Skream

EMMA WARREN

Here we have on the couch, Skream [applause]. I thought it would be pretty good if we start from the beginning. What was the music that got you into it?

SKREAM

Underground garage, really. The sort of darker, two-step sort of stuff. El-B, Artwork. If anyone listens to garage, they’ll know who I’m talking about. If you don’t, I’ll play you something in a minute. I started DJing at 11, and wanted to take it to the next level. There wasn’t enough stuff that I wanted, and it wasn’t as dark as I wanted it to be, so I thought I’ll just start making some stuff that’s pretty dark.

EMMA WARREN

You said you started DJing when you were 11. Where do you DJ when you’re 11?

SKREAM

In my bedroom. I used to lurk around record shops quite a bit. My brother used to work in Big Apple, which was like the main, sort of underground headquarters in Croydon. Just hanging about the record shops, really.

EMMA WARREN

You grew up in Croydon. For anyone that doesn’t know, it’s a particularly concrete jungly part of South London. Your brother was into music and was working at this big record shop. You’re 11, and you’re DJing in your bedroom. What happens next?

SKREAM

Nothing. You just wait until you get bored of that and move on to the next thing, which was obviously production. I didn’t really know much about it when I started, as no one does, but I got introduced to making music on PlayStation, which got boring pretty quick. I moved on to FruityLoops and stuff, which I still use now.

EMMA WARREN

I want to stick a bit longer on this early point, when you’re 11, 12, 13. You talked a bit about dark garage, but I don’t know if everyone’s going to know where that is in context. What sort of music is this? This is the music that came after jungle and after two-step?

SKREAM

It was always there. It was just the more instrumental stuff. You always had it on the B-side, obviously. The instrumentals… there was always more to them than the vocal tracks, which were normally really cheesy and sort of girl tunes, do you know what I mean?

EMMA WARREN

You said before that your brother was working in a record shop. He’s a DJ as well?

SKREAM

Yeah, he used to be in Inta Natty with Grooverider, Fabio, Bailey.

EMMA WARREN

What sort of stuff was he playing?

SKREAM

Dark, dark, dark jungle, like the Moving Shadow sort of stuff. Good Looking, No U-Turn. Really dark jungle, really.

EMMA WARREN

How did that influence you? Is that the sort of stuff… would you be listening to him playing in his bedroom?

SKREAM

I used to think it was a racket. I listen back to it now and get more influence. Dubstep is really a lot like the old jungle; it’s just purely stripped-down, minimal beats and bass, which I think most music should have stayed at. Just kept it raw.

EMMA WARREN

What about, you mentioned El-B as someone who really influenced you and turned you on to the kind of things you wanted to do. Could you play us something to illustrate this early period of pre-dubstep… So what is it that we’re going to hear?

SKREAM

It’s a track called “Buck & Bury.” It’s the first track that I really freaked over.

EMMA WARREN

We’re breaking the speakers already. So where did you first hear that?

SKREAM

FWD>>. El-B actually played it. He actually played it down at FWD>>. I used to go there when I was 14, 15.

EMMA WARREN

For the uninitiated, what’s Forward?

SKREAM

It’s a club in London which basically focused on underground music as a whole. The people who run it is the people who run Tempa, which is a main dubstep label, which I’m signed to. It was just a place you went to hear, it was the people who wanted to hear underground stuff. You could go to the big clubs and just hear waste music all night, cheesy vocals and two-step. That was the place to go for underground.

EMMA WARREN

You were like, 13 or 14 or 15?

SKREAM

I’d say 15.

EMMA WARREN

You were 15. What was it like then?

SKREAM

It was still coming from the garage thing, still a sort of champagne… sort of shirts, jeans. Then, the trainspotters started getting in, the journalists and it all started then. Garage started dying and FWD>> was a place for… it was mainly men. Man music.

EMMA WARREN

Connecting with masculine side.

SKREAM

Yeah. For ages, it was never big crowds for a few years. It was just the heads that wanted to hear it.

EMMA WARREN

It’s funny you should say that. I remember someone saying there was a theory about clubs. Clubs are either about the music, they’re about pulling, they’re about drugs, and it sounds like the whole thing is very much essentially about the music and hearing it in the best way possible.

If you’re 15, you’re going to these clubs. What does this mean? You go to school the next day and you’re falling asleep during maths?

SKREAM

Yeah. Pretty much. I wasn’t really a great school-lover. Music was the only route I possibly could have taken.

EMMA WARREN

How did you start moving into that, because by the time you were going to FWD>> your tunes were already being played, weren’t they?

SKREAM

Not the first FWD>>s, it was a little while, I had to try and get to a bar.

Hatcha worked in Big Apple. Anyone knows about dubstep, Hatcha was the pioneer, the only person playing it. The first DJ playing dubs in garage.

EMMA WARREN

Let’s fill in the gaps here. You started DJing in your room, got quite good at that. Started making music on the PlayStation and then …?

SKREAM

It wasn’t PlayStation for too long, I got really bored.

EMMA WARREN

Then you got Fruity Loops and started mucking about with that and making stuff. How long did it take you to get a to a point where you made something where you felt it was good enough to show someone?

SKREAM

After about a year. Eleven months to a year. It weren’t the greatest production, but it was different. It was what Hatcha wanted, really.

