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London Elektricity (Tony Coleman) Interview

27/02/04 @ PRINCE OF WALES CLUB, ST. KILDA, MELBOURNE

Our next adventure was the ‘London Elektricity’ and ‘ Dillinja & Lemon D’ gig which was held at a club called ‘Prince of Wales’ over at St. Kilda, Fitzroy street . A night put together by three different crews; ‘inthemix.com.au’, ‘Elementz’ and ‘Syncopated Zen’. I was hell-sure it would be a fantastic night, as three crews working together as one would mean big things.

Once again, there stood two lost travelers, Aresha and Mark; partially consumed by the sights, sounds and the Grand Prix hype. Just standing there, like lost sheep pondering which tram they should board.

Suddenly, like a bright light sent from the heavens, like a shining star that guided the three kings to Jesus; I spotted someone wearing a t-shirt that said ‘GO DILLINJA!!!’. I started running after him as fast as I could, with Mark not far behind.

We boarded the tram and I made new friends. Namely the ‘GO DILLINJA!!!’ homemade t-shirt brother, and the “TIME TO GET GRIMEY”, the homemade t-shirt sister. So they led the way there and we just followed the yellow brick road. Both of them were hardcore Valve Souljahs indeed and you’ll get see them in pictures over on part II. (I know you want it.)

Going up the steep flight of stairs ended at a huge crowd of people that were already there from way before the witching hour and DJS Sean, Gsan and the Shapeshifter DJS had already begun rockin’ the place.

I spotted a box-like structure for a mo’ and sat myself down, exhausted from a really long day at school. Little did I know that it was actually a flat bass bin thing, which must have been on an overdose of killa-watts as the “woooop woooooooop” vibrations sent me and an empty wine glass leaping off it instantly like oversized Mexican jumping beans.

The whole setting brought back memories of the ‘INSOMNIA’ days, without the conventional DJ box, just a stage with tables on cloth covered tables, the fabric white ‘table cloth’ with projectors projecting strange images that only make sense to a drunken mind. Took me a while to snap back from the flashback.

Mark was doing his little thing with his signature copyright dance so I left him to it.

I ran behind to get my train of thought sorted out before doing the two (but technically three) interviews.

MORE LOVELY BUBBLY PLEASE

Shortly after the ‘surprisingly-far-from-soulful’ London Elektricity set and many glasses of champagne later, I found myself having a very deep and intense conversation that lasted hours and hours with London Elektricity - Tony Colman, the man himself.

The humble beginnings started in 1996, brainchild of Tony Colman and Chris Goss, the duo working together back in the days of 1993, their early beginnings resulting in the label raking up a large underground fan base but it was ‘Song In The Key of Knife’ released in 1998 and ‘Pull the Plug’ released in 1999 by the then duo - London Elektricity, that got the ball rolling for the long run. In 2000, the duo began releasing a series of compilations, followed by a debut album by Landslide, whose ‘Drum and Bossa’ set brought in a whole new audience from other scenes. The following summer saw the signing of Danny Byrd and ending the year with the signing of the then-unknown welsh producer, Lincoln Barrett, better known as High Contrast. Chris Goss has since 2002, withdrawn from the studio to run the label, leaving Tony to fly solo as ‘London Elektricity’.

With him follow High Contrast, Cyantific, Nu:tone, Phuturistix, Landslide, Danny Byrd, the Social Security crew (Child Support and Crisis Loan) and Tomahawk under Hospitals’ ever expanding wing of very talented artists and DJs. Renounced for his Live band which was described by KNOWLEDGE Magazine as “Jaw dropping stuff…..there’s nothing else quite like them in the scene”; Tony takes pride in everything that he does and has amazing levels of uncompromising standard when it comes to the word ‘music’.

Tony loves to nurture new talent and the quest to expand the Hospital wing continues till today, with latest additions Cyantific and Nu:tone; he strives to continue breaking conventional junglist moulds.

