 
BLAME
Shaping a New Space in Drum & Bass
Words by Mikebee
& Ms.E
Images by dMarie & courtesy of Good Looking Records
What can you say about Blame? As a
teenager, he had his first Top Ten chart hit with the pre-jungle Hardcore smash
"Music Takes You"; he's had numerous releases on the OG Moving Shadow label in
its early days; collaborated on singles, an album (as Icons) and a label (Modern Urban
Jazz) with Justice; signed to Good Looking Records early on, and is responsible for a few
of the label's best moments including estabilishing his 720' label. He has always been at
the forefront of UK breakbeat music, never towing the line or content with following
everyone else.
His sound currently is pushing the
boundaries of what atmospheric drum'n'bass is and his label showcases the best producers
in the genre. Lucky for us, then, that myself along with the fabulous Ms.E caught up with
him recently backstage at a Progression Session at the Justice League in San Francisco to
bring you this interview. Without further ado....Blame.
Mikebee: So
you were hot tonight!
Blame: You enjoyed it?
M: Yeah
B: Cool, man, I had a good
night as well. Yeah I think the people really understand the music we play. We’ve
been here quite a lot. We started out here on our first tour a long time ago, now, and
have buit it up step by step. We’ve got to a stage now where the people are in the
music and we’re here playing it so it’s all good.
M :
There’s so much support support for the music right now.
E: It’s
really diverse, too, you can go out on any night of the week.
M: So much
support for drum & bass in general.
 B: You’re starting now to see now the stages of diferent
subcultures developing for themselves where you’re going to start getting more
regular clubs and the local guys working in the record shops making their music and it all
starts developing. Pretty soon labels will start coming out of it, and we’ll start
playing all the music that you guys. So I can see it all developing.
M: Between
Chris + Jason [Kaos + Method One], myself workin on my own tracks, Gabe Reals starting his
own label Tree Intent putting out some local tunes, so we’re pushing forward in a big
way.
E: The first
tour you did was, what, 3, 4 years ago?
M: The one at
VSF was like 3 years ago [For Logical Progression 1]. The one before that was Danny and
Conrad at Mission Rock follwing the free party outside at City Hall.
B: Yeah, I
was therew as well. That was a mad night, we were standing there with the cliff and the
Bay right behind us, like if we took a step back we’d end up in the water.
E: That was
the beginning of drum & bass surfacing in this city.
B: Even then, we’d come
over here and it’s like San Francisco knew what time it was with drum & bass,
from day one. I think it’s a city that clicks with the music.
M: On the
local level, no other town Stateside is as successful. You see pockets here and there, and
I’m sure you’ve seen more of it that I have, but people are trying to do stuff
in other scenes but it only gets to a certain point before it dies out. The support’s
not there.
E: We’ve
got momentum, that’s what drives it, that’s what it takes for people to get into
the groove of it.
B: Well you’ve got some
good clubs here as well so it all helps, every piece of the puzzle fits together nicely.
You’ve got the producers here, you build it up step by step and it’s just
connecting.
M: Your
music is really turning us on these days, big time. And especially the specific sound that
you are playing, the more electronic, a bit tougher -- we say it’s a little deeper. A
little more twisted and manipulated.
B: That’s kind of my
style, taking clips from life if you’d like and putting just a bit of a twisted edge
on it. Just to kind of change it up a bit. I love playing this kind of drum & bass but
I also feel there’s more you can do within it, like keeping the beats a bit more raw,
building more in the bass regions and then developing the music in a whole new way. I just
think it’s a perfect combination, myself and LTJ Bukem on the same line up. I’ll
build it up and Bukem will take it deep or vice versa. We kind of work as a unit instead
of individual Djs which is important as well. I love the music I’m getting from all
the guys as well. If I didn’t have all these artists around me I wouldn’t be
able to play the music that I’m playing, which is point number one. I’m in a
lucky position and I love the music I’m playing out which is hopefully why the people
like it as well.
