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Posted: 03/02/2001
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"One of the brightest hopes for dance music in the next millennium" Mixmag (UK)
JIVE: When you first started producing, what do you think your influences were and why did you go into drum and bass rather than other forms of electronic music?
Dan: Well, we grew up with the hardcore sounds and drum and bass music. When we were young, our older friends were playing it. We really got into it. Once you start listening to drum and bass or hardcore you get addicted to it. So you just keep listening to it and it captures you.
JIVE: Who were your influences?
Mick: Prodigy.
Dan: Yeah Prodigy. That was like way back in the day, the early hardcore.
Mick: the "House Crew." [laughs]
Dan: yeah, "House Crew."[laughing]
Dan: Who else? Andy C. The fist time I went out I was like 14 years old I went out to a club and Andy C was playing. At that time he just made like ''31 seconds'' and he like smashed it up that night when we went out and that was always a big influence over the last few years.
JIVE: What's your opinion on the availability of mp3s on the net? Have you had any run-ins. Do you think it's a positive or negative influence on the recording industry?
Dan: Well, we think basically the Napster/mp3 thing is going to die and that once Napster is declared illegal, the record companies are going to set up a team of people to search the internet for pirating sites. It's not something we agree or disagree with but I think that's what's going to happen. To be quite honest at the moment because Napster is going on we can't do anything about it and we don't hold grudges against people who download our tracks.
We had an incident with our newest album where some guy had a promotional copy uploaded on Napster and 7000 people downloaded it on the first week and that's undeniably going to impact the sales of our album. It's because we're trying to make a living out of this so we can take it seriously and put all our effort into it. It's hard enough as it is.
At the end of the day, once intellectual property like music or art becomes valueless, it's going to be a big problem for our society and in particularly for London which has a large music economy.
Mick: Yeah it could crumble the whole music economy worldwide if people get their music for free. People won't become big superstars on television. It will pretty much ruin everything created over the years.
JIVE: What do you think of the US drum and bass scene and do you see it maturing to the same level of acceptance as the UK?
Dan: We just set up a message board called www.dogsonacid.com and it's part of BCRecordings.com and it's basically a portal for up and coming producers to put up links up to their mp3's and their tracks and we try to listen to them and give everyone feedback. Now gradually other people from other labels are going there to listen. It's through a whole lot of people in the underground and it's been very suprising to see how much talent is going on in the states. I mean it's obvious that there must be because there are so many people, but we never seem to hear anything that's that good and in the last 2 months since we set up the message board we've heard 20 fold what we've heard up until then in terms of talent and it's really raised our expectations for the states.
Mick: It seems like the states scene has been growing over the last 3 or 4 years and it seems healthy and striving. The kids seem up for it.
JIVE: Where do you see your place as far as the experimentation and evolution of the sound of drum and bass? The sound of drum and bass seems to constantly change, almost drastically from one year to the next, from, say, jump up to the popularity of tech step and now Neurofunk. Where do you think you want to take the sound?
Dan: That seems what drum and bass has always been about.
Drum and bass has always been a really progressive music. It progresses slowly when you're involved in it but from the outside looking over the progression it's really changed over the years. Like if you listen to tracks from like 92 to 94 they're totally different from 94 to 96 they're different. From now to 98 they're different. So it's just a progressional thing that producers experiment with new equipment and new techniques and anything to get that new sound. That's the struggle with drum and bass. A lot of music like house and techno use the same formulas.
Mick: Yeah they're just trying to make money. It's like they find a commercial formula.
Dan: The one thing with drum and bass is that nobody is making that much money. So people have to slow down to being into it for the right reasons and trying to further what they're doing as far as music, like going into it for yourself.
Mick: It's not about the money. Because if it was about the money it'd be house or speed garage or pop music, which is a hell of a lot easier to produce than drum and bass. So yeah that's basically what it's all about like the progressive mood and the push of technology.
JIVE: Speaking of equipment and technology, do you see anything that really excites you or that you are already using in your production?
Mick: Yeah…networked studio environments.
Dan: We have this new digital mixing desk, which is a Mac DBA digital. It has all the verbs and effects and compression, etc. all inside this one piece of equipment.
JIVE: Is it small and something mobile?
Dan: For what it does, it is a lot smaller than all the bits and pieces that you would have needed before to make the same thing. We know a couple of other people who have the same desk and there are ways of sending the mix through the internet to another desk so that it spins into place. Then you have Logic Audio that connects over the internet, also, so that two people can work on the same tune and be totally in sync. Our studio has been very much developed or designed for four people, which a lot of the time is a problem so we have to try and make technology work for us so we can work together on a networked environment. We always have to be on the edge of what's going on and trying to find newer solutions for our problem which is there being so many people in the studio at one time.
Mick: There are a lot bigger more expensive studios that are a lot less complicated than ours. Our studio has about six or seven computers in it and you are just surrounded by monitors and computers. We have loads of equipment.
JIVE: As far as your productions, why do you decide not release a good amount of your tunes?
Dan: Well, Bad Company has always been about quality. That logo has always meant to stand for something and the only way we can reinforce what it stands for is by associating it with something that is strong. So out of maybe every twenty tunes that we do, we might only release ten of them.
This is why dub plates are very important to us. We play mostly our own stuff.
Mick: We'll test out new tunes and things that are going down will stay in our set. Things that are just going all right will get pushed to one side.
Dan: This is how we figure out our releases…so we know they will work. We think there is enough crap already in drum and bass without our releasing some more shit.
JIVE: About the track Breathe, it is a smashing dance tune, which has a very futuristic sound. How did you end up hooking up with Sage to produce the track? Whose idea was it to put together such incredible vocals?