Hospital is now one of the most successful and independent labels in the U.K, with ‘soulful’ being one of the most commonly associated words when one mentions Hospital. Consistently releasing compilations such as the Outpatients and Plastic Surgery series, and heavyweight artist albums like High Contrast’s debut album, ‘True Colours’ and London Elektricitys’ ‘Billion Dollar Gravy’ .

After rambling for hours, I finally remembered that an interview was supposed to be going on. He had to do a ‘repeat telecast’ of most of what we spoke about, but we had a jolly good time nonetheless. After the interview, we both got locked out of the club because it was a single-side opening door, so the both of us had an adventure walking out and around and back into the club with empty glasses begging to be refilled. An amazing person to know; such amazing views and worldly-wise knowledge on music and life. He could tell a lot about me in just an hour. I concluded that he’s very in-tune to human emotions and can tell loads about a person just by one look. Soulful tunes from an even more soulful person, evident in his producing style.

It was indeed a night to be remembered.

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EM: Tell me about hospital in general…what made you want to start hospital records?

“Hospital is my third record label, and I’ve always been addicted to having record labels simply because I learnt quite earlier on that you cannot trust the majors. I had a very bad experience with majors and I very quickly decided that I’d just keep doing it myself because if you set up your own label then you can release your own music when you want and you can market it how you want and the best thing about it is that you can never blame anyone else if anything goes wrong.” EM: There’s Eight signed up on your label, Hospital. Any plans on expansion?

“High contrast, Nu tone, Cyantific, Social Security, we’ve got many artists on hospital.”

“We’ve been going out for a while now, we started out in 1996, our kind of policy on expansion has always been slow, so we build it carefully, we expand slowly, we are very conservative with the artists that we sign and the music that we release and I mean conservative in terms of the fact that we’re very careful on quality of what we do.”

EM: What exactly are you looking for when you sign someone onto your label?

“We’re looking for someone whose music triggers a very strong emotion, that’s what I’m looking for. And it has to be someone that’s got their own sound and someone who has got a surprising sound .”

EM: Something totally new I presume unknown and fresh sounds.

“Yeah, totally new, they’ve got to bring something completely new into the music, whether that’s drum and bass or break beat or garage; you know they have to bring something unique otherwise, what’s the point?”

EM: Tell me your perspectives on the scene in Asia , since you’ve been to a number of Asian countries following our earlier conversation.

“I’ve been to Japan many times, my wife is Japanese and I actually met her on the plane to Tokyo when I was on tour, so I’ve played in a lot of drum and bass parties in Japan , I’ve played in HongKong once and I’ve played in Seoul , South Korea . In Japan I played in liquid room in Tokyo three times, Kyoto , Osaka , Nagoya , Fukuoka , Sapporo , and I played most of the clubs in Tokyo .”

EM: Compare what you’ve seen in Asia so far to the scene in U.K. What is the difference between the two?

“It’s very different; it’s not as deeply rooted. I think Japan is very different from the rest of Asia because what happens in Japan is that they tend to jump on any new trend that happens in New York or London and then they get bored of it very quickly. It was huge in 1996 and 1997 and then suddenly it just kind of died, and now it’s quite small.”

“But what’s happening in the rest of Asia, I think it’s a very slow, but steady growth of love for drum and bass and for example I went to South Korea in September 2003 and that was only the 2 nd drum and bass party that they ever had, I went over there with High Contrast and it was wicked, the response was amazing. So I think what’s happening globally with Drum and Bass is that it’s now got to the point where it has totally matured. And a lot of people have said Drum and Bass was going to die, they said that three years ago, and we’ve all proved them wrong. And in terms of the amount of parties, and the amount of club night and the amount of festivals, dedicated to Drum and Bass around the world, its growing every year so drum and bass is going to be there with us for a lifetime, its not going to go anywhere, its just going to build.”

EM: Have you met any Asian producers that have taken to your interest?

