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Feb
15
2004
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DND Part 1 |
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Saturday, 14 February 2004 |
Q. What do you get when you take 4 guys who know the ins and outs of the business, the scene, and the music and shove them all into a very tiny studio?
A. You're about to find out!
Locked away like some kind of musical Quasimodo in his studio above Big Apple Records in East Croydon, Arthur sits on the floor taking apart a 1200 that he had recently ripped the ground wire out of. Dean and Andy and Andy (yes, it gets confusing) are all crammed into the tiny studio amongst the Nordlead, the MPC, the mixing desk, the racks of outboard, and the ubiquitous Apple Mac. This doesn't even take the cameraman or reporter into account.
Yet another case of "Size Doesn't Matter."
For this is the tiny studio that has churned out some of the biggest, bashiest choons in the short history of UK Garage. From remixing Bedingfield's smash to the latest from Pluto, this 4 man army marches to the beat of their own drumsampler and are literally paving the way for what may be a trans-Atlantic migration of sorts. DnD will likely be the first UK Garage remixers to lay claim to the glory of breaking the Top 10 on the US Billboard charts with Daniel Bedingfield's 'Gotta Get Thru This'.
There is no doubt about it, as we say in Canada. Radio stations are playing 'Gotta Get Thru This', DJs are playing it in the clubs. Even if they don't know what it is really, the people are loving it. MuchMusic has the video on rotation and MTV will surely follow.
Wait. Is that possible? A Top 10 single with absolutely no support as of yet from the musical juggernaut that is MTV?
Seems inevitable.
Maybe there's hope for UK Garage in the US and Canada after all...and that hope may just be in the form of DnD.
What do the boys have to say about all of this? Risking life and limb on the rickety stairs of Big Apple Records, UKMusic crams into a tight space to bring you the goods.
>> Listen to this DnD mix by Deepsix while you read! <<
DnD mix Tracklisting
Sen: The first thing I absolutely NEED to know is which one of you guys says "D and D" at the beginning of your songs?
Arthur: It's a guy called (after about 2 minutes of debating exactly how to spell his name...) Easyrider.
Dean: Yeah, it's our MC Easyrider.
Sen: Because that is very very well known in Garage circles. That whole "D and D" (which Arthur mimics convincingly well) is kind of your trademark.
Dean: Oh dear (laughing).
Andy C: $$$$ record, but we love the trademark (even more laughing).
Sen: Who exactly is DnD? What do each of you individually bring to the collective?
Andy C: I brought the pizzas this afternoon.
Andy: I take care of the day-to-day running of the business, take care of the guys...
Arthur: ...and we take care of the night-to-night running.
Dean: You're not going to get a lot of sense out of this interview!
Sen: That's okay.
Andy C: We're sort of a collective really.
Dean: Yeah, we all sort of bring something different to the table, really. Arthur pushes the knobs and buttons. Myself and Andy [C] do a lot of the A&R idea-wise and stuff, and then go out and sell it and promote it. Andy takes care of the day-to-day running of the office - looking after majors, compilations, publishing - all the day-to-day nonsense stuff, really. And that's how we all work really.
Sen: How did you hook up? Were you friends before this?
Dean: I work for Essential Direct [Distribution] and so does Andy [C]. I delivered records here [Big Apple Records in East Croydon] and Arthur had just moved the studio into here. He was always sort of saying, "Look, is there any guys who want to do some stuff?" and we were like, "Well, we should go and make some Garage"... and that's how it started. It just went from there.
Andy C: How long ago was that? Three years ago? Four years ago?
Dean: Three, four years ago now...
Sen: Three or four years? that's how long you've been writing music together?
Dean: Yeah.
Sen: Well, you've basically got a "Midas Touch" - everything you touch...
Arthur: D'you know what? You're about the fifth person that's said that this week, bruv, and so d'you know what I'm gonna do? We're gonna remix, right, the old 80's track "I've got the Midas Touch" (starts singing in a Bedingfield-esqe falsetto accompanied by some armchair dance moves courtesy of Dean).
Sen: Can I get that on dubplate?
Arthur: Of course.
Sen: Because, really...every mix that you guys have worked on has gone on to do very, very well. I can't think of one that really hasn't. (Dean rubs Arthur as if he is some kind of good luck charm) Is your success all down to Arthur?
Dean: Well, yeah, pretty much so.
Arthur: Yeah, but of course I couldn't do it without my boys, you know?
Dean: We all bring something different, you know? We all work full time, and Arthur just happens to work full time in [the studio]. We are all here from time to time. I'm here at least three days a week. Andy [C] and Andy are all over the place, so... We're always doing different things for the company.
Andy C: It's grown bigger than just doing a record and putting it out. It takes work to tend to the majors, smooth things over with people, meeting and greeting...
Dean: We have our own publishing company. It's a joint venture that we have with Reverb/Excel, who are our management company at the moment. We're also going into partnership with them in the management company as well. So, you know, DnD is expanding. Rapidly.
Sen: And what does "DnD" actually stand for?
