With a name that sounds like the moniker of some sort of cartoon spacevillian Matt Welch & Terry Ryan were never sure it would stick “We were sitting in the pub one night a couple of days before a live gig, about 8 years ago. We needed a name. We didn’t realise it would stick with us all the way till now. It was more of a joke than anything.” But after taking the scene hostage with track after track of mind-erasing dancefloor death rays (ok, ok they’re just sound waves!) the name Atomic Hooligan is now part of every breaknut’s vocabulary.
They’ve recently released their first album You Are Here which anyone who has heard will love and anyone who hasn’t should buy; Terry tells us a bit about what went into it “We didn’t want to put any previously released tracks on there and we didn’t want it to sound like a breakbeat compilation. Apart from that we were pretty free in the creative process. We worked with vocalists on tracks and mixed down in 3 different studios. It took a long time to get it all sounding like we wanted.” And what about number 2? “They say you have 25 years to record your first album, but only a year to record your second. So we are working on the second album now. We are hoping for it to be finished within a year.”
Although the album was released on Botchit & Scarper there is now Menu Music. What started out many years ago as a radio show on Breaks FM (visit http://www.menumusic.com for downloadable archives) with Jay Cunning has now evolved into a label, which after only 3 releases is set to make waves, “I ain’t been able to play as much of an active role in the radio show recently as I would like. But I’m still there at least twice a month. But we are fully focused on the label right now and trying to find as much good new music as we can. We really want Menu to stand out from the crowd. We have a lot of music here and are ready to release it. We are on the third release right now, which is Jay Cunning & Smithmonger, “Never Stop” with a remix from Splitloop on the b-side. Then we have a bomb coming up from SOTO called “Ghetto Blaster” – really different and full of funk. Our two core artists are new guy Jay Stewart – who has more funk than the JB’s & Parliament glued together in a vat of honey. And of course Mr Riko Tubbs has a whole heap of new material coming your way on Menu. We also have another new guy called Majool with a track called “Buenos Aires” with a Klaus Heavyweight house mix on the B … and of course Australia’s own Matt Dopamine with the stormer, “Kiss My Break”. We just need more months in the year to get all this good music out there.”
The Hooligans are also prolific tourers and the name is always popping up on the bill at massive parties and festivals in the most exotic of places from Russia to Spain to Taiwan (check out http://www.atomichooligan.com or the menu music site for some wild footage and photographs) “I wouldn’t call Russia exotic, hehehe, I would call it cold. I love it over there. I think the crowds in St.Petersburg are probably the best in the world. Well all over Eastern Europe. There is a great scene there. Russia is one of the biggest party scenes in the world. Every week there are stadium size parties that host drum & bass and breaks. I played a couple of 10,000 – 20,000 capacity parties this year. It’s nuts. But I also love the clubs there. I am a resident at the Tunnel club in St.Petersburg. Plus, I played one of the best festivals this year in the Ukraine called Kazantip. It’s a beach festival on the Black Sea that goes on for 3 months. It’s nuts. I didn’t want to come back. It was like a cross between Ibiza & Glastonbury.”
Of course they’ve also visited our own little corner of the earth and Terry is enthusiastic about the local scene “I have been over a few times now. And of course I love it! I think that the breaks “craze” is simmering down a little now, which is a good thing I think. It would be nice for the breaks scene all over the world to stop viewing itself as the next big thing and instead just have a solid foundation. I think that’s what’s happened in Australia now. As for the music, I think Dopamine is massive! But there’s always been loads of quality out there!”
With all this touring they’ve had plenty of time to work on a live show and they’ve recently put together a band “It’s a simple theory. Get live instruments to play our music and underlay it with electronic elements, like bass kicks & snares and scratching. I won’t go into the whole process of how we do it, as it’s boring, we would rather just let the music do the talking! It’s all just a matter of getting a balance between the electronic & live. And we never use laptops – even the electronic elements are triggered from an mpc or my cd turntables.” With ten members rest assured that this “simple theory” is not so simple in practice”It’s like an army manoeuvre. We have to get 10 people in one place at one time. With sound checks, meals, organising drinks and all that stuff, it’s mental but well worth it, as when show time comes there’s no feeling like it in the world. Actually listening to a live band reproduce what we have done in the studio… it’s very fulfilling!”
This is also something they hope to intertwine more into their production by working with live instruments in the studio “We did a little for the last album. We are planning to more for the next one. We always sampled as much live instrumentation as we could on our early stuff. But now we are in the position to be able to have live players work with us.” But theres no telling how long it would be until we hear th result, when I asked how long it took to finish a track; “Man… anywhere between 2 weeks and 2 years. A couple of the album tracks like “Dreaming” & “Seven 10 Split” were started at the very begining of the album process and not finished till the very end. Which all in all was about 3 years. And other tunes have taken us 2 weeks. That’s about the average, 2 weeks.”
If breaks had never come to exist what genre do you think you would have ended up working with?
Definitely Hip Hop. I love it, I am a b-boy. 100%. There is nothing else on my Ipod. But saying that, I don’t know if I would actually be able to work in Hip Hop, as I am a bit of a Hip Hop idealist. I would probably be thrown out of the genre for preaching the golden era.
Next big name/s in breaks?
Dopamine, Jay Stewart, Rouge Element and Riko Tubbs! That’s my prediction.
Favourite piece of studio gear?
That’s definitely a Matt question. He loves the gear. I personaly like our mpc 1000.
Favourite Atomic Hooligan track?
That’s hard to be honest. There’s a few I like. Out of the more dancefloor stuff, it would probably be either “Lefthand” or “6am Bagel”. Out of the album stuff, maybe “Superstar Junkie” or “You Are Here” (last track on the album).
And finally what do you think the future holds for Atomic Hooligan?
Hopefully more and more of what we are doing, as it’s our long time ambition to be right here! And of course the 2nd album… and more dance floor business on Menu Music.
You can catch Terry of Atomic Hooligan touring Australia this December:
Fri 9 Dec – Sydney, Chinese Laundry
Sat 10 Dec – Brisbane, Empire
Sun 11 Dec – Perth, Geisha
Thu 15 Dec – Byron Bay, La La Land
Fri 16 Dec – Melbourne, Fractured
Atomic Hooligan & Jay Cunning ‘Beatz & Bobz Volume 5 is out now through Functional/Inertia