“I haven’t met any Asian producers that I would want to sign to my label, but I would want to meet a producer from Asia that I would want to sign, I mean I know there’s people out there, there’s kids out there who’ve grown up and are obsessed with drum and bass and jungle… and they’re making it on their computer, and maybe no one has heard their work but we need to hear that work.”

EM: What kind of styles would you be looking for then and/or prefer?

“I’m not prejudiced against any style within Drum and Bass, I’m looking for something unique, something original. We receive a lot of demos at hospital and we listen to all of them.”

“You don’t listen to the whole track because when you get a cd and you stick it on, you have a very good idea, even just listening to the intro. You’d have a very good idea if this producer has got it or not. And the way I do it is that I’d stick the intro on, maybe listen to it for even as little as ten seconds, and I’d fast forward to the drop, when the bass lines comes in and I’ll listen to it again, and then I’ll know if its interesting or not, and we cannot contact everybody who sends demos because we get so many but if there’s someone who’s interesting whom I think I can develop, then I will, I’ll email them and give them some advice and take it from there.”

EM: Would you ever be interested to come to Singapore at any point?

“I’d love to come to Singapore . Yeah, it would be amazing.”

EM: When I mention Singapore, what would be your initial thoughts on the country and/or the scene?

Umm..You’re not allowed to drop chewing gum on the pavement. *laughs*

EM: Besides that?! *Laughs* WHERE did you hear that from?

“I don’t know but that doesn’t affect me because I don’t like to chew gum.” *laughs*

“No I just heard that it’s a really clean country. And you can’t litter, cos’ you’d get arrested or something, or you get shot, I don’t know.”

EM: How about the scene in Singapore then?

“I don’t know. My impression on Singapore is that it is actually a very rich country and it’s very oriented towards business and there must be a certain percentage of the youth that would enjoy something like drum and bass because its human nature to react to something against all of the crap that people try and sell us.”

EM: Okay so a random question I’ve been wondering about. Why did you name your record label “Hospital”?

“Umm..” *thinks*

EM: Was your purpose like..*thinks* to nurse every one back to sanity if they listen to drum and bass? *laughs*
*Laughs* “I like that. NO, I really do! That’s really nice, to nurse everyone back to sanity. THAT’S WICKED.. I’m gonna stick with that!”

EM: Okay, so Hospital records has proven to be the soulful host of Drum and Bass, are there plans in the future for greater diversity?

“Well you see that word soulful, you can look at it in different ways.”

“The way I look at it is that that is no indication of whether a tune is hard or whether its liquid, because to me the soul runs much deeper than that and they do tunes…like… by Dillinja for example, he’s playing right now…they’re extremely soulful, and I would rate Dillinja in the same way that I would rate Calibre .”

“You know a lot of people will think they’re very different in drum and bass but to me, they’re very similar, because they both have a very strong sense of soul and a strong sense of purpose. And they’re both quite minimal and very confident in the way they produce their music. So, the idea of soul is a very personal one and it’s not one that I apply in a narrow sense to music.”

“So I wont play anything if its not soulful, I play a wide range of styles, you know, I play jump up, I’ll play you know.. kind of ragga-styles, and I’ll play…more kind of like sorta loungy tunes but to me its all unified by the sense of soul and emotions within it. So we’re never going to release anything that isn’t soulful.”

EM: Find tunes that people would be able to relate to and connect? Is that what the gist would be?

“Yeah, to me it’s all about lighting up the room that’s what I love doing. I don’t want to hammer people into submission. Do you know what I mean? I want all to play music that people could discover something within themselves that makes them happy. So it can be a deep tune or a cheesy tune….but at the end of the day, its like…. that’s what I’d like to do, it’s to trigger an emotion within people; and for them to be really fucking happy on that night and join in.