EMMA WARREN

You say you spent a year getting into it. How much time would you be spending making music?

SKREAM

A lot of time. Homework time [laughs]. Just sitting on the computer. Basically, I was trying to copy what El-B and Zed Bias were doing. Obviously, they had like 10-grand studios and I had free, cracked software, so through trying to copy them, I got my own sound and worked from there.

EMMA WARREN

What do you think you were doing differently? Was it just the fact that you were using the most basic…

SKREAM

It was a lot more stripped-down than everything else, was just beats and bass. Maybe an odd atmosphere or sample rolling through the background.

EMMA WARREN

The beats and the bass – that’s the core of the whole sound, isn’t it?

SKREAM

Yeah, yeah. Predominantly; it’s definitely bass-led.

EMMA WARREN

What was the first thing that got played out that Hatcha sort of took on?

SKREAM

It was useless, I haven’t bought it. It was just like a 4/4 thing with his name. I’d try to copy a Jaimeson track because Jaimeson was a 4/4 producer. That got played, and then I started listening to some of the El-B production stuff a bit more. It was just trying to copy them and get my own sound in the process.

EMMA WARREN

There’s another guy that you’ve always worked with as well, and you two were doing stuff for Hatcha?

SKREAM

Benga. We actually met playing each other tunes down the phone. We hadn’t actually seen each other face-to-face. I met his brother and his brother said he wanted to be a producer. We started playing each other tracks then become pretty good friends. Had our first release together.

EMMA WARREN

There’s something quite interesting about this because at this point you two are making records basically for Hatcha, aren’t you? So he can have an exclusive.

SKREAM

No one else had them, yeah.

EMMA WARREN

It’s a really Jamaican way of doing things, isn’t it? Were you aware of that or that’s just how it works?

SKREAM

That’s just how it was. He was stubborn really, didn’t want us to give it to anyone else.

EMMA WARREN

How would that work? Would he be just like, saying to you, “If you give me a tune I’ll play it for you but you can’t give it to anyone else”?

SKREAM

We was writing a ridiculous amount of tunes, we was doing like 30, 40 tracks a week, and we’d take them down to him, and whatever he’d play would get heard.

EMMA WARREN

You’re writing 30 to 40 a week for the last five years?

SKREAM

No, it’s toned down a bit. It’s toned down. It toned down when I got into mixing down. I wasn’t really bothered, I didn’t really know nothing about engineering or nothing. When I started I wasn’t even aware of EQs or nothing. The whole time it was just changing the bass sounds and twisting the bass and changing drums sort of thing.

EMMA WARREN

There’s a load of stuff that’s really parallel to the way things have worked in Jamaica before all that – exclusivity, dubs, sound systems, the bass?

SKREAM

I’ve only just started realizing that sort of stuff over the past year.

EMMA WARREN

Why do you think that is?

SKREAM

Digital Mystikz has a lot to do with it. They sort of come with this earthy, raw, heavily reggae-influenced sound. I think the whole sound system thing in dubstep is, it was always at Plastic People. Plastic People in London is quite a respected club. It’s got a good sound system, so you’re just used to hearing it on a good sound system, so we can’t really hear it nowhere else.

EMMA WARREN

We were chatting about this before, but one of the things I think is really interesting about the whole sound is that if you hear it on the radio or just at home, it can sort of fall flat. You don’t get the full punch of the whole thing, but as soon as you’ve heard it live and you’ve heard it coming through big speakers in a dirty, dark sweaty club, then there’s an instant moment of connection with it as it being something really amazing.

SKREAM

We’ve all been brought up… all the producers have been brought up on a good system. So I think that’s got a lot to do with it, really.

EMMA WARREN

Which places in London, if anyone’s going to be there, should they be checking out?

SKREAM

Plastic People. Plastic People or Brixton Mass every other month when Digital Mystikz hold the night DMZ. If you’re ever in London, you’ve got to make it down there because if you haven’t really experienced dubstep, that’s the place to experience it. Either Plastic People or Mass.

EMMA WARREN

For the people who were at you gig on Friday, if you’ve got a scale of one to ten and that was like whatever, where’s…

SKREAM

The crowd was a ten. The crowd was amazing. It felt like being in London. People was freaking, and it’s good when you come this far away from home and people know what you’re playing. It’s weird almost because they’re asking… I got asked to play tracks that I only cut last week. It’s like, how’d you know about it? Obviously the internet, but it’s just pretty freaky.

EMMA WARREN

This is the Barefiles massive, maybe?

SKREAM

Yeah, [inaudible], yeah.

EMMA WARREN

On Friday you got handed a pair of boxing gloves, I know. What is that all about?

SKREAM

Random. Completely random. Freaked me out a bit, as it goes. I thought it was something like an Australian thing.

EMMA WARREN

Maybe it was something really special and important he had and he was trying show you a lot of love by giving you [them]. That’s a mystery that’s never going to be solved.

SKREAM

Whatever floats your boat, I guess [laughs].

EMMA WARREN

The clubs we’re talking about in London, FWD>>, DMZ. Are they kind of like the Croft Institute for the people who haven’t been there, or maybe aren’t going to be there…

SKREAM

Dark. Similar, like dark, not really much light, not really no visuals, because it’s just there to concentrate on the music. You don’t need visuals… that’s just sort of something to hide a bad sound system or something to cover something else up.

