Copyight Interview.
Words: Toni Tambourine.
Tell me how you guys met.
SC: Through a dating agency right!?
SC: It was through Matt ‘Jam’ Lamont’s girlfriend. I was getting into production; I’d done a couple of little white labels and was spending the earth on studio time. I was banging my head against a brick wall trying to meet someone who I could do music with, someone who was on the same wavelength. When you first start out you spend a lot of money, you don’t know the person your working with, they rinse it out and change you £150 a day.
GC: You had only just come down to London as well hadn’t you?
SC: Yea, I had just moved down to London. In Manchester I was an established local DJ.
GC: Sam was massive in Chorley!
SC: Local hero in Burnley! Ruth said ‘I know someone that you’ll really get on with.’ I phoned Gav and nothing really happened then a few monthly later I phoned again, went round and we started a track. I was using his studio and his engineering skills but we got on well and had a laugh in the studio. When we were coming to pay at the end Gav said why don’t we work together.
GC: I had been doing another label up to then called Catch Records, my partner went off to do some other stuff, he wanted to do some Jazzy House stuff. We split up Catch Records and I was looking for someone to work with because I like to work in a team rather than as an individual.
So you got on right away?
GC: Yes.
SC: Yea.
GC: There was Scotty as well at that point.
SC: Yea there were originally three of us in Copyright. He was an old friend of mine. He was a great front man; he loved the high life, he could offer a lot. It transpired that his career commitments meant that he went off and got a top marketing job. Mine and Gav’s focus was always very much the music, that’s what we always wanted to do. There’s been two of us for over three years now.
Do either of you have musical families?
GC: My Mother always used to sing in the car and we used to scream at her to stop! She was really into French film music and that gave me a real Jazz influence from an early age, I was buying a lot of Jazz by the age of 14 or 15. I had piano and flute lessons when I was young.
So are you actually a musician?
GC: Yea.
What do you play? Piano, Flute?
SC: Everything!
GC: Piano, flute and a couple of other things, badly!
SC: My early influences are probably from my Dad who used to play a lot of Jazz Funk Fusion records. I was probably soaking it up as a 5 year old. One of the records that really remind me of my Dad and of my childhood is The Crusaders ‘Street Life’. That was a special record, but there were a lot of other tracks around that period. That’s probably how I got into this type of music, Soulful music.
Do you play any instruments?
SC: Not really.
Ever study music?
SC: I got the music bug around 15 or 16 when I got decks.
GC: Your Dads a real closet DJ.
SC: Yea! If you go to my Dads house he will do the classic DJ move: ‘Ive got to play you this!’ Then it will be 2 minutes and he will play something else. He’s got mad taste in music.
GC: He likes anything that’s a bit weird.
SC: Yea!
So how does the studio dynamic work between you?
GC: I tend do more of the engineering, because I’ve been engineering since about ’89. I do more of the computer stuff, while Sam tends to take the back seat, directing the session.
SC: When I first met Gav I couldn’t even program anything. But now I can program, I now have an efficient level in the studio. The thing is I am never going to be a better engineer than Gav, so let Gav do what he does best. There is no point in two of us trying to do the same job.
So that dynamic works for you two then?
Both: Oh, yea.
So that’s the reason you get such great productions and why your sound is like it is?
SC: I thinks its because we have 2 mindsets coming together. We both like the same music but we don’t always agree in the studio. I think that is part of the healthiness of our relationship. We know when it’s good; 9 times out of 10 we are thinking the same thing, on the same vibe.
GC: We have a real thing about not having a negative vibe in the studio; if Sam has an idea that I’m not into I give him the space to develop it. If I don’t like it at the end of that at least we tried it. Its not about saying ‘I don’t like that’ its better to say ‘I don’t like that, but how about changing this’.
SC: Studio production is about relationships and not offending someone. Being creative is quite a personal thing, it’s not good if you throw an idea out there and someone just cuts it down.
After years and years of working in music you learn how to approach these situations; ‘I don’t like it because of this… here is a suggestion’. You learn a sort of etiquette. Because me and Gav have been working together for so long we can bypass that.
GC: Sometimes it’s not shit, its good but it’s quite right, it’s not our sound, it’s not where we are trying to go.