"I think
people are starting to understand and see what my label’s about -- breaking
boundaries, doing something new, changing it up a bit and develop the scene that’s
allowed us to get where we have. I feel drum & bass has moved so fast, now, and
it’s kind of developed at such a phenomenal pace -- it hasn’t slowed down but
it’s settling into it’s rhythm now."
M: What
producers are you rating right now?
B: On 720 there’s guys
like Odessy who’s doing some bad tunes, some new guys called Pariah who have their
first release on the go with 720 and they just keep sending me DATs every week with some
serious music, yeah. Future Engineers have got some phat beats out at the moment,
there’s this new guy who’s been sending me some stuff called 3rd Rail who’s
going to be blowing up real soon.
M: Really? I
read somewhere that you charted his record. I’m looking forward to hearing it. I
didn’t get a chance to play it tonight but I’ll be playing it everywhere else.
E: Are you
going to be releasing him on your label?
B: Yeah, definitely. I think
people now are starting to understand and see what my label’s about -- breaking
boundaries, doing something new, changing it up a bit and develop the scene that’s
kind of allowed us to get where we have. I feel drum & bass has moved so fast, now,
and it’s kind of developed at such a phenomenal pace -- it hasn’t slowed down
but it’s settling into it’s rhythm now. I want to take it on myself to keep it
going, keep the momentum going, keep developing. It’s changed so fast, it’s just
so exciting to think of what could happen in the future with the music. You never know
what’s going to happen and that’s the beauty of what we’re doing.
What’s it going to happen in a year, two years, who knows? You could never do that
with any other music. That’s what I love about it, that’s what drives me on. The
unknown.
M: Seba, the
stuff he played for us when he was out here.
B: Seba’s the man.
Seba’s got a new release coming out on 720, a track called Predator.
M: What is up
next for 720, you got the album...
B: I just mixed an album
called Two Revolutions which will be a double mix album. The first mix is 11 brand new
tracks that you can’t get on any other album or release or anything and the second CD
is a back catalogue mix of the previously released 720 twelves. I had the idea for doing
the album even before I started the label. I wanted to do an album Two Revolutions which
obviously links in with the name of 720 degrees -- a pregression of the old stuff and the
brand new, future present, so people can see the progression over the years, hwere it came
from and where it’s going. I wnat to show how this kind of music evolves over time
which I think this album has captured quite well.
M: So
it’s a double CD?
B: Yes, a double CD, also out
of 6-track vinyl. And the new tracks that aren’t on the vinyl will be released over
the next few months on 12". So there is a lot of fresh material about to surface for
720. I’ve really plowed a lot of my time and energy into the label over the last 6
months to get the release schedule up to scratch, to get the albums lined up. So now
it’s time for me now that this is in place to kick back and get into the studio which
I haven’t truned on for about a month. And that’s my main love but I
haven’t been able to work in it which frustrates me a little bit. You’ve got the
other things, you’ve got to promote the music and go around the world playing it,
you’ve got to have a strong label. Music’s my number one love but you need all
the pieces of the puzzle to be right.
"We were
taking breakbeats from hip hop records and speeding them up a touch and putting these
synthesised sound on top. It was minds thinking alike at a certain time in a certain place
that sparked an energy going, yeah, and it built up and evolved into a small scene."
M:
You’ve got to do your bizness man, you’ve got it goin on. Seriously. Do you you
always work with Odysey in the studio to make your tracks?
B: I work alone like 99% of
the track. Odyssey is like an amazing sound engineer, he’s been trained in
frequencies that I haven’t even heard of. He’s gone through the kind of proper
schooling in sound production. So I make a track and in the last couple of days I’ll
get him in and say, right, what do you think of this? I think this sound right here could
be Eqd a bit better, we can get this sound sitting in the track a bit better. He’d
go, of yeah, a bit more of this and a bit less of that. So he doesn’t change the
track, he just changes the sound slowly and everything fits into place with it.
That’s a connection that’s really beneficial for my music.
M: Having
worked so closely together, what do you think are the primary differences between your
music?