EMMA WARREN

Basically, it’s there in the music, and it’s there in the clubs and it’s there in the presentation. It’s all about the basics, isn’t it? The whole sound, it’s about stripping out everything you don’t need, so the clubs are dark, sweaty, smoke holes with one light, but massive speakers, and the music similarly. Everything that doesn’t need to be in there is taken out.

SKREAM

It’s the way it should be.

EMMA WARREN

It doesn’t need to be in there it’s taken out. It’s the way it should be. Overcrowded music is not always nice to the ears, is it?

EMMA WARREN

Let’s hear a couple of things that you’ve done, or the two tracks you were talking about earlier that have both got a big, heavy dub influence, if we’re talking about sound systems.

SKREAM

This one’s a track called “Irie.” It was when I first started sort of listening to a lot more dub sort of stuff.

EMMA WARREN

No breaking the speakers.

(music: Skream – “Irie” / applause)

Emma Warren

A bit of speaker wreckage going on here. I guess the guys that are running the sound system at the clubs have got to really know what they’re doing.

SKREAM

You’ve got to know what you’re doing whenever you’re dealing with sound, I guess.

EMMA WARREN

That sounded raw. What I’m saying is that there’s a whole massive culture around speakers and sound systems and making sure that everything is properly on point. Let’s just talk a minute about that record. When did you do it? How did it come about?

SKREAM

I think I done it January, February. I just started hearing Coki and Mala out of Digital Mystikz and it's sort of really heavily musical dub-sounding stuff. It was just really cool because I haven’t really heard nothing like it out. Basically, I started wanting to tap into that side of things because it just adds another whole contrast to your set, playing out, and just to you as a producer really because you just start branching out… just trying different things, just listening to a lot of the old dub records and seeing the methods they used.

EMMA WARREN

If you’re listening to old stuff as well, is there anything specific that you’re taking from that? Are you listening to the way that they’re kind of...

SKREAM

Just all the stuff like structure, effects and the way it’s been built.

EMMA WARREN

You were saying as well, there was another dub-influenced record that you could play next to that to show a different sound. Was it that bass and beats thing you said?

SKREAM

Yeah. Just the whole way bass runs the track. It runs dubstep really. It’s just a track called “Blipsteam.” Basically, I just spent all the time on the bass. It’s pretty stripped down and pretty crackly as well.

(music: Skream – “Blipstream” / applause)

Just see the way it’s basically just the bass driving you throughout. It’s just a little sort of hook around it just to keep your mind down, I guess.

EMMA WARREN

When did that come out?

SKREAM

It came out in March, April.

EMMA WARREN

There’s something about the sound that’s really… when you’re hearing it out loud, it’s very heavy.

SKREAM

The bass actually grabs you and sort of takes you.

EMMA WARREN

It’s heavy in a very physical way because I think… especially talking to people who were there on Friday who hadn’t really heard it before were quite shocked by the impact. It’s not often you go out and you’re physically pulled somewhere by a sound. Is that something that brought you into it or is that just the way you feel when you’re out and you’re hearing it?

SKREAM

It’s just that feeling, the feeling of the bass rattling in your chest and in your throat. It’s just like yeah…

EMMA WARREN

Up here in your nose, yeah.

SKREAM

It’s just like ... yeah. It just feels cool.

EMMA WARREN

There’s a funny comment off just some forum somewhere where someone was saying, “I’ve never heard a music which rattles your ribcage and makes you feel over the moon at the same time,” which I thought was quite a funny way of looking at it. So we talked about bass, we talked a bit about how you started DJing and how you started making music. Where does pirate radio come into the story?

SKREAM

Pirate radio is big for any underground music really. It’s where you hear the new music. It’s just like all kids at school, if you want to be the cool sort of music people, you listen to pirate radio because it’s [got that] sort of freshness.

EMMA WARREN

Not all countries have that culture but in Britain…

SKREAM

It’s always been a big thing in London.

EMMA WARREN

In Britain, in London in particular, there’s pirate radio everywhere. They spring up and they’re unstoppable. The authorities try and push them down, then a new one will pop up somewhere else. I suppose there’s always so much music and so many people inventing their own scenes. That’s always expressed through pirate radio. What was the first pirate station you played on?

SKREAM

Flight FM, which is in the back of some scrap yard, really. You just had to climb through about three metal fences to get to it. It’s pretty pointless, really. I ended up on Rinse, which really shouldn’t be pirate, it should be legal because it’s been going strong for like ten years and it’s always been playing the cream of what people want to hear. Which, I think a lot of radio stations don’t do that. You might have liked a station that plays one hour at two till three in the morning of music that people actually want to hear.

EMMA WARREN

How did you get your first pirate gig, how did that happen?

SKREAM

Just for production really. Just getting Hatcha stuff and then people wanted to start hearing more from the producer rather than from the DJ.

EMMA WARREN

So, people came to you rather than you going to them?

SKREAM

Not actually. They went to Big Apple, the record shop to find me.

