I started making music when I was 16 or 17 – in the beginning it was experimenting with trying to make house and electro. Then I heard a High Contrast remix of a Kanye West tune and was really blown away by it – from that day I only made drum & bass.
How did the DJing develop – did you start making music first then start to DJ?
I started off making music then started DJing because people really wanted to hear my music live, so that’s the reason why I started really. It was the tunes first, then the DJing.
You remixed a pop song yourself when you did the Miike Snow mix. How did that come about?
Their record label contacted Hype after I had a couple of singles on Liq-Weed Ganja and they approached me to do a remix: I did it and they liked it! It was a big shock – I’d only just heard of Miike Snow like a week before, so it was a big coincidence really.
Was it from that point that things started to go crazy?
Yeah, but the biggest day for me was being signed to Hospital Records – that really was the day that everything started to change. I’d been sending tunes to them for about a year. They always had really good feedback for me – ‘we like that’, ‘we don’t like that’… In December they started hitting me up because they wanted tunes for Sick Music, their compilation CD. Then just a week after signed the track to the compilation, they said they wanted to talk with me in London about maybe signing me. Then two days after signing I played at my first Hospitality party,
What is it about Hospital Records that made it the label you aspired to?
I think the most important thing about the music on Hospital is that it has that extra factor, a funk factor. It’s got a lot of soul and funk influences in the tunes, songs with great build ups and I love the High Contrast and Logistics tunes – that’s really what’s done it for me.
Hospital also has its Med School off-shoot, which focuses more on experimental electronic music and dubstep – are those areas you’ve thought about dabbling in yourself?
I’m really into dubstep – I’ve made a dubstep tune for my album too. I’m really into a lot of electronic music: I try to be influenced by other genres and listen to lots of other music. I think electronic music at the moment is just really exciting – it’s becoming really complicated and deep, with good productions and nice techniques.
After Miike Snow have you got other big remixes coming up, and have you thought much about possible collaborations and people you’d like to work with?
I’ve been working on my album really hard and didn’t really have time to do many remixes – I hope I get some more time now to do some. I’ve done one for a band called Chew Lips which should be out now. I’m also going to be working in the studio with some other artists soon, but I can’t really talk about that yet.
Was there much of a drum & bass scene where you live in Belgium that you got involved in, or did you have to travel to go and find parties?
It’s nothing compared to England, but it’s getting much better. I live in Antwerp in the north part of Belgium – there’s two really good promoters there putting on a lot of parties and getting in really good acts.
This will be your first Hospitality at matter – have you heard much about the events before?
Yeah, I really can’t wait to see matter, everybody’s talking about how it’s the best club in the world! I think I’m playing in Room 1 so I can’t wait to play on the big system. I’ve been playing out the stuff from my album to see how it works on the dancefloor, so I’m gonna try and do something really special for my set."
info: http://www.breakbeat.co.uk/news/1304201 ... ew_qa.aspx
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