Pascal-Playaz Interview
We caught up with the drum and bass main man for a chat about his Playaz label, clubbing and what’s coming up in the near future with his crew.
You’ve been in the game for a long time, how did the whole players start out?
I started making music and released it myself. Then I hooked up with Hype, back in the day and always supplied him with my tunes blah blah blah. Started my own label for a while, the ins and outs of it. He wanted to start a label, i.e. Ganja Records and he basically asked me if I could run it for him, which I did. He was getting good success with that and he started putting some tunes on Ganja and obviously the infamous ‘Super Sharp Shooter’ came out and it got to the point where I was doing my label, Frontline, and he was running Kev’s his label, Ganja, and we thought why don’t we just join up. So we had the idea to join up and start a new label, True Playaz, and Zinc at the time was on fire and we said look this guy has got bangers maybe we should bring him on it as well. And that’s pretty much what happened, the three of us decided to start up True Playaz Music.
Then the rest is history...
Well yeah, a lot of history, it’s no longer True Playaz anymore its RealPlayaz now. Yeah, I mean it’s slightly changed.
Now it’s you and Hype?
That’s right yeah. I mean Zinc started his own label and he kind of...you know everything sort of drifted apart. It got to the point where it wasn’t viable working like that any more. We just thought everyone should make the break.
Playaz at Fabric is such a big night and has had such long term success. Why do you think that is?
I don’t know really. We’ve been there, I think, 11 years soon and then we did 6 years at The End prior to that. We’re the longest running drum and bass night by far, I honestly don’t know. I would hope that it’s because we’ve got a good brand, a good following. We have good DJs, we change the DJs every month, obviously we have a core of DJs that play every month but we have a lot of guests as well. Obviously, there’s the success that surrounds Fabric anyhow. They do an amazing job down there and they have good nights anyhow. It think its an accumulation of both things really, both brands getting together.
It is always so rammed in there!
I wouldn’t want it any other way. That’s the lovely thing about Fabric, people really do want to go there and have a good time, it’s great. From my point of view, it’s lovely to see that and come out at 3 or 4 o’ clock in the morning and there’s still a queue. I’ve been doing it there for 11 years and it still amazes me.
P Funk Era is such a classic track. Where did the inspiration come from to make it?
Oh God, that was me lying at home on my bed listening to Fabio on Radio 1 one night and he played a Doc Spock tune, I can’t remember what it was. It was late at night, I was living with my mum back then, and it was a case of it just inspired me, right then and there to jump up, turn my computer on, put my headphones on and bash it out and I did it that evening. Then I sent it out, starting sending it to everybody, giving it to people in the next following days.
Are you gonna get back in the studio?
I would love to. I’m going to upgrade my computer to all the latest software. I’m going to go back in and make music for myself because I want to make music, not because I want to release it and make money. I want to get hobbies back to back, when it turns into a job all your creativity and everything goes out the window almost, you find yourself having to paint by numbers to please everybody and I don’t want to fall back into that again.
Are there any new releases or signings we should be looking out for?
Next month Original Sin’s got a six track EP coming, which is a good package. We’ve got another EP following that, which is The Flavours EP Volume two which is four different artists, four different styles of tracks which is following up volume one that we did a few months back which got really good reviews, it’s just a really broad spectrum of d‘n’b from a spectrum of players. Then we’ve got an EP from Sub Zero and then there’s talk about an album early next year, a hype album of some sorts, I’m not sure what.
If you had a swimming pool filled with anything, what would it be?
Water.
Water? Really, out of everything?!
Jelly. I’d love to dive into jelly.
What flavour?
Strawberry.
If you were invisible for the day, what trouble would you get up to?
Ah these are hard! I’d get into trouble answering that! Actually what would I do, I’d probably get somebody I don’t particularly like, a DJ, and just get in the box and mess about. Lift the needle up quickly and put it down, pull gains down, pull plugs out, little things like that. Just to screw with his head.
What’s next for Playaz?
New releases, obviously Playaz night at the end of the month, also we have new t-shirts out on the website, planning albums, Hype’s album for next year. That’s probably going to be our major project. Talk of other albums as well, from Hazard and Original Sin’s even working on an album. We’ve been talking about these albums for ages now, they were supposed to be out this year but hopefully they’ll be out in the near future. It looks like we’re going to be launching our Playaz night again nationwide soon. So that’s something I’ve been dying to do for a long time, its just been a nightmare to arrange but it looks like its back on the cards.
Will that be from next year?
Yeah it will be early next year, we’re still planning areas and venues. It will be regular events every three months at certain venues. I’m looking forward to that, they were good times when we used to do Playaz nights.