EMMA WARREN

What about Rinse? Playing on pirate stations is not like playing on a legal station, is it? It’s not like you go to the studio and then some guy on security checking who you are and inviting up and seeing if you want a cup of tea. What’s it like to play on a pirate radio station in London?

SKREAM

Well, the first few times always I was nervous. It’s nerve-wracking because you think DTI are going to burst in and take your records off you.

EMMA WARREN

This is the Department of Trade and Industry.

SKREAM

Basically, you’ve always got that thought. They’ll come and take your records off you and everything’s that in the building. That’s a pretty frightening feeling because your records are your life, I think. It’s how you express yourself. The radio station was pretty mad. I remember once on Rinse, you used to go to the top of these dirty tower block flats and the actual studio was in a box on the wall. You walked into the wall and got into the wall. It was sort of like six foot high. You used to have to crouch down, and you’d have about four or five people just sweating it out all just to play some tunes on the radio. It was pretty dedicated, really. You come out stinking.

EMMA WARREN

At this point, you had to find some room in the tower block and there’s just a hole in the wall?

SKREAM

No, that was a one-off. Normally, it’d be someone’s kitchen or some crack flat somewhere.

EMMA WARREN

So you got kitchens, crack flats, holes in the wall.

SKREAM

It’s not really inviting. It wasn’t really nice going places when you’re like 15. It’s just sort of places you didn’t want to be but you had to be to get your stuff heard.

EMMA WARREN

What’s the vibe like when you’re in there and you’re on air?

SKREAM

The first few months is just pure nervousness, because then you get there it's like, “Oh, this is nothing. This is like being in your bedroom.” Then you realize how many people are listening and it’s like right, “I got to talk now. I’ve never talked on radio.” You just keep thinking how you sound, how you’re mixing. If you do a dodgy mix, you’re like, “Aw!” then you’re not really in it no more. It was just pretty nerve-wracking first of all, but now it just comes naturally, really.

EMMA WARREN

Tell us about Rinse Now.

SKREAM

Rinse now is good. Basically, it’s trying to go legal, so it stopped the FM. It’s just on the internet, which is pretty cool because now you can get all the emails and SMS, which is cool. Because now people, you can hear me out here which is a big step. I’ll get texts from Ukraine and texts from Portugal and all over the place, which is really good. It’s an amazing sort of feeling, because you can’t do that with a legal station in England because it only reaches England.

EMMA WARREN

In a way, them coming off air essentially has been a good thing because it means that your dubstep nation is expanding outside of London?

SKREAM

There’s actually no reason for it to go legal because what’s the point? If it was going legal, it’s stopping itself from spreading.

EMMA WARREN

That’s like one of those weird internet swerve balls, isn’t it, that you weren’t expecting? Can you imagine the impact of that is quite massive because now you’ve got making dubstep? You were just saying on the way up here that there’s people making tunes in America and everywhere.

SKREAM

There’s a big scene for it in America now. Loads of good producers as well. You’ve got a guy called Lexus, and Drop the Lime, I think he was in Brisbane Saturday. Played in Brisbane Saturday, which was pretty weird. It’s cool. It’s pretty mad how the sound has spread. Not that it’s happened quickly because it’s been in London for like five or six years but the impact since January when we done the Radio 1 show. Since then, it’s crazy. I was in New York in June, and it’s like Hank Shocklee from Public Enemy was there. He’s a legend. He’s sort of standing in the booth with me as I’m playing. It’s like, right, this doesn’t add up… you sort of go places and they’re freaking out to tunes that you’ve made. Not made to play in London, but you initially just thought you’d be playing in London and now I’m sitting here. It’s pretty trippy.

EMMA WARREN

Pretty trippy, indeed. You’ve just mentioned Radio 1. For people that don’t know, what happened in January?

SKREAM

There was the Dubstep Warz. Basically, Mary Anne Hobbs [runs] a sort of new music show. She decided to have two hours just dedicated to dubstep which no one ever…

EMMA WARREN

This is on Radio 1, which is the national pop music station, isn’t it?

SKREAM

Radio One. BBC. Yeah. It was just crazy. The vibe in the studio, everyone was just smiling. Everyone was on such a good one. Everyone was drinking. Everyone was doing whatever. It was surreal. We were running about the Radio 1 studio like ... Zane Lowe, who’s a pretty big DJ, was just walking past us and it’s like, it still seems surreal now. I’ll listen back to the whole show, and I still get the tingles up my spine. It’s mad because since then it’s just gone up.

EMMA WARREN

… Who was there? What was happening?

SKREAM

It was me, Digital Mystikz, Vex’d, Distance, Hatcha, Kode9 and Spaceape, and Loefah.

EMMA WARREN

The all-stars basically.

SKREAM

Yeah, the Magnificent Seven as I call it. It was mad. It was really, really surreal. I don’t think I’ll ever feel the feeling that everyone felt that night ever again because it was sort of… the emails and stuff that were coming in was like, “We’ve done it!” It was like we finally got the point across that you can make what you want to make and get away with it. You haven’t got to be forced into making commercial house or commercial… that you can take something from the underground up, I guess.

EMMA WARREN

The other really interesting thing about the whole scene is how, if you were to look at the spectrum of different people that are in the scene ...

SKREAM

Yeah, it’s not just one ...

EMMA WARREN

You and Burial, for example are unbelievably different.

