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Ben UFO interview
Drum and Bass | Wednesday 29th February 2012 | Osh
Photo credit: Steve Braiden
We met up with the London based DJ to have a little chat about his label, Hessle Audio, and the fact he doesn’t yet produce any of his own music...
So how’s your DJ career going? Where did it start?
Yeah it’s going good, I guess I’ve only been going full-time as a DJ for the past eleven months, so it’s a gradual adjustment still. The label that I run is going well, that’s been gradual process too.
Cool, so Hessle Audio started up in Leeds when you were at uni. How long has that been running now?
We started it in 2007 and we’re up to the 19th release which just came out, a 12” by Objekt. We were actually only in Leeds for about a year but Leeds kind of formed our ideas for where we wanted to go with the label.
There’s a massive bass music scene up there so that must have really helped and had an influence?
Well when we started there wasn’t so much going on. There was a really strong history of roots and dub reggae, a real kind of soundsystem culture up there which informs everything that we do now. But, yeah, when we started the whole dubstep thing was just kicking off in London and all we really wanted to do was to try and bring some of that to Leeds. It was really all the old dubstep stuff that was our primary inspiration.
Do you think you three; Ramadanman (now Pearson Sound) and Pangaea, had a big input in making that music what it is now?
It’s difficult to say, there’s a lot of promoters up there that do really good things, and the really big guys are people like Simon Scott who runs the Subdub parties with Iration Steppas. He does the Exodus parties still as well. In terms of small scale stuff and trying to build something from the ground up, something more grass roots-y, then yeah, we were probably the first to do those kind of parties up there. There were also a lot more people involved in that than just us, but yeah, we really just wanted to try and get the music some attention in a part of England where it wasn’t that prevalent yet.
You called it dubstep back then, would you still call it that now? The kind of thing you’re doing with Hessle Audio now is a more house-y sound, you could say a lot more upbeat than all the DMZ stuff that was around back when you started?
Well despite it changing a lot, dubstep still ties into what we do. Back then all we were doing was playing records we loved, whereas now we have an investment in pushing our own thing - we’re playing a lot of music that artists on our label are making, which wasn’t something we were able to do in 2006. Obviously tempos have changed and styles have changed a little bit but there is a lot that connects the music that we’re involved with now to what we were into five years ago or six years ago. It’s all centred around the same thing.
Yeah it’s all just evolved really. Because you’re just a DJ and you haven’t released anything that you’ve produced yourself, would you say that you can transcend genres more easily?
I have thought that over the past few years I think I’ve been maybe able to adapt to changing styles and fragmented styles slightly easier than others might be able to. If you’re known for producing a certain style of music then it can be harder to branch out because the people who like what you do, they’ll be wanting you to stick with that same thing.
Yeah they might have something to say if you start changing things up too much.
It’s quite nice being in a position as a DJ to just kind of cherry pick things that I like from loads of different worlds and not really feel this pressure to live up to peoples first impressions of what I do.
Do you have any plans to start producing your own music?
Yeah it’s something I’d quite like to do at some point but it’s quite difficult to know how I’d go about it now. I’ve kind of built up a reputation of the back of doing one thing really well. To be honest I think most of the best music, especially the music I love the most, was born out of doing things without any regard for what other people might expect out of them. I think because I’m already doing something now and I’m known for doing a specific thing, it would be quite hard to get the necessary detachment.
For those who haven’t seen or heard you play, how would you describe a set of yours? Would you say it’s a mix of a bit of garage, grime, dubstep, house...?
I dunno, those are all things I play... It’s a funny one because whilst I do play a lot of different styles, I don’t consider myself a particularly eclectic DJ. I think everything I play in clubs at least, or on radio, fits together under a broad aesthetic. There’s something that connects all of the stuff I play. It’s difficult to describe. I would hope that’s there’s a line between the slower stuff that I play and the stuff that I end with in my sets, which I guess tends to be older dubstep and grime records.
Where have you been playing recently? Has it mainly been in London or around the country?
The last few years has mostly been centred around the UK but I’ve been going around Europe pretty regularly as well.
Have you got any favourite places to play in Europe?
Yeah definitely, it’s always really good going out to the German cities to play, it gives me an opportunity to play different styles and I often get to play really long sets so I can stretch them out.
Do you enjoy having longer sets?
Yeah, absolutely, you know, all I do is DJ so the longer I have to make my point, the better. I’ve been doing quite a lot of nights recently where I start the night at 10pm and play until the end which has been amazing, I’ve been able to do so much.
So you don’t get tired of it then? And the crowd obviously don’t either?
Yeah I hope not! If I was getting tired of it then that’d be a good sign to stop.
With the German cities, there’s quite a big techno base there. Has that got anything to do with why you like it?
Yeah, it’s just a different culture - there’s just a really strong culture of house and techno parties that start late and finish late. People have a different way of listening to music over there, and a different approach to playing music. I think one of the most exciting things about DJing now is how open-ended it can be, so I could play on Friday in Frankfurt or Hamburg or something and it’s a four-hour set where I can play loads of old house records and harder techno records and I may not get to play that much UK stuff, but then the next night I could come back to London or Bristol and be faced with playing alongside DJs like Jackmaster or some of the dubstep guys or something, where I’ll get to play for an hour and a half at most and still find ways to play loads of different kinds of stuff - it’s really flexible.