So it’s quite easy for you to leave things and move on then?
SC: Yes, when we are making a track we sometimes loose the vibe of the session. We will just say lets leave that for a while. We have put stuff away and turned it on a year later and gone ‘this is it!â€
GC: Essence of Life!
SC: Yea, Essence off Life started as something else and gradually evolved over a number of times when its been switched back on. Sometimes you might get a musician, in this case James Vargas the Sax player came down and we got out all these backing tracks and said why don’t you blow on that. That really turned it into something. We had a great bit of advice from Brian Tappert many many years ago, he said ‘its not what you put out, its what you don’t put out’; we have made a lot of songs that you have never heard, people hear some and think they are brilliant but we don’t. The most important thing is that some of those tracks we didn’t put out are not up to our normal standard. I think some people invest money in a record and think they have got to put it out.
So you’re very reserved about it and you put things out when they are right.
GC: Yea. There is a folder on our computer called ‘on the shelf’.
SC: Sometimes we have a laugh and have a look at it and say ‘oh I forgot about that, its cool!’ Or sometimes ‘no that’s still rubbish!’
What do you love outside of music?
SC: I’ve got two passions outside of music; firstly my family, my girlfriend and our kids, that goes without saying. Also football, im a fanatical Liverpool fan, I really really enjoy my football, but not in the sense of loutish, going to the pub. I love watching it at home, analysing it. I’ve been a fan for over 20 years. My new passion is fishing for Carp! It’s an old thing I used to do as a 16-year-old lad. So that’s what I do in my spare time.
Gav?
GC: err… smoking weed and watching DVDs! Also shopping, when we are away DJing; airport shopping.
SC: I love trainers; I’ve got a bit of a collection. I saw some when we where in Hong Kong, limited edition Nike Air Force One for the launch of a film. I didn’t buy them but I marvelled at them!
GC: I’ve got a good collection of comic books; I really like Frank Miller.
Anything else you collect?
SC: Thimbles don’t you?
Stamps?
GC: I’ve got quite a collection of paintings now actually.
SC: my old mans an artist, Gav bought a couple of his.
If you weren’t DJs what do you think you would be?
GC: Hairdresser. That’s what I used to do before DJing, for four and a half years.
SC: a top advertising exec!
For?
SC: Saatchi and Saatchi probably, that was my old day job, so if I wasn’t doing this I would probably still be in advertising.
Do you think your lives would be much different where it not for music?
GC: Its hard to imagine because I’ve been doing it for so long, 16 or 17 years now I’ve been doing the same job.
SC: I tell you what, imagine this; you get weekends off! As a DJ and someone in music you forget what a true weekend off is. The DJ lifestyle is great don’t get me wrong but that is the down side; not having that normal life having weekends off. Trying to build family and friends into that is hard. It’s not a massive negative, its just one of the down sides.
GC: That effects you more doesn’t it because you have a girlfriend who works Monday to Friday.
SC: the job itself can have unsociable hours. Its always the classic, you’ve got a massive gig and your mates getting married or there’s a christening.
Tell me about your new Record Label – Copyright Recordings.
SC: We started the label firstly because we were coming up with a lot of different output on slightly different projects and we wanted to have an outlet for that. We where often waiting for people to get back to us, you know, ‘will they or wont they sign it?’ There was also a lot of label politics around the world, so we thought we are going to set this up and this will be the outlet for our stuff. If someone wants to come in and sign one of our tracks, fine.
Has that allowed you to develop artist around you that you respect?
GC: Yes it has actually. I think it was the next step as well; you start putting tracks out on other people’s labels and then you think I don’t want to be just signing tracks to other labels, and relying on them. We want to have something tangible at the end of this; we will have our catalogue and our label, rather than lots of tracks all over the place.
Who would you tip to be up and coming people on the label?
SC: I think the thing about our label is that we are the up and coming artists. It’s an outlet for our projects. We have picked up a few people along the way.