SKREAM

It contrasts. I think that’s what people like, because it’s not ... it’s all dubstep, but there's so much variety. You got Vex’d and Distance who make more drum & bass-influenced [stuff]. You got Burial. I’m not sure he's inspired by, but he’s heavy… it’s pretty mad production. You’ve got Kode9, who’s really sort of laid-back, chilled-out production. You’ve got Digital Mystikz ... well, between the three of them, they’ve got sort of got it all covered. You’ve got Loefah, who’s more beats and bass, and you’ve got Mala who’s pure spiritual, and you’ve got Coki who’s just ill.

EMMA WARREN

Coki who’s just ill.

SKREAM

Yeah, Coki who just ill. If you listen to by Coki, the bass just takes you away.

EMMA WARREN

There was something that Burial said. There is a quote from him which says… someone asked him about what the sound of the scene was and he said, “There are no highway lights to attract rubbish producers. Everyone is just off wandering.” Which I thought was quite a good expression in its way.

SKREAM

He’s pretty deep.

EMMA WARREN

In a way, that sums up for me one of the things so appealing about it because somehow, there’s something that connects it. Maybe it’s the bass. Maybe it’s the stripped downness. Maybe it’s kind of the renegade thing.

SKREAM

Everyone who’s there wasn't so into popular music. I think everyone just thought, "Let's unite," and said, “Let’s do it.”

EMMA WARREN

Is there a strong sense of family within the scene?

SKREAM

Yeah, definitely. There is no competition as of yet. There obviously will be because it always happens. We’re all really close friends. Everyone will see one of the other producers once a week. I see Mala every day. I see Loefah every other week. Everyone is really tight, and it’s like, when you are out, you sort of sense it because everyone is drinking together. It’s not like if you go to a house club and another house producer who won’t talk to another house producer. It isn’t like, “Get off my decks. My turn.” Everyone will book everyone for each other’s nights. It’s a family thing.

EMMA WARREN

What is that doing to the music?

SKREAM

No one has anything to worry about, no one thinks that, “I better not let him come into my studio cause he'll see what I’m using,” or, “I better not let him in know my technique, because if I do he'll start robbing it.” Everyone is helping each other. Everyone is playing each other’s tracks. We are just pushing each other at the moment. Hopefully, it stays like that forever. I think that, if it does, it should be around for a little while.

EMMA WARREN

For a little while?

SKREAM

Yeah. You know what I mean.

EMMA WARREN

Have you got something else you could play us?

SKREAM

Yeah. This one’s a remix I’ve done of a techno track by a guy from Leeds in England called [Marc Ashken]. I was listening to quite a bit more minimal techno, and that is where the idea for the remix come from.

(music: Marc Ashken – “Roots Dyed Dark (Skream Remix)” / applause)

They normally don’t sound like that… that sort of rumbling.

EMMA WARREN

Tell us something about that.

SKREAM

I just got approached by a minimal techno label. I’m not too sure what it’s called, but it was through a sort of friend of a friend, and they was really up for me doing a remix. They really liked [“Midnight Request Line”]. They said it reminded them of some techno track. I got to see what I could do with the parts. I did that in an hour, and I had the parts for about four months. I just could never really be bothered to do it, and then they rang me up and said, “We need to master it in the morning,” and I was like, “Alright.” I just did that one in about an hour. The tracks that I normally spend more time on are the tracks I don’t end up liking. It’s the tracks that I do, in say not in an hour, but say an hour-and-a-half to two, three hours, whatever. They’re normally much stronger tracks, I feel like when I try to spend too much time on anything I feel I am trying to go too deep into how people want me to go into building a track.

EMMA WARREN

What about the ten-inch thing?

SKREAM

It’s just cheaper than 12s [laughs]. It was just from Hatcha, really. Hatcha always cut tens, and it was just a thing of cutting tens. But 12-inch dubs actually do sound better. Don’t ever get confused that ten-inches do sound better because they don’t. They’re just cheaper as well. Sounds really good, don’t it? Cheapskate!

EMMA WARREN

What about other remixes that you have done?

SKREAM

I’ve done some stuff just within the scene, really. Just some remixes for some new producers I was really feeling. Not that if I do a remix that it is going to really help them, but it was just to show people that even though they’re new producers that no one has really heard their stuff, I am still going to do stuff for them. Back to that family thing, if they are safe and cool, why not do a remix for them? It’s not going to hurt you, your reputation.

EMMA WARREN

After all these years… obviously, you're essentially a veteran, like we were saying earlier. Are you seeing kids now coming through who are the same age you were when you first started?

SKREAM

Sort of. It’s more people around my age now. You get the more younger sort of kids now, they want to make grime because it’s… with the grime thing, if you can get played with the right MC then it’s a big tune. All you need is an MC to do a phrase over it and that is it. It’s a big tune.

EMMA WARREN

You’re unusual in the scene, in that grime people kind of like your stuff, don’t they?

SKREAM

Yeah, I think that is more to do with “Midnight Request Line,” really, because [that] was sort of ... big in grime. It ended up getting bigger in grime than it did in dubstep. Yeah. I am not too sure.

EMMA WARREN

Maybe this is a good moment to play “Midnight Request Line”?