Arthur: Deadly and Dog$$$$. (Much laughter fills the room)
Dean: It's something that probably, the true light of day will never come out about it. It's sort of like Daft Punk - you never know who Daft Punk are. People have called us "Deadly and Dangerous"...it's whatever you want it to be. Something once occurred and someone said something and we thought it looked good, it sounded okay, and it works.
Sen: And MC Easyrider can definitely say it.
Dean: Yeah, he can say it.
Sen: So, what have you recently remixed that we should be looking out for?
Andy C: Ja Rule.
Dean: Ashanti.
Andy C: Pluto.
Dean: New ‘Freak Mode' - Reelists; Evi-dence. I mean, it's pretty much nonstop at the moment. Probably too much work.
Sen: So business is going well?
Andy: We've got to start to say "no" now.
Dean: It's been hard to say no because the money's been so good, but it's got to the stage where...
Arthur: What? We get paid for it? We get paid for it?!?!
Dean (whispering to Andy): $$$$, he found out...
Arthur: You $$$$ing bastards!
Dean (now accusing Andy): What? Did you give him the money?
Arthur: You $$$$ing bastards!
Sen: Any tunes that you've been given to remix that you've just cringed at the original?
(This question is met with gales of laughter, knowing glances and a lot of nodding and winking...)
Arthur: Any one that's a lot of money, usually.
Dean: No, I wouldn't say that. I'd say we try to pick and choose.
Arthur: No, we have a load of things that we listen to and say, "$$$$ that. No way, man. You can't do that", you know?
Sen: And you don't even do them?
Dean: No. We've said no to quite a lot of projects because you just can't do them.
Arthur: I would say that people who have a remix by us are very privledged and they have got a good record.
Sen: What's the rejection to acceptance ratio?
Dean: one to one?
Arthur: Maybe...
Dean: Maybe two rejections to every one accepted.
Andy C: Due to the fact that, aside from the fact that some of them might be crap, we just may not feel the song or like the song.
Dean: That's definitely one thing that all of us have learned over the last few years - listening hard to whatever you're given and making a group decision. Not just one somebody saying, "I think that's great", and then somebody else says, "Yes" but nobody else is feeling it. It's all of us saying, "Yeah, I think we can do this and this is how we should remix it, in this style with this sound."
Andy C: It's like they say: "You can't polish a turd". If it was a bad record, it's a bad record no matter what you do to it, so don't even go near it.
Arthur: And the thing is, like, some people now say to us, "Can you do us a remix?" We're like, "Well, look. We don't like the vocal. We don't like the song." "That's alright - just do us a track and put one word in it." We're like, "Well, look! You're just $$$$ing buying a record off us then, really. What the $$$$?" You know...$$$$ off.
Sen: In this business, especially in something as fast changing as the UK Garage scene, you're only as good as your last record.
Dean: What we have, I think, more than anybody else - I'm not blowing our own trumpet (Arthur toots out a rather realistic sounding fanfare) - what we have between the 4 of us who are DnD, is something that no other production house or team has. We have two guys that run vans and distribute records to the whole of the south and north-west of London, so we have our finger on the pulse. We know when it's changing. We know what sells in different areas. We have somebody in the office full-time running it and taking care of the day-to-day crap, and then we have somebody in the studio full-time, nonstop. We all have different disguises as well that we do stuff under, and we also do House music and Arthur does a bit of Techno every now and then. And the studio being above probably - well, it is the biggest Garage shop in the UK... the busiest - so, this being on top of it, you know, we've got nearly every angle you could possibly think of covered. So, we know when to change; we know when to try something new.
Andy C: We're not just locked up in a studio, so like, you make your record and all of a sudden someone goes, "That's really dated" - we're out there moving around. We know when to change or slightly evolve. Rather than doing a sudden change from doing that to changing and doing that, our stuff evolves. It's like you will slightly hear it change rather than doing a sudden change and you going, "Well, that's not as good as your last thing." It's more subtle than that as it goes through.
Dean: I mean, what we also do is we obviously sell records all day long and you say, for instance, like last year, Sunship done God knows how many mixes...
Andy C: And only a few of them are good...
Arthur: Oi!
Dean: You know, and people start to say , "Oh, they're starting to sound a bit the same." Where as, artists like Ceri [Sunship] - he works hard. He's a hard worker; he's in there nonstop. But that's him on his own. Where is he getting his ideas? Where is he feeding from? We can feed from all different angles - the shop, the vans - you know. I think we're a slightly cutting edge team.
Andy: It's easier for us to feel things out.
Arthur: We're not dissing Ceri at all!
Dean: No no no! Don't take this the wrong way before we throw him [Andy C] out the window!
Andy C: No no no! All Ceri's stuff is good, but what happens is, you start to get about a third of songs that like, sound like the one he did previously.
Sen: Right, like say, ‘In Demand' sounds like ‘5 O'clock'.
Andy C: Yeah. They're all good records, but...
Dean: We're not specifically saying anything about Sunship or anybody, but I think what we have, as a collective, what we bring to our productions and our remixes and everything... this is why we're maybe slightly ahead of the game.
Sen: So there is power in numbers, is what you're saying.