EM: What is it that inspires you when you produce? Where do you get most of your samples from?
“Oooooh. That’s a trade secret. I can’t really talk about that.” *laughs*

“I spend a lot of time sampling. A lot of time…and I buy a lot of records. For me, I will only sample something if I think it’s really unknown. So I won’t go to court.” *laughs*

“But musically, again it’s an emotional response, you know if I was listening to a soundtrack album for example, I’ve to really concentrate on it and there may be just one…you know you got this album that’s an hour long and there may be one moment that lasts for four seconds, and suddenly there’s emotion and there’s clarity and it makes me think of … it could be pain, or beauty…I don’t know…or both. To me the thing that inspires me is when I get a combination of sadness and beauty…that’s what I love, that’s what I love about music and that’s what I try and portray in my music. Its getting like.. two things in one, so its, I guess its like the blues in a way, because its portraying a sense of hurt, and loss and pain, but at the same time.. Intense beauty….and that’s what I love.”

EM: Don’t you think its amazing and interesting that you’re able to portray all this emotion and feelings in a single track that has no vocals, or words? Like for example, an Alanis Morrisette or a Bjork tune where she lets out what she thinks and feels in words but on the other hand you’re trying to portray what you think and feel in bass lines and beats… do you think that’s very challenging?
“Yeah, it’s challenging but its not new. You know you can look back at composers like * Debussy or * Ravel from the Impressionist Era of classical music and they were doing the same thing, you know they basically hit on the idea that you can create an impression, an emotional impression in the listener purely by your choice of chords, your choice of melody and the way you arrange the orchestra and drum and bass is very similar to that.”
* EM: ( Note: C laude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, The Impressionist Era)

EM: Can you tell us what we can look forward to in the near future, in terms of 2004?
“Sure. In terms of London Elektricity, we’re releasing a live DVD in May, which is the live band, I don’t know if you know but we have a full live act that’s on the road round the world, we WERE supposed to come to Australia ….”

EM: Okay we’ll keep the reason a secret.. SO, it’s due to circumstances.
*Laughs* “That’s why I’m here to DJ, I mean, I’d love to come here and DJ, it’s wicked, but it would have been nice to bring the whole band with me.” “So, we’ve got the live DVD that was recorded at the Jazz Café in London . There’s an hour performance and also an hour of documentary footage, of the members of the band, all of us kinda arguing and fighting, kinda like.. taking the piss out of each other. *laughs * It’s quite entertaining.” “And there’s writing the next album, but that’s not going to come out till next year, so that’s 2005.” “In terms of Hospital, we’ve got a compilation coming out next month, which is called “Weapons of Mass Creation”. That’s really tunes by mainly new artists, it’s tunes by all of the hospital artists as well but the whole point of “Weapons of Mass Creation” is that it’s a positive thing. They’re weapons because they’re bullets. They love bullets and…they’re bullets that are gonna just…bring joy to people.”

EM: Bullets that bring joy to people..?*laughs*

“Yeah.. bullets of love.” *laughs*

EM: That’s an interesting contrast; people always associate bullets with death and negativity.
“Yeah, that’s why..it’s just like cupid. You know.. cupid.. love.” *laughs*

EM: Cupid doesn’t use bullets! He uses ARROWS! *Laughs*
“Yeah but we’re bringing him into the modern age you know!”

EM: So where do you see yourself 10 years down the road? “Still making music and hopefully still inspiring other people to make music…and helping people. I love teaching and I love sharing my knowledge with other people, with the artists on hospital or…or.. whoever. You know, that’s a joy to me, and it’s a privilege to be able to do that, so, you know.. I’m very happy because I’ve got fantastic record label, with great staffs, who all love each other. I’ve got an amazing selection of artists, who are on hospital and I’ve got a fantastic band, you know, all the musicians. At the end of the day it’s all about the love.”

EM: So it’s the love of drum and bass is actually keeping you going eh? “It’s the love of music. Yeah.”

EM: So would you have any message or advice for the producers, the DJs, the people back at EXITMUSIK and the event organizers as well as budding and aspiring ones back in Singapore?

“Be passionate. Look at your passion, and believe in it, because it’s there for a reason.”

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2004 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.