Skream is a busy man. The ever-industrious DJ and producer maintains a global schedule, one that can take him from country to country, club to club in a blur of year-long bookings.
Yet he's also a dad. On the phone to Clash, the producer – real name Ollie Jones – is fresh from nursing his son. “You know what? From four thirty yesterday morning til about eight I was awake as my little boy wasn't well but he went home last night,” he says, before adding: “But I can't complain, really.”
The Croydon artist is certainly blessed. Right now, Skream is focussing on his XOYO residency, a 12 week stand at the Shoreditch club which has involved pulling in favours from old friends, cult legends, genre-defining heroes and more.
“I had complete free reign,” he states. “I had to think about it… there were special nights that I knew I wanted to do. Obviously, the dubstep one which is coming up was a given, a no-brainer. Then it was more getting current influences or things that had influenced my path at the moment.”
One of the true highlights has been a night-long celebration of disco. Perhaps most commonly associated with bass frequencies and house, Skream has always admitted his debt to the disco era – even dropping sets of the stuff during that initial dubstep period.
“We had Midnight Magic, a band from New York who were unbelievable,” he gushes. “It was really cool having a band in a space where I'm only used to seeing DJs. They kicked it off, then my good friends Horse Meat Disco and the rest. It was just unbelievable. Being able to put a line up together like that is really special. It's not your everyday line up, it's a pretty special line up. The only other problem with that is that when I was planning them out I had to make each week as special as the last.”
To Skream, disco and dubstep aren't as far apart as some might believe. “Man, it's the roots of dance music! It's where everything's from,” he says. “It's real, raw music for the dancefloor. The thing is, you can be listening to a track for twelve minutes and it can feel like two minutes – that's the other thing I love. There's so many different elements that grab you. I still find new disco tunes, like, daily. There's so much to discover, still. I think I'll always be discovering new disco stuff, which is wicked. I like things that keep me experiencing it.”
Covering a huge cross-section of styles, another road-block in Skream's residency was the night dedicated to UK garage. “The main thing was, it was people who inspired me,” he continues. “The garage one I picked because it was a defining time in my life. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now.”
“I learned to DJ listening to EZ tapes, so him being involved was a no brainer for me. It was a time when I was at school listening to pirate radio a lot. I could have picked another ten DJs but I wanted everyone to have a nice time. Then having Heartless on there, they were my favourite when I was getting ready to go out to the youth club! I tried to just pick it for vibe.”
Perhaps the night which has gained the most attention, though, is Skream's celebration of the 2001-2005 dubstep era. “Obviously, dubstep was a massive part of my life from, well, before it was called dubstep up until I stopped playing it,” the producer says. “It was easy for me to pick the line up because it was like picking who to invite back to a party so it come together really easy.”
To Skream, dubstep wasn't just one style – it was the communication between styles, between distinctly different approaches which made that initial period so fertile. “In the early days, you'd go out and you'd have Kode9 representing Hyperdub and you'd have Distance representing the industrial sound and you'd have Digital Mystikz representing the more roots sound. That was when it was the best. Your hour on the decks defined what you did whereas a few years later it wasn't – one sound became a global sound, to tag a whole genre. For me, when it got like that, that was when I started to fall out of love with it.”
“I call it the YouTube generation,” he states. “It was people all just wanting to make the same sound as someone else. It's not fun. And what's it's produced off the back of that is EDM, I guess, where everyone wants to make the same record for the same reason – to make a big tune in a club. No one seems to make tunes for the time now, for the after hours, or the closing set, or the opening set. Or to get people in the mood. It all becomes very much drop-oriented.”
Still passionately making new music, Skream is currently engaged in completing an album project for Crosstown Rebels. “Literally, I started a new thing last night and kind of finished it, more or less. Well, it's club ready this morning,” he explains. “Nothing's ever finished until I've played it out at least two or three times. I need to hear it out because obviously sitting in my studio is totally different to being in a club.”
Leaving us on typically good form, Skream still seems to have the same energy which propelled those early DMZ sets, which took him into the charts and allowed him to push effortlessly into the house scene. “It's the same old!” he beams. “Same as last year or the year before or the year before that. It's just all systems go, really. 24/7. And fitting in being a parent.”
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Skream's remaining dates at XOYO – March 14th, 21st, 28th.
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