Dean: Of course.
Sen: What you say is interesting because you hear the M.J. Cole remix of ‘Dreamy Days' and then you hear what he recently did with Fallacy and Fusion ‘Groundbreaker' - you hear the two tracks next to each other and if you took the vocals away...
Arthur: Yeah, but the thing is that because these tracks are so $$$$ing ruff, and the beats are so good and the bassline is so good... [Arthur takes a second to argue with the cameraman]... because that so much of an artform in itself, if you listen to it, they're not the same. Untrained ear, yeah - same $$$$ing record - but if you love him and you like his style, you'll listen. It's like, "No, listen to how he's done that." Totally different, you know what I mean? So it's almost like, you know, you could look at, I dunno...minimal paintings and go, "They're all the $$$$ing same" right? But if you look at them you're like, "No, that one's $$$$ing ruff."
Andy C: Untrained eye... untrained ear - same thing.
Dean: The other thing is, if you're a fan of somebody's work, it doesn't matter how similar something is, you can hear the differences and you can say, "Now that remix is different because of that," and I think if you're just into general sounds, you would say, "Well, that sounds like that!" But if you're a fan of somebody, and when you're in the business you become fans of other producers, you'll think, "He's tried something different," or "He's done that, " or "He's done this," so you listen to other peoples' work as well.
Sen: Basically, you hear the same thing about Sunship, M.J. Cole... Wookie's basslines, Jameson's basslines...
Dean: People are going to say that.
Sen: I've never heard that about DnD though. I never heard people say, "The last DnD remix sounds like the thing they did 6 months ago."
Andy C: Some of that is the fault of the majors though, because these producers have done remixes for some people and instead of them coming out when they were done, the majors stored them all up and, all of a sudden, they put all these remixes out at once by the same artist on different labels and you have six or seven mixes by one artist out there...
Dean: Yes and no... I also think that, say, for instance, someone's done a very good remix, a major will ring you up and say, "Yeah, I want it to sound exactly like that."
Arthur: "...and we'll give you ten million quid if you make it sound exactly like that."
Dean: And you'll go and you'll do exactly the same and all the connoisseurs will go, "What did you do that for?" but you're like "Hold on... I was paid to do that." Now, there's your difference.
Sen: I think that's the difference in remixing and writing your own song. You've got a lot more riding on the remix from a money perspective, and the artistic stuff is saved for your original work. How much original work do you guys do?
Dean: Not enough.
Sen: You're stuck in the remix cycle?
Dean: I think what DnD is all about is not about writing. We're not about us sitting in the studio and getting the singer in and us sitting down and writing tracks and developing it. That may happen at the time when we sit back and we've got enough money and we've got time to do stuff like that. But we're all busy elsewhere doing other things, so time is of the essence. I think what we do is we go and find some talent, a la Daniel Bedingfield. We went and found Daniel Bedingfield; Andy [C] hunted him down - he went and found him, we got him. Nobody even knew what the track was about, nobody cared, no one was interested. We took it away, we developed it, you know? We did what we're good at - developing an act, remixing it, reproducing it, promoting it, taking the record out there on the streets, working it in the clubs, then trying to move it on to a major. I think that's what we're about, not so much about originals although we've got a couple of things coming towards the end of the year that are ours and we've co-wrote. We've just done this thing with this American girl which has come back and it's fantastic. We're over the moon with that one. So, towards the end of the year when we've probably got some money from the Daniel Bedingfield deal behind us, we can sit back and not have to worry about where the next tenner's coming from - we can sit in here and try to develop DnD as a brand.
Andy C: We've got artists coming to us wanting work with us which, as we said, we're looking to do later on, but at the moment we've got a few more projects which are signed to artists who we're trying to develop, which is first on our agenda. Because we signed them and invested in them, we need to get them off doing what they're doing and then we can go back to what we were doing.
Dean: Our release schedule, at the very best, is probably ‘til June of next year [2003] with our own artists and then probably our own bits and pieces. I mean, we're probably up to ten tracks unreleased now, aren't we?
Andy: Yeah.
Dean: I mean, if you take that at no more than one a month, we're ten months now. And that's without any more holdups or big projects or remixes. At the end of the day, like you say, people want us badly and the money keeps going up and the deals get better. In the end, you can't say no.
Sen: It'd get to the point where you'd be looked at funnily if you said no!
Dean: Well, the projects are not that bad, and the better a remixer you become, the better the projects you get offered. So, it's like a vicious circle. It's a nice circle to be in, but it makes it harder and harder and harder and harder to say no. Definitely over the last month or so, we've said no.
Arthur: I've said no five times now, and then said, "Oh, go on...$$$$ it!"
Dean: We've said no and then Ja Rule came along. We said no and then Ashanti came along. We said no and then Reelists, who we done the first single for, came along.
Sen: I really rate ‘Freak Mode'...
Arthur: It's a good song.
Dean: And Arthur's heard the second one and said, "Look, guys, I know you lot said no, but I really want to do this."
Andy C: It is good though.
Dean: So the better the material, the harder it is to say no.
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