SKREAM

I think they want to change the cartridge. I don’t have it on CD.

EMMA WARREN

Let’s maybe talk about, you’ve got an album coming out ...

SKREAM

It’s out today.

EMMA WARREN

It’s out today.

SKREAM

I just found out. I got a phone call saying they bought it today.

EMMA WARREN

Yay! [Applause]

SKREAM

I’ve really got no copies on me. I think there is some coming over, but don’t quote me.

EMMA WARREN

I’ve got it upstairs.

SKREAM

Have you?

EMMA WARREN

Yeah, I do. Maybe towards the end, because it be good to play it.

SKREAM

I think we can play “Request Line” now.

EMMA WARREN

No, I suppose have you got the “Tapper” track?

SKREAM

“Tapped.”

EMMA WARREN

“Tapped” track.

SKREAM

Yeah, the one with the MC or without? There’s like three mixes of it.

EMMA WARREN

Maybe you should decide then.

SKREAM

[Pulls out a record] This is one with… basically, I’d done the instrumental, and I wanted to get it vocalled, and I chose JME who’s a pretty good grime MC. I chose him because he’s not one of the ones who talks just purely on beef. He talks… I wanted to come with a paranoid flow. I’ve got this thing that Big Brother is watching over all of us and everything is being listened to. I don’t know that’s pretty paranoid, but that is what I wanted to come across in this, and he done it pretty well.

EMMA WARREN

So, to make sure this is all clear – basically, this is the one thing with a grime MC on an album?

SKREAM

That I’ll ever do.

EMMA WARREN

That you’ll probably ever do. Alright? Play it away.

Skream

This dubplate has been absolutely hammered, so if it sounds a bit sketchy, that's why.

EMMA WARREN

What changes for you when you put in a vocal track?

SKREAM

I tend to still like the beat to be a lot going on because I don’t want the vocal to dominate the track, because then it’s the vocal a lot of the time that makes the track. This is sort of exactly what I wanted. Every word he said is sort of what I had in mind to go over it, and that’s why I picked him, because I thought if there was any person that could sort of hit the nail on the head…

EMMA WARREN

Do you find that if you put… vocals on there, which sort of lighten things – which isn't the case here – that you compensate other parts of the record to make it darker or harder?

SKREAM

The instrumental for that was done before I had vocal in mind, so….

EMMA WARREN

What about the Warrior Queen one?

SKREAM

The Warrior Queen thing was so freaky it’s unreal. I’d done this track, and I had in mind getting Warrior Queen on it because I’d done a remix for her label of her. I’d done it, and I had never met her once in my life, then the day I finished it, that evening, I got an email from Warrior Queen’s management saying they were interested in doing a track. And if that ain’t weird, I don’t know what is. It was like a saint sent the company a message. No one had even heard the tune, but I done it with Warrior Queen in mind, like all the space for her and everything. They contacted me that night… that’s how the [track] with Warrior Queen came about.

EMMA WARREN

I don't suppose you've got…

SKREAM

I have, but it sounds pretty hammered.

EMMA WARREN

Pretty hammered. Now, why is that?

SKREAM

Because people jump over the decks and start reloading tunes when you’re out. Get their hands all over them.

EMMA WARREN

In fact, I’m glad you mentioned that because I think that’s so funny that whole thing about the scene, when people want to get a rewind, it’s no longer calling for it, it’s that people run up to the decks and press stop.

SKREAM

It’s sort of my own fault because, at one of the DMZ parties, I done it. There was this quote, “Skream is guilty.” Everyone just seems to start being guilty, leaning over. It can get pretty annoying because it’s like you’re sort of try to play, so you’ve only got an hour set and people keep leaning over and stopping it. I’ve got more than enough to play, so it sometimes gets pretty annoying. You always get one person who keeps doing and keeps doing it, and it’s like, “Go away.”

EMMA WARREN

How do you deal with that?

SKREAM

You can’t really deal with it unless you’re going to jump over and knock them out.

EMMA WARREN

Maybe that’s what the boxing gloves were for!

We also want to go talk to you about playing out. DJ Zinc was saying something about how all of the stuff he’s playing, about 80% is unreleased and probably 30% or 40% of that is stuff only he’s got. What are the proportions like for you?

SKREAM

The same, really. The majority of stuff I play comes out, but I’ll get stuff off other people if it’s never going to come out. It’s just the DJ being exclusive to tracks and being the only person with them. Why are you going to go out and play the same set as someone else? It’s pretty pointless. I think most DJs want an individual sort of set.

EMMA WARREN

What kind of things… what’s you special special?

SKREAM

My special, special, special? I don’t know. I’ve got loads. I got loads of stuff. It’s where I am, I've sort of got dibs on anything, I guess, because I know everyone. It’s better to have your own stuff because the other producers are playing out a lot and if you keep playing everyone else’s new stuff, then there’s never going to be no time for your own.

EMMA WARREN

If you’ve got 80% unreleased, 30% to 40% only that is exclusive to you, how much of your set is going to be you?

SKREAM

Sixty… 60%. I only really play stuff if I really like it or I know it's stuff someone wants pushed. Let’s say someone’s got a track coming out, then you push it.

EMMA WARREN

So who else do you play?