Dan: It was God's idea [grins]. We know the UFO guys from San Francisco and Sage is a good friend of ours. She was down the studio from us when we were making Breathe so we needed someone to lay down the vocals for us. She just happened to be there, but at first, she was like "No I can't sing!" We told her "Yes you can!" [laughing]. We put a mic in her face and we had all been drinking [laughs] and so we got these vocals from her. That is what happened with Breathe.
JIVE: So you were really pleased with the final outcome of that?
Dan: Yeah, it was cool.
Mick: But…not really.
[Dan and Mick laugh]
Dan: We are ever the perfectionists. We are never happy. I mean, it's all about the tune that is not finished yet.
Mick: It's all about the mix too.
JIVE: Will we being seeing more collaborating with US artists?
Dan: Well, as far as working with other US artists, we aren't right now but we are waiting to meet people that fit into the program.
JIVE: On the World of Drum and Bass LP you have a track on there that represents Iraq possibly? What is the story behind that track?
Mick: Basically, when we wrote that tune, 4 Days, it was during the Iraq bombing campaign which at the time we were putting the track together, the bombing campaign lasted 4 days, then it stopped. While we were writing this tune, we were listening to the radio, we were listening to Grooverider or Andy C on KISS. The radio show cut short and there was a news flash about the bombings starting again in Iraq so we decided to write it around that.
JIVE: So it seems that something can just come along out of nowhere and inspire you guys.
Mick: That happens quite a lot actually.
JIVE: Okay guys, big important question here… How did you get the name Bad Company?
Mick: Well, basically, we were all big comic fans when we were younger. Dan had this one Bad Company comicbook among thousands he has, like X-Men and others. Dan was looking through them and he said, "Bad Company! Hey man, let's do that."
JIVE: So the name did not come from the rock band, which is what some of our readers were wondering about.
Mick: No, it's from the comicbook.
Dan: Anyway, the band [Bad Company] is so cheesy that they deserve it [laughing]
JIVE: When will you guys be performing a live act?
Mick: That is what we are working toward at the moment. We are practicing, building tracks, trying to get ready, and gearing towards rehearsing all this, maybe by the end of the year or the beginning of next year.
Dan: Maybe, we will see how it goes. We're perfectionists so it has to be tight or no ones going to hear it.
JIVE: How did Paul Kodish come into the picture to help out with Digital Nation?
Dan: We met him down at Apollo 440 Studio and he was just doing some mad shit that I have never seen before with a drum kit. It was drum and bass style and I kept thinking I had never seen this done before. We said, "My God this is fucking amazing" and were totally in awe of it. He was just kind of cool, you know? So we told him about what we were trying to do and he said, "oh, you guys are Bad Company. Man, I've got all your records." After that we just hit it off and it just happened. It worked out really well and now he's a really good friend of ours. We are looking forward to getting into some serious projects with him this year.
We're actually starting a band called Digital Nation. We're also tyring to find a vocalist at the moment. We've done one track with one guy. We're just looking around trying to get the whole thing together. It's like a long and difficult process. But yeah, it seems to us that you can only go so far as a DJ with records. You really need to be able to portray yourself for the show so that people who aren't into drum and bass and dance music, that are more from a rock background, can actually see something going on and relate to it a bit more and then relate to the music rather than thinking ''Oh well, this isn't an artist. This is just two guys mixing records into one another." It's a chance for us to show the atmosphere that's going on in our studio and the way we interact when we build music, rather than just mixing finished tracks.
JIVE: Tell us about your new EP coming up.
Mick: Our new EP coming up is actually a series of two or three EPs and with tracks like Spider, Believe, and Numbers.
And now for the JIVE Five, some Southern fried humor:
JIVE: Have you ever had a mullet hair cut? Do you know what a mullet is?
Mick: Yeah, I know what a mullet is and I HAVE NEVER had one. I think that anyone who has one should CUT IT OFF.
JIVE: What about you Dan?
Dan: I've never had one, but I have given a few. Never been on the receiving end.
JIVE: Have you ever eaten grits and if so do you like them?
Dan: Not deliberately.
Mick: Nah…cuz the laws of physics in my kitchen are different from everywhere else.
[JIVE side note: go rent "My Cousin Vinny" if you don't know what Mick is talking about]
JIVE: What do you like about Southern Women?
Mick: Ooh, this could be risky!
Dan: Well, they are southern. They are always Southern.
Mick: I'm not even going there.
Dan: Let's leave this one blank [laughing]
JIVE: What record never leaves your bag?
Dan: [grinning] go see what Dieselboy answered to that question.
JIVE: What is the funniest or strangest thing that has ever happened to you while performing?
Dan: I was in Hungary and I was given this bottle of water. This guy came up to me and said, "Ah, you must be very headstrong!" I said, "Why?" and he said, "Ah, this is strong Hungarian E!" I was like, "NO!!" So for the next two hours during my set I was buzzing my tits off! Yeah, that was dark.
Mick: We've got another one. We played in Seattle in front of 5000 people with one turntable and a mixer that didn't work. So that was freaky. Then a technician came up and picked up the mixer, dropped one of the decks and totally messed the place up. Dan and I just stood back and let it go. Just kept putting on one record at a time and stood back. We just kept dropping down one record at at time, when it ran out, stop the tune, put on the next one. When the bass hit the floor, the crowd was like "YEAH!!!" [raising his arms in the air]. No one knew what was going on really.
Dan: Yeah, that's about as funny as it gets.
Related Links:
Bad Company Recordings
Drum and Bass Arena
Neurofunk
Breakbeat Science
Trouble on Vinyl
No U-Turn Records
B.C. Message Board
Bad Company Comicbook Series
We wish to thank the following people who submitted questions for this interview: Becki, Dale, Caroline, Scott, Mayhem, Alana, Chrissy, John and Joey. |
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