Labeled the godfather of nu-skool breaks, Rennie Pilgrem has been there since the beginning as one of the founding members of the legendary UK breakbeat club night Friction, along with Tayo and Adam Freeland. Known for his DJing and top notch production work, Pilgrem also spends a large chunk of his time managing his successful record label TCR (Thursday Club Recordings), which has just celebrated its tenth year in operation. ITM’s i_have_ADD spoke with Pilgrem prior to his upcoming New Years tour.
Rennie Pilgrem wasn’t always into breakbeat, having been introduced to its early incarnations in dance music through legendary rave DJ Ellis Dee, “He was playing a lot of hardcore raves in the late 80s, I hooked up with him and we were doing house music demo tracks and he played me this stuff which was sort of like house music but it had sped up hip-hop beats and breakbeats, and I immediately preferred that music because the rhythm was more funky. My problem with house is that the same beat is just boring, whereas most people who make breakbeat don’t even use the same drum loop.” Pilgrem’s discerning attitude towards certain styles can be traced back to his musical lineage, his father a renowned trumpet player, with Rennie also proficient at a number of instruments himself, “My dad was a trumpet player, so I grew up listening to jazz and when I was around 16 heard funk. I think one of the things that is a bit of a wind up is you have all these people calling themselves ‘producers’ because they have a computer and can splice together parts of other people’s music. Being musical gives you a bit of an edge I think.”
Interestingly, Pilgrem is not afraid to speak his mind when asked for his opinion on the direction of fellow nu-skool breakbeat founders Tayo and Adam Freeland, with Pilgrem somewhat critical of the latter’s current direction, “I think I’d be right in saying that Tayo is only just moving into producing his own stuff, and it seems to be coming along really well. Adam has done really well getting his single into the charts, but one of the things that worries me about him is that he’s trying to distance himself from being involved in breakbeat because he’s probably worried.” Going on the add, “A lot of media are saying dance is dead, and Adam’s always been quite media savvy, so I guess he’s trying to distance himself. Personally I think that’s a bit cowardly really, if you’re into certain music you should just do it. Him doing the whole band thing is great, although I’m not sure whether he actually plays anything, which is a little worrying for me. But it’s all good!”
When Rennie thinks back to the earlier days of his career, he is able to offer an insight into the changing face of dance music, having been an involved producer, DJ, and of course label owner, for over a decade, “I think in the early days you had to almost forget it all, anything too musical in the raves days just didn’t sound right. Nowadays a lot of people doing breaks seem very musical, and you talk to them and find out they play the guitar or the trumpet, it didn’t use to be that way. At the moment it seems anything goes, with people getting more into live music, and that’s opened things up quite well. At the end of the day people still need hooks, whether it’s a musical one or just a crazy sounding noise.” Credited as one of the founding fathers of the nu-skool breaks movement, Pilgrem is also able to speak with authority on the current state of the breakbeat scene, explaining that due to its growing popularity the term ‘nu-skool’ has become somewhat redundant, “It was relevant back then to give that sound a name, but now breaks has become a lot bigger. The trouble with the term ‘nu-skool breaks’ is that it is associated with one specific sound that’s quite futuristic for the sake of it, and I think people just need to move on and make good music. The way it is at the moment, in the breaks scene there is just no rules, there’s all kinds of stuff going on. Personally I’d say nu-skool is not relevant as a term, it was when it came out but now it’s just ‘breakbeat’.”
Pilgrem’s upcoming tour marks his third trip to Australia on the back of his DJing. He joins a long list of international breakbeat DJs touring Australia over summer, and when asked about it he offered an insightful explanation, “I suppose Australia is to breakbeat what Ibiza is to house. If you’re talking about the next couple of months, everyone is talking about going to Australia and playing over there! I’m not sure how big some of the other gigs I’m playing at are, but Field Day is like 20,000 people or something, and if I’m not mistaken breakbeat is the main musical style there? You don’t have that anywhere else in the world, it’s probably the most healthy breakbeat scene anywhere. For someone who started doing breaks around the second wave in 93/94, when you couldn’t get arrested doing a breakbeat tune, to go to that 10 years later doing something. As far as doing gigs, Australia is top of the world for breaks.”
Rennie Pilgrem tours Australia this New Years, be sure to catch him at one of the following events:
Wed Dec 31, Together NYE – Melbourne (BUY TICKETS)
Thu Jan 1, Field Day – Sydney (SOLD OUT)
Sat Jan 3, Summafieldayze – Gold Coast (BUY TICKETS)
Sun Jan 11, Summadayze – Perth (BUY TICKETS)
