Chatting to Krafty Kuts in the morning is a sure fire way to brighten your day! He’s jovial, chatty, and a lot of fun. For someone who’s been in the music scene for a while, and also been burned in the past, he shows a lot of enthusiasm and respect for his peers, and is really positive about the scene as a whole. “I got the inthemix.05 Annual today actually,” he quips when I announce myself, “I think it’s really good, it’s a good view of the whole dance scene in Australia, it’s a lot better than some of the ones we have over here.”

His usual hefty output of tunes and remixes has been a little thin of late though, and I wondered what he had been up to. “I’ve been slogging away in my studio working on my new album,” he explains. “It’s come along really well and its nearly there, it is a few songs off finished, so I’m going to have it ready to bring over to Australia. I’m really happy with it. It’s taken two years to make, a few tracks have changed, and it’s got a kind of funk feel – it’s one of those records you can listen to in your car and you can play certain tracks in a club.”

He’s worked with a few old favourites again. “Dr Luke is back, and A-Skills has done some uptempo funk stuff which is interesting, Ashley Slater is on there – he’s worked on the title track Freak Show which is a dark punk meets Krafty Kuts sound if you know what I mean… it’s quite quirky,” he laughs. ” MC Dynamite (part of Roni Size’s Rapresent crew) is on there, along with B-Spoke, an American rapper. I’ve just been working with people who are easy to work with and can tour the album, be part of the whole thing, rather than if I used Method Man or the Beatnuts on a track, it would be quite hard to do the album live because of their tour schedule.”

He’s also been busy promoting the Supercharged night club, held on Wednesday nights in Brighton (UK), as well as been hard at work with his two labels – Supercharged and Against The Grain. “The Supercharged club night is still going on strong, and that’s keeping us really busy booking the DJs, and putting on really great breaks line ups continuously it’s really bloody hard!” he exclaims. “And putting out all the releases – Supercharged has put out a lot over the last few months – Split Loop, Superstyle Deluxe and some of the other guys. Against the Grain has been a little quieter, but next year looks to be really busy with a few artist albums and 12 inches and remix packages. And we hoping next year will be really big for us.”

I’m a massive fan of breaks, and so it seems is Krafty. “Breaks has so many different styles, funky, techy, bassy, hard, and so on, and elements of all of them creep into my sets, and I think that’s what people like about them, I capture every side of the coin of how good breakbeat is. And that’s another good thing about the breaks scene – everyone is really together. Although you have some people, say like Lee Coombs or Meat Katie, and they’re not usually on the same lineups as say Aquasky or Rogue Element, but then there’s shows like Eargasm and three rooms of breaks, and you think that would be too much, but and people are screaming for more at the end of the night. I played with the Plumps the other week and security had to push people away because they just wanted one more!”

We chatted about the differences in club shows to festivals, as he’s going to be doing both when he lands in Australia for the New Year party period. “I’m touring with an MC – TC Islam – so I’m obviously doing the live thing with TC, with Ill Type sound and Tricka Technology live, but I’m doing lots of bootys and lots of new tunes. Up until the last few days I’ve been clamouring to get my hands on as many exclusive new tunes that I can, a lot of effort and planning, but it won’t be rehearsed. But I do tend to enjoy DJing on my own because I create a whole atmosphere, and get the crowd into a vibe.”

“Festival gigs are very different, and a lot more difficult,” he explains. “You have to play bigger tunes and the connoisseur of breaks may feel disappointed because he has not heard the new or certain tunes you expect in a club. When you hear a DJ in a club he can take you on a journey and weave in and out from place to place, but when you play a festival you’ve got to keep it on a high, because you’ve got so many people and many people don’t know a lot about breaks. You’ve always got to take into consideration that there’s a few people new to it and if they came and hear a hard or dark or deep set it could put them off. It’s like easing your way into any form of music really.”

Don’t miss Krafty Kuts, touring Australia in December and January, selected dates with TC Izlam!

Mon Dec 26th – Perth, Breakfest (with TC Izlam) [BUY TICKETS]
Thu Dec 29th – Adelaide, Tonic Bar
Sat Dec 31st – Magnetic Island, Base Bar (with TC Izlam)
Sun Jan 1st – Sydney, Field Day (with TC Izlam) [SOLD OUT]
Fri Jan 6th – Newcastle, Nutshell Breaks (with TC Izlam)
Sat Jan 7th – Gold Coast, Summafieldayze (with TC Izlam) [BUY TICKETS]
Wed Jan 11th – Coffs Harbour, Plantation Hotel
Fri Jan 13th – Hobart, Halo
Fri Jan 20th – Melbourne, QBH [BUY TICKETS]
Sat Jan 21st – Canberra, ANU Refectory
Sun Jan 22nd – Kiama, Kiama Inn