SKREAM

Digital Mystikz, Benga, Antisocial Entertainment which are new – whoever’s into dubstep keep an ear out because they’re pretty good. Iron Soul, he’s another new guy. That’s it really. Loefah. Obviously Digital Mystikz.

EMMA WARREN

Have you got anything that you can play that’s in your set?

SKREAM

Yeah.

EMMA WARREN

It might even be the one that nearly blew my head off on Friday night.

SKREAM

This is actually for Jeff [gestures to the audience].

(music: Coki – “Burnin’” / applause)

That is actually one of my favorite tracks at the minute. It goes down everywhere. Whoever’s heard the original, do you agree with me that it’s better than the original? It’s sick.

EMMA WARREN

Obviously, you played here on Friday and you played in Brisbane at the weekend. What kind of reaction are you getting to that?

SKREAM

Friday was better than Saturday, because of… basically down to the smoking laws. People are in and out of the club all night. Reactions everywhere are pretty good. I played a gig in Holland, and I played after some thrash metal drum & bass, and it was like dropping the tempo. I sort of stood there and just really didn’t want to play. It’s just common sense, really. It’s just a bad promoter there.

EMMA WARREN

Do you think the tempo thing is something that makes it all sound so heavy?

SKREAM

I think it’s the bass.

EMMA WARREN

Probably. Tell us a bit about “Midnight Request Line.” I hear that you nearly didn’t do anything with it.

SKREAM

I’ve done it like literally two Christmases ago. Bored of the festive season. I sat down and just wanted to do something a bit different… it started off, which is weird… I don’t really tell many people… it started off as a grime thing, but then I went a bit more deeper into it. I gave it to a couple people, and everyone was a bit like… because it was the first time I’d really started doing the arpeggiated type of thing. I think it took people quite a while to sort of accept it.

About a year or two later, Youngsta started playing it FWD>>, and it started again from there. When I was playing it and it was starting to a get good reaction, then when Youngsta started to play it, it was getting more reactions. Roll Deep, a big grime crew in England were hammering it, which helped sales quite a bit. Then Ricardo Villalobos, a big techno DJ, was playing it, Gilles Peterson was playing it. There was just people that I’ve never even heard of before that was playing it. Then I was finding out after how respected they are. The track’s done me blinding.

EMMA WARREN

Villalobos has been in touch about you doing a mix, hasn’t he?

SKREAM

No, he wants to do a mix.

EMMA WARREN

He wants to do a mix?

SKREAM

He wants to do a mix of something. We’re not 100% sure yet, but he’s up for it.

EMMA WARREN

It’s quite funny how, over the last six months, things have suddenly changed from being just there for the people who were in the scene, and suddenly people who were into music generally but aren’t necessary dubstep heads at all have got really into it. I mean, you played festivals over the summer. You must be seeing different people, different musics…

SKREAM

A lot of techno fans are getting into it. I think people from other genres need a voice to show them, because otherwise, it’s just like, “What are they doing?” sort of thing. When Villalobos played it, it was like, “Alright! If he’s playing it, then we should like it.” Some people need to be force-fed something before they actually accept it.

EMMA WARREN

Do you reckon that’s it? Do you reckon it's them thinking, “Oh, if someone else is doing it, then it makes it okay”?

SKREAM

I’m not saying everyone but a lot of the time people need to be voiced things in a certain way.

EMMA WARREN

Really, in the last six months, loads of really good things have happened but is there anything changing that’s not so good? Or is it all good?

SKREAM

It’s all good at the minute. The only thing, some of the press are getting some things really wrong. I keep trying to look for some way to put it that’s not actually there. Everyone always assumes there’s a deeper feeling behind something when there’s not. It’s like when you get a four-page essay on a track. It’s like, “Oh yeah! They was thinking this!” It’s like, “No, we weren’t.” It’s just like, “We just write the tunes.” Some of the press is ruining some things.

EMMA WARREN

Basically, don’t think about it too much?

SKREAM

Yeah. Don’t think about it too much. Just listen.

EMMA WARREN

What about some of the other influences to the sounds we talked about. We sort of talked about two-step a little bit and the dark garage thing, but is there anything else that has been influential?

SKREAM

I listen to a lot of funk, a lot of disco. I’ve been listening to a lot of Goldfrapp and sort of, I don’t what to call it but I’ve been listening to a lot of Hot Chip… They’re pretty cool. They’re different. They’re really different. They use weird sounds that you wouldn’t hear, but they pull them off really well. I’ve been listening to quite a lot of different stuff.

EMMA WARREN

Is that all feeding into… if you get in to stuff like that, does that feed in directly into what you’re doing?

SKREAM

Sort of. It’s not that. You just start to look at things in different ways. Then, you start to look at your own music in a different way and you think, “Is someone going to listen to this in ten years, like I’m listening to stuff now?”

EMMA WARREN

Like what? Is there a concrete example of a way that you thought you discovered something and then it spread [into your work]?

SKREAM

No. Some of it is just influence, like you just take the music in, and you don’t go back and make a tune like that, you just try and make a tune that gives you the feeling that track gave you, which is a pretty hard thing to do.

EMMA WARREN

One other thing. We talked a lot for some reason a couple times about nicknames and how they’ve come out. Did someone give you your name or did you do it?

