|
ZINC/INTERVIEW
ISSUE 57
Faster, Faster, Zinc, Kill, Kill!!
“If this album didn’t even come out, I have
had so much fun and I have learnt so much from doing
it that I’m happy.” This sentence seems to
sum up perfectly the state of mind DJ Zinc is in, since
finishing his new album. Over 3 years in the making,
the LP ‘Faster’ is a welcome surprise from
one of D&B’s most prolific and influential
producers. He seems very relaxed and happy about it,
sitting in the sun discussing the trials and tribulations
that have brought him to release an album on a subsidiary
of Polydor, P Records, which is the label that signed
Ms Dynamite and shot her to fame. But rest assured that
Zinc has no intention of selling out. As he explains
his main motivation for releasing an LP outside of Playaz
and his own Bingo imprint: “I said to myself ‘what
do I want to achieve by putting this album out?’
My bottom line aim all along was to try and get the
music to as many people as possible.” Let’s
rewind back a few years to what started as a seemingly
innocent favour for a friend of his.
As Zinc explains, the ‘Faster’ LP started
as a side project of his, back in 2000. By then he was
already an established DJ and producer on the scene,
as well as having his own label, Bingo Beats, launched
on the success of 138 Trek. “I’m doing D&B
and that’s wicked and I’m doing breakbeat
and that’s wicked as well, and I thought to myself
‘I like doing both of those so why don’t I
do something a bit different to put on the b side of
the D&B?’” And as the tracks were growing
more and taking shape he realised that there was no
scene where this music could be played, but he was enjoying
making it nonetheless. After doing 5 or 6 tracks that
were non-D&B and non-breakbeat, but with elements
of both in them, he put them together on a CD for friend
of his. “After putting them on the CD I noticed
that I’d put them in tempo order. And I just thought
‘f$*k it! Why not make this the actual thing of
the album rather than something that I happen to have
done’, and by that point half of the album was
already done. So it was just a matter of filling in
the gaps.”
And so from then on the concept only needed a bit of
refining. “I did six little instrumental numbers,
and what I really thought it would end up like is a
little CD you put on when you are having a bbq, a little
summery thing. Some nice chilled kind of stuff, so I
started doing that and then naturally I do more dancefloor
stuff, even when I try and do chilled stuff I just can’t
help it. So it started getting more dancefloor orientated.”
And the next thing that was to happen was for the label
to propose to add some vocalists to the project. And
at this point Zinc thought “who is going to want
to put a vocal on one of my tunes? Fu*$ing no one!”
But even though he thought it impossible he managed
to get MC Dynamite interested after letting him hear
some tracks, and they both sat in the studio to work
on the 1st vocal track of the album. As Zinc recalls:
“The track that he voiced was meant to be an instrumental
at first, but where he wanted to voice it I was like
‘that’s cool’. So he came in the studio,
and he was like ‘so you’re gonna have to make
a chorus bit here’, you know I had no idea what
I was doing. We’re sitting in his studio with an
engineer, this big, fat studio, with a massive mixing
desk and I’m sitting there like I have no idea
what I’m doing. So he helped me with the structure
of the track, which was really helpful.”
And so what started as a little weird project for some
b sides, turned out to become one of the biggest experiences
of his life as well as being a really good showcase
of just how talented Zinc really is. “I’ve
tried to incorporate the D&B into this album, but
ultimately this album is something that happened naturally.
I didn’t think to myself 3 years ago that I want
to do this. This is totally a natural progression of
my work.” And it sounds like it as well. Listening
to it after the interview, it really sinks in that this
is a totally different experience to any of the other
DJ Zinc material. But at the same time it retains the
same punch and energy that a whole generation of heads
have come to expect from the True Playa. There is something
for everyone on there, from the slow Hip-Hop influenced
intro, to more House influenced beats and total chill
out vibes. His breakbeat and D&B styles are also
there, with one full on Dancefloor number and the original
version of ‘Fair Fight’, which was originally
written for this album in 2000, before being retouched
for the D&B massive.
It all flows really nicely and the vocal tracks are
all really good. MC Dynamite absolutely tears it on
a track that has a strong breakbeat flavour, and the
female vocalist adds a very soulful touch to the other
tracks. There are really so many influences present
on this album, and the concept really works, bringing
together the best of every genre, with a touch of True
Playaz magic.
So what is next for Zinc? Firstly a Dopeskillz EP on
True Playaz, coming out in September, described by the
man as “all standard Zinc material”. Also
Bingo Beats is not to be forgotten. The label has enjoyed
steady success since its beginnings, something Zinc
is keen to continue improving upon. He will be releasing
a couple of D&B 12”s on Bingo as well as Zed
Bias offering his take on a D&B 12”, out by
the end of the year.
There will be a remix of ‘Ska’ coming out
soon, following the recent dub he did with Fearless
on the vocals. As he explains the vocal version was
made for Fabric, as a little special thing, but he doesn’t
want to release it without first refining it a bit more.
“I don’t want to be cheeky and get people
to pay for a remix that is only slightly different to
the original. So I went back in, changed it a bit more,
added a new break, I try to be conscious not to take
the piss out of the buyers you know. If people love
it so much and spend their money on it, it’s not
fair to go ‘here’s a remix with 2 different
notes’”. There is also the possibility of
a track with Ms Dynamite, following the success of his
Freenote dub. It has been a good year for Zinc, and
he is very excited about going back to work on more
D&B projects following the ‘Faster’ detour.
As he tells me at the end of the interview, he feels
as strongly about the music as he did when he first
got into it years ago, and he really enjoys its recent
successes. “5 years ago we were some weird people
making underground music and now we are respected as
being part of an established genre of music. D&B
is now a worldwide force, and we own it. And it’s
a force because we own it and not some majors.”
The future is bright, the future is Faster…
Words: Laurent Fintoni
|