B: Odyssey’s a lot more
soulful. His words are he likes to make music that makes people smile, makes people happy
and all that. But as far as I’m concerend, I like to make music that twists the
mainframe you know, that changes the whole thing up. It might paint an image of a future
where you think, ‘Something’s not right there.’ But that’s the world
we live in, you know? I’m more of a realist in that sense. Odyssey is looking for the
perfect music, I’m looking for the imperfect.
M: You had a
really big hit early on, Music Takes You. Did you make a lot of money off of that?
B: Yeah, I did. But I
was very young. That whole incident when I made that track, I was working at the time, I
had just left school like in a matter of two weeks. I got a job and was like, ‘Right,
first bit of money I get I’m going to play in the studio.’ Went to the studio
where I met Odyssey, he was actually the engineer there. I was like 17, he was like 19. I
got in there, I made this track, and Odyssey was like, ‘What the hell are you
doing?’ I was like, ‘Naw, naw, I’ve just got these ideas.’ He
couldn’t understand what I was doing, I don’t think anyone could, I probably
didn’t know myself! I got all these sounds together, I just sent a couple of tapes
out and before I knew it, it was the #1 dance
record in England, it was #1 in the national dance charts, it was in the Top 40. I was
just out of school, I was seventeed, I had made that track in like four hours! I was
thinkin, this is all too easy! It’s not that easy nowadays, beleive me. I signed the
track to Moving Shadow, the track was big all over the country, I couldn’t beleive
it. A couple of months later I started getting checks for it and lets just say every night
of the week I was going out to the nightclubs with all my friends, staying out all night,
getting drunk, enjoying ourselves, living life on the edge. About a month later I looked
at my bank balance and there was nothing there, nothing left. I sat down and I sat back, I
came back down to earth and thought, ‘I’ve just wasted this period of time’
I build something up and blew it all, but I’m so glad I did that at a young age.
Becasue now, when you’ve get something good going on you sit down and think,
"Yeah, I have a something good happening here but I know where my feet are at.’
You’ve got to keep your feet on the ground. You can’t go thinkin that becasue
you’ve made track and that’s it, you’ve made it in life. It’s about
consistency, it’s about keeping the momentum. Longevity, basically. Keepin things
rolling. I’m glad I learned that lesson then and not now becasue I might not be
sitting here if that was the case. It was good fun at the time and I look back on a
learning curve, but I wouln’t be doing it now.
M: How did
you get into hardcore? Was it kind of the time.
B: I got into it for the same
reason as everyone else in London at that particular time. I grew up listening to electro
and hip hop, and you’d start to hear some kind of house influence starting to come
in, these mad futuristic sounds of these synthesisers and you were thinkin, ‘What
were those sounds?’ What I was doing, I thought I was the only one doing it, but
there were probably like 20, 30 other people doing it as well -- taking breakbeats from
hip hop records and speeding them up a touch and putting these synthesised sound on top.
It was minds thinking alike at a certain time in a certain place that sparked an energy
going, yeah, and it built up and evolved into a small scene. It just kept growing and
before you knew it, it was a huge culture in England. That’s grown and developed and
that’s why we’re here now.
M: You
working for Moving Shadow for so long, why did you quit?
B: I wouldn’t say I
quit, I’d say more I moved on. It’s like a job, you’re working in a company
and you feel after 5, 6 years you’re starting to become part of the furniture.
You’ve just got to change it up so you kind of free yourself a bit and go for
something new. I kind of got to a level I could get to with Moving Shadow, I had some good
releases with them, but I felt that my music wasn’t progressing as fast as it could
be and I knew that Good Looking was the label that wanted to release my music. They said
they could take it further and put a lot into it. they were talking to me in a way that I
thought about my music. There was a real connection there that was right, there was a
chemistry that I thought, ‘Yeah, I’m going to go for this,’ and I
haven’t looked back since.
Blame’s
new album compilation Two Revolutions is out now on Good Looking. |