You recently had a release on Rinse, their sixteenth mix. Did you really enjoy doing that? It must have got your name out there quite a bit.
It was the first time I’d had my name attached to something you can buy in the shops. Even though CD sales aren’t really what they were, having something for sale as opposed to a free mix online does still mean something. It’s probably more just a way for people to say that they’ve got faith in what you’re doing, and that they appreciate it. It definitely travelled; I’ve had people all over the world comment on it.
Obviously Rinse is just a massive thing in itself and it’s only getting bigger. Did you always have an interest in Rinse anyway ‘cause they’ve gone quite mainstream but they’re still massive in the same sort of scene as you.
I definitely wouldn’t say that Rinse are a mainstream station, I mean they’re licensed now but they’re essentially still speaking to the same community they were 10 years ago.
Yeah, they’re a lot more well known now.
I’ve been affiliated with Rinse for over two years now and as far as I’m concerned, the music that I’ve been able to play on the station has just got weirder and weirder, and less well defined. The bigger Rinse have got, the more freedom I’ve had to do whatever I want.
So you think they’re going the right way about getting bigger?
Absolutely.
Cool, that’s good to hear! Being a DJ, you’re obviously getting new music all the time, what are you listening to at the moment?
Difficult to say really. The more I DJ, the more swept up I am in that and the more it affects the way I see different music. If anything, it affects the way hear dancefloor music. It’s hard to separate my personal taste from...
...What you think you should be playing?
From reactions on the dancefloor more than anything else. Yeah, it’s an interesting one. I guess the music I’ve been listening to at the moment like at home for pleasure doesn’t tend to be new for a start, and it doesn’t tend to be dancefloor either, which is maybe a little bit worrying!
Well we trust that you like dancefloor music enough to go out and play it!
There is loads of great stuff being made at the moment, there are loads of interesting producers and loads of interesting new labels. I guess the thing I’m most excited by at the moment in terms of dance music is the Trilogy Tapes label. The way Will (Bankhead) goes about running it kind of straddles the line between dance music and experimental music more generally. So for example last year he released an LP by this dude called Andrew Coltrane, complete take-no-prisoners harsh noise stuff, whereas the thing that’s up next on the label is a seven-track release by Kassem Mosse and MixMup. That’s out in the next month it’s just an incredible house record. That’s the kind of thing that interests me at the moment, these people that are able to bridge different styles and make it coherent.
You’ve got the DJing side of things and the label. How much work goes into each?
It varies all the time - we don’t have a consistent release schedule but when there is a release there’s a lot to sort out.
Are you constantly on the look-out for people or does it come to you? Do you know the kind of Hessle Audio sound that you’re looking for in artists you want to release? It appears to have quite a defined sound.
Yeah, I don’t really know what that sound is but there does seem to be one. We’ve been quite lucky so far with most of the releases we’ve had up to this point, each one has felt quite natural and easy.
Who did you say was your most recent release, was it Objekt? Is that out already?
It came out yesterday.
OK cool, it must be a really nice feeling when something’s come out on your own label.
Yeah it’s good, you get to see the physical result of quite a lot of work when that record finally lands. That’s one of the nice things about doing vinyl still.
So do you always have vinyl releases on Hessle?
Yeah always, that’s the priority.
Yeah that’s a really nice priority to have. You have a lot of Hessle Audio parties going on do you want to tell me a bit more about those?
Yeah we’ve been doing a lot more nights as a label recently. We did this European tour at the end of last year, and we hold a residency at Fabric taking over room one a few times a year. They’re always really good ‘cause we get to take control and program the full duration of the night so I get to indulge the control freak side of me!
Is it always just Hessle Audio artists that you have playing?
Pretty much. At Fabric it’s slightly different because we do them so regularly, so that tends to be slightly looser. We just bring people down that we rate, and spend time making sure that it flows right from start to finish. I have quite a strong idea of what I want out of club nights, which is to have this coherent line that connects all the sets from the beginning of the night to the end, so that when you’re on the dancefloor, no matter when you get there, you’ll be part of something that lasts and evolves right up ‘til the end of the night.
Where do you see Hessle Audio going in the future?
Hopefully we can just continue doing what we’re doing. We’ve been able to do this so far without really having to make any compromises, so hopefully that can continue. We have a really close-knit roster of artists on the label now which isn’t something we went out of our way to achieve - we’ve never told anyone that they can’t release on other labels and stuff like that, but so far everyone that we’ve put out has been up for continuing to build something with us. I guess ideally we’ll be able to do some bigger projects and hopefully continue to release material by new artists too.
Cool thank you very much Ben I hope everything goes well with it all!
Thank you very much.
Keep an eye for the video version of the interview coming up on the website soon!
Interview by Jenny Jahans