GC: Druw & Perez
SC: If you look at us on a strategic level we are competing with the likes of Defected and Soulfuric etc. We see ourselves as a producer label. Most of the demos we get have been sent to Simon Dunmore or Brian Tappert or Dave Lee before they get to us, and if they do get to us they’ve probably been knocked back by those people, unless we are lucky and we get
something on the side. We have not set a label up to farm any new talent because that takes a lot of time and we need to fully develop ourselves first.
Can you tell me about a particularly good DJing experience?
SC: The Defected party at Pacha July 12th with Junior Jack & Kid Cre`me and Sarah Main. It’s was great to play in such a great club with such a perfect setup. I think the more and more you DJ all over the world the more the setup becomes important.
How did it make you feel?
SC: When you do a good gig you feel on top of the world for a week after or until you do a good gig and your back down. It’s a very up and down feeling, its almost like you live off those good gigs, you really do get up in the morning with a spring in your step until you end up in some god forsaken place in an empty club.
GC: I feel like I’m always striving for better, I feel like if the crowd haven’t got their hands in the air through the whole set I don’t feel like I’ve done my job properly. At the time I’m always a bit unsure but then afterward I’m like ‘yea, that was great!’
SC: Its like a defining moment when the crowd are going mad, I look round and Gav’s standing there hand in the air with a Vodka, theres people from the label behind. That’s when a quick thought goes through my mind; this is why I love what I do, this is it!
What sound are you two best know for?
GC: International House!
SC: Ha ha
I’ve heard it called that before, or Global House. Why would you call it that?
BC: Because we play a really wide variety of different styles, it might be really soulful and Disco or really African or Latin style and recently Arabic influences.
Ok, encapsulate your sound in two sentences.
SC: I’d say its Soulful music with a smile on its face. We DJ with a smile on our face. It sounds cheesy but we think if we play like that people will enjoy that.
GC: Uplifting, Soulful music with a kick I would say.
SC: A very happy kind of music.
GC: It’s got a bit of attitude to it, its not noodly Soul.
SC: At the same time its serious, it’s not cheesy. Its good quality music.
GC: We stay away from Chav-House.
So, good quality, energetic, Soulful, international House music with a kick.
GC: Yea, also quite Tribal.
What do you think you’ve achieved with this international compilation?
SC: It’s definitely a benchmark for us; it’s a step up to be doing a compilation. We have really enjoyed the whole process of compiling and mixing it.
Any special tracks? Any re-edits or special arrangements?
GC: We did two whole re-edit’s we took the Beats from Kenny Dopes mix of Wahoo and added the Playgroup accapella and some extra music stabs.
SC: We were going for a block party feel with it, the kind of American Hip-House feel.
Is the compilation a good representation of your DJ style?
GC: Yes, very I’d say.
SC: Yes I think it is. We tried to blend the sense of a good example of our DJ style along with a good listening experience. Generally people don’t want too many choppy effects when they are driving along in their car. We had to balance.
GC: It’s a bit of a journey as well, it starts off Soulful and gets more pumping then it gets a bit Tribal and comes back to something a bit more mellow at the end.
What does the future look like for you guys? What’s your long term goal?
SC: Long term goal is to keep it interesting for ourselves each year. Make sure we feel like we are always moving on. Every year that we have been working together so far we feel that, usually each Miami is a benchmark. We get to Miami and we say this time last year we where there now we are here. I think we have got much more to come in terms of music, we’ve become synonymous with a certain sound but I think now we are trying to vary that and go down different avenues.
GC: I think our DJing sound has developed but I think the next thing is our production will develop with that. Because we are playing in places like Pacha and Zouk in Singapore we are having to play a sort of ‘bigger’ sound, that’s effected us and what we are making in the studio.
SC: It’s affected us in a positive way, we are now listening to new music we wouldn’t have played before but it’s all good quality. We have used that to channel into the new projects. We have stuff coming up with Shovell and hopefully Loleatta Holloway.
GC: I think 2 years ago we where very much associated with that Soulfuric sound but now I think we have more of a sort of Defected sound.
SC: We are just finding our sound at the moment; it’s a little bit more universal a little bit more international. We want people to go into a record shop and not know what is going to be on our new record. We have spent time coming up through the ranks, we haven’t had one big record that’s gone ‘bang’, we have had a few more underground records that have put us up there but I think our best is definitely in front of us.
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