SKREAM

No. I used to write that tag, so that’s how that come about. And that was before the film was out.

EMMA WARREN

Have you got something new you can play us?

SKREAM

Yeah. This is off the album. This is the tune that was the weird one, when they got in contact with me after.

(music: Skream – “Check It” (Vocal Mix) / applause)

EMMA WARREN

That sounded good.

SKREAM

Also, I’ve done that because there seems to be a lot more girls coming out and there weren’t really nothing… you know, all girls like a sing-along. You know you do [laughs]. It was just to show them I appreciate them coming out.

EMMA WARREN

I think, really… we’re going to go over to some questions on the floor in the minute, but I don’t want to finish this without pointing out that you like to have a good time, don’t you?

SKREAM

I do. Who doesn’t?

EMMA WARREN

I think we’ve noticed already this kind of Skream Team kind of chaos that seems to occur around you. Is that part of the reason why the music sounds so good? It’s good-time music.

SKREAM

Some people say that it’s not. You get a lot of… some people like to put it down, but I just like having a good time. It’s actually really got nothing to do with the music. It’s just me in general. I just like me enjoying myself. It’s like, who wants to go out and have a bad night?

EMMA WARREN

Not you, that’s for sure.

SKREAM

Not me.

EMMA WARREN

Who’s got some questions? OK. Where’s the microphone?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

I got a couple of questions. Who does your mastering?

SKREAM

Transition. Transition Mastering. Very good. If anyone wants the address or anything, they can come and get it after.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Also I’m just following up on that in the mastering process, the digital to analog.

SKREAM

To be honest, I’m not fully… I wouldn’t be able to fully explain all that side of it to you. I’m just the software boy. Anything else?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

No, that’s it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

[inaudible]

SKREAM

Yeah. FL Studio.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

[inaudible].

SKREAM

No, I only use FL Studio and lots of software plug-ins and stuff. Just anything I can make a bassline on, really. The thing is, everyone is a bit prejudiced when it comes to Fruity Loops because it’s so simple, people seem to have a problem with it, but why? If I can do in that what some people can do in Logic, then why not? It’s my little playground that I sort of know like the back of my hand, so why not? I can do the same in it what a lot of people can do in Cubase and Logic. The only bad thing with Fruity Loops is it’s not 24-bit. As soon as it’s 24-bit, then I think that’s Mac out the window for me.

EMMA WARREN

OK, any others? We got a question in the back there. We’re down to one mic.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Hi. Where do you get your basslines from?

SKREAM

Anything.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Fruity Loops?

SKREAM

No, it’s not in Fruity Loops. It’s anything. You can make a bass from anything. Anything you can make a bass from. They’re just tones. It’s more of getting the sound you want than how to make a bass more… if you know what I mean. If that makes any sense whatsoever.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

No, it does. It’s just because your bass is really solid, that’s all.

SKREAM

It’s not necessarily the bass sound, it’s the frequencies you’re cutting and the frequencies you’re pushing into the bass. You can make a bassline… if you don’t compress it, don’t EQ it or what-not, it can start sounding pretty weak. Do you know what I mean? Then, when you try and over-compress or over-EQ, you can always do something with it. It’s just getting the balance right, really. It’s just getting everything its own space within the actual sound. That’s why I tend not to overcut the music sort of thing.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Hi. How are you? [inaudible] what kind of speakers are you using because ...

SKREAM

To be honest, I’ve got some really wack old Tannoys that someone bought me for Christmas. I think it helps because it’s the sort of thing someone’s going to listen to the radio through, and the way a lot of my tunes are getting played on radio, I think that helps because they’re not the best speakers, they’re just some Tannoys, but if I can get a nice mix down on them, then I know it’s going to sound nice coming from really nice speakers. Well, I hope so anyway. They’re just really old, really bait.

EMMA WARREN

That’s avoiding that dilemma of your records sounding amazing in the studio and not working unless you got those sort of speakers.

SKREAM

The thing is you never really know how your track’s going to sound until you’ve heard it in like four or five different places anyway.

EMMA WARREN

Who’s next on the question front?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

I just wanted to touch a little on more of the bass thing. If you’re not using amazing speakers and you were talking a little bit more about harmonics, do you have a preferred EQ in something that you’ve been using, or how did you go about figuring it out?

SKREAM

To be honest, a lot of EQs all work the same. It’s just sort of where you’re cutting certain things and pushing others. I tend to cut my basses at 30 where a lot of other people cut them at 40. If you’re playing on a good system, it would normally reach as low as 20Hz. You might as well get the full impact out of it, if you’re going to play it.

EMMA WARREN

Who’s next? I think you’ve got another one. No? Alright. Any other questions?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

What do you think about singers in dubstep music?

SKREAM

I wouldn’t really like it to go into the full-on vocal lot. Say, an eight-bar before the drop or something would be nice. I’d like someone else to do it because that can be their thing almost, but it’s not really my thing. The Warrior Queen thing I really liked. It reminds me of an old dubplate. I could imagine someone playing it and that I really would have been feeling it. It sounds pretty freestyle. It doesn’t sound like there’s too much effort going into the recording for the vocal.

EMMA WARREN

Anything else? No, that’s it? Alright, then. Skream, thank you very much.