Washington DC – a city born on punk and funk – has been buzzing during the past few years with a new signature sound, fusing live instrumentation and electronic music. Representing this sound is the Fort Knox Five - a cooperative of skill, talent and passion between four people who have also made serious individual waves in their own rite. Ides talks to group members Jon H and Steve Raskin about the Fort Knox Five phenomenon…

Jon H, Steve Raskin, Sid Barcelona and Rob Myers, who make up the Fort Knox Five, are all names we’ve come to know from many breakbeat, drum n bass and house productions throughout the last 10 years. The four have tread a well-worn path into the studio together, having worked with each other on projects like Thunderball, Lift Off, Thievery Corporation and as Jon H & Raskal on Red Menace Recordings. Jon explains that being in the group and starting their independently run Fort Knox Recordings label gives the collective an outlet to produce and release music on their own terms. “We’re four brothers from Washington DC – very good friends, family – who share the same love of music & the same love of many different styles of music. There’s Steve Raskin (of Thunderball), Sid Barcelona (of Thunderball), Rob Myers (who’s a sitar & guitar player with the Thievery Corporation live show) and then myself (of Jon H & Raskal)... When we all got together, we brought different areas of knowledge & music – but the main thing was we all have the same love of funk.”

Coined by the group as an “anti-genre”, Steve says the cutting edge FK5 sound is also a fusion and measure of these like-minds, “One of the ideas behind Fort Knox Recordings was to cross all these genres & cross the tempos & have it be a little bit blurred… It started seeming like a little bit was missing from the early days: in the mid 90s there was much more appreciation of different styles & the DJs we would see used to play everything from James Brown funk to tech house. So we’re trying to bring some of this genre-mashing. Not really giving it a genre, an ‘anti-genre’ if you will. For us, it’s a fusion of every musical genre that we like: dub, reggae, hip hop, funk, soul, salsa, drum n bass.”

Their most well known CD project has been the co-production and mix up with Skeewiff (Elliot Ireland and Alex Rizzo) called “The Raid – A Trip into the Vaults of Fort Knox & Jalapeno Recordings”. A growing catalogue of joint projects and countless remixes has also seen FK5 remake and work with the likes of Tito Puente, Afrika Bambaataa, Kraak n Smack, Ursula 1000 and Dynamo Productions. Steve is first to tell how fortunate and excited the pair have been to date, “Everything from Mo Horizons to Krafty Kuts – for us it’s been really great. We get to put our take on some of our favourite songs. And vice versa, we’re music fans as well & we want to be excited about new music.”

Jon continues, “Linking up with them [Skeewiff] was a pinnacle thing for us; and working hand in hand in compiling & releasing this Raid album was an amazing experience. Doing the remix swaps, it’s like Steve was saying, we’ve gotten to work with all the people that we really dreamed about. I mean: Dynamo Productions, A Skills & Krafty Kuts, being some of the first North American people to work on Fingerlickin. It’s huge goals that we’ve had for years that have come true.”

Jon H & Raskal arrive in Australia at the end of February for the Fort Knox Five vs Thunderball tour. Jon tells what we should expect from their shows and why the pair is so hyped about getting back to our dance floors. “Coming to Australia is a huge thing for us because there’s two places that we’ve been in the world where people are really, really into the party: You go to Australia & Canada and it’s seriously about the party.”

We’re also promised a mixed bag of treats on their visit with the renowned FK5 block-party styled DJ sets “The Roots & Jurassic 5… A Skills & Krafty Kuts. Funky breaks, reggae, down tempo & hip hop – basically mixing all that together along with a whole slew of exclusive bootleg mashups & all of our remixes. The sound of the label is exactly what you should expect to hear – drum n bass, hip hop, funk, soul, latin breakbeat, everything! That’s exactly how we DJ – its all about the party to us, and everybody dancing.”

FK5 release their debut CD “The New Gold Standard Vol 1” through Fort Knox Five Recordings (distributed locally by Inertia) on February 27th, which showcases their past, present and future sounds. Jon H & Raskal tour the Fort Knox Five vs Thunderball show around all major cities in Australia during late February and March:

Fri Feb 17 – Fractured, Melbourne
Wed Feb 22 – Tropicanna 6, Armidale
Thu Feb 23 – La La Land, Byron Bay
Fri Feb 24 – Moonbar, Brisbane
Sat Feb 25 – Ambar, Perth
Sun Feb 26 – Gilligan’s, Cairns
Fri Mar 3 – Chinese Laundry, Sydney
Sat Mar 4 – Plantation Hotel, Coffs Harbour
Sun Mar 5 – North Wollongong Hotel, Wollongong