Skeptik: 100%. Onwards and upwards. It’s all about remaining malleable and creating good music full stop – irrelevant of genre.

Rewd: Growth is the key, growth and progression. Musically, spiritually, creatively. So yeh don’t expect the same from us again haha




Download the album and check out their back-catalogue: http://rewdadams.bandcamp.com/