You can catch the Playaz crew at Fabric on 25th November! Keep up to date at www.realplayaz.co.uk
You’ve been in the game for a long time, how did the whole players start out?
I started making music and released it myself. Then I hooked up with Hype, back in the day and always supplied him with my tunes blah blah blah. Started my own label for a while, the ins and outs of it. He wanted to start a label, i.e. Ganja Records and he basically asked me if I could run it for him, which I did. He was getting good success with that and he started putting some tunes on Ganja and obviously the infamous ‘Super Sharp Shooter’ came out and it got to the point where I was doing my label, Frontline, and he was running Kev’s his label, Ganja, and we thought why don’t we just join up. So we had the idea to join up and start a new label, True Playaz, and Zinc at the time was on fire and we said look this guy has got bangers maybe we should bring him on it as well. And that’s pretty much what happened, the three of us decided to start up True Playaz Music.
Then the rest is history...
Well yeah, a lot of history, it’s no longer True Playaz anymore its RealPlayaz now. Yeah, I mean it’s slightly changed.
Now it’s you and Hype?
That’s right yeah. I mean Zinc started his own label and he kind of...you know everything sort of drifted apart. It got to the point where it wasn’t viable working like that any more. We just thought everyone should make the break.
Playaz at Fabric is such a big night and has had such long term success. Why do you think that is?
I don’t know really. We’ve been there, I think, 11 years soon and then we did 6 years at The End prior to that. We’re the longest running drum and bass night by far, I honestly don’t know. I would hope that it’s because we’ve got a good brand, a good following. We have good DJs, we change the DJs every month, obviously we have a core of DJs that play every month but we have a lot of guests as well. Obviously, there’s the success that surrounds Fabric anyhow. They do an amazing job down there and they have good nights anyhow. It think its an accumulation of both things really, both brands getting together.
It is always so rammed in there!
I wouldn’t want it any other way. That’s the lovely thing about Fabric, people really do want to go there and have a good time, it’s great. From my point of view, it’s lovely to see that and come out at 3 or 4 o’ clock in the morning and there’s still a queue. I’ve been doing it there for 11 years and it still amazes me.
P Funk Era is such a classic track. Where did the inspiration come from to make it?
Oh God, that was me lying at home on my bed listening to Fabio on Radio 1 one night and he played a Doc Spock tune, I can’t remember what it was. It was late at night, I was living with my mum back then, and it was a case of it just inspired me, right then and there to jump up, turn my computer on, put my headphones on and bash it out and I did it that evening. Then I sent it out, starting sending it to everybody, giving it to people in the next following days.
Are you gonna get back in the studio?
I would love to. I’m going to upgrade my computer to all the latest software. I’m going to go back in and make music for myself because I want to make music, not because I want to release it and make money. I want to get hobbies back to back, when it turns into a job all your creativity and everything goes out the window almost, you find yourself having to paint by numbers to please everybody and I don’t want to fall back into that again.
Are there any new releases or signings we should be looking out for?
Next month Original Sin’s got a six track EP coming, which is a good package. We’ve got another EP following that, which is The Flavours EP Volume two which is four different artists, four different styles of tracks which is following up volume one that we did a few months back which got really good reviews, it’s just a really broad spectrum of d‘n’b from a spectrum of players. Then we’ve got an EP from Sub Zero and then there’s talk about an album early next year, a hype album of some sorts, I’m not sure what.
If you had a swimming pool filled with anything, what would it be?
Water.
Water? Really, out of everything?!
Jelly. I’d love to dive into jelly.
What flavour?
Strawberry.
If you were invisible for the day, what trouble would you get up to?
Ah these are hard! I’d get into trouble answering that! Actually what would I do, I’d probably get somebody I don’t particularly like, a DJ, and just get in the box and mess about. Lift the needle up quickly and put it down, pull gains down, pull plugs out, little things like that. Just to screw with his head.
What’s next for Playaz?
New releases, obviously Playaz night at the end of the month, also we have new t-shirts out on the website, planning albums, Hype’s album for next year. That’s probably going to be our major project. Talk of other albums as well, from Hazard and Original Sin’s even working on an album. We’ve been talking about these albums for ages now, they were supposed to be out this year but hopefully they’ll be out in the near future. It looks like we’re going to be launching our Playaz night again nationwide soon. So that’s something I’ve been dying to do for a long time, its just been a nightmare to arrange but it looks like its back on the cards.
Will that be from next year?
Yeah it will be early next year, we’re still planning areas and venues. It will be regular events every three months at certain venues. I’m looking forward to that, they were good times when we used to do Playaz nights.
You can catch the Playaz crew at Fabric on 25th November! Keep up to date at www.realplayaz.co.uk
