With their new record, ‘Teamplayers’, Aquasky have redefined the term ‘collaboration’, recruiting a dream team of producers and vocalists to conspire on every track of their unofficial tenth anniversary celebration. Meat Katie, Drumattic Twins, the Breakfastaz, Tayo, El Hornet of Pendulum, Spyda, Backdraft and a legion more all show up on the guest list, making for one helluva party. Others even had to be barred at the door – you know an album must be strong when there’s no room left for Kool Keith or Orbital’s Phil Hartnoll! ITM chatted with Aquasky’s Brent Newitt about the biggest album of their career.
So ‘Team Players’ by name and by nature – how did it all come about?
It was a snowball effect. It wasn’t a conscious decision to write an album like this. On a couple of tracks, there were a few people we wanted to work with. Then a few more tracks. By the time this would come out, it would have been around ten years so it became ‘hey, let’s make this into an album to celebrate ten years that we’ve been about, and get a whole bunch of guys wanted to muck up.
So the idea of a breaks supergroup wasn’t deliberate?
No, not at all. Everyone of them are friends of ours. It’s very hard for me to view them beyond mates, know what I mean? It wasn’t intentional to be a supergroup. We just wanted to work with the people we wanted to work with. There were a few people that we didn’t get the opportunity, but eventually we’ll get to work with them. When you’ve been round for nine to ten years, it opens a lot of doors to work with a whole range of people. I don’t know if we could ever do an album like this again.
When I talked to Kieron this time last year, he predicted it would be complete last October, what happened?
It usually takes us eight weeks to write an album. This one took 18 months so it’s been very different for us. It’s weird to have spent so long on the music and also it’s given us a lot more time to be fussy.
Has it been hard to let them go then?
A little bit like that, and not just because they’re our babies, they’re other people’s as well. So if you make a change you have to make sure everyone is happy, and vice versa. I think it’s become a bit more precious than our usual approach.
Yes, there certainly were restraints with that and the geographical locations. For example, Freq Nasty [who collaborates as Epidemix] doesn’t spend that much time in the UK. He’s off round the world, in America, New Zealand and DJs here, there and everywhere. Our schedule also is very hectic. With that track, it was a twelve-month period from when we actually started that tune to when we finished it. It was totally different by the end.
Some of the highlights of the album are your collaborations with MC Spyda, ‘What Can You Do?’ and ‘Time Up’. He’s like a ragga voice of god booming down – what’s he like in person?
He’s about eight foot tall, which is quite intimidating. He’s an incredibly wise man and extremely well educated. He’s been there, done it and seen it all. We’re been trying to work with Spyda for a number of years… but due to a matter of drum and bass reasons we weren’t able to.
Such as?
I can’t go into it, I seriously can’t. But I will say the first time I heard Spyda was on [Bad Company’s] ‘Mo Fire’ and I was like ‘holy fuck!’ I couldn’t get my head around this guy’s voice – it wasn’t like any other ragga MC we’d worked with before. I had to track him down. It took a while but I got hold of him and we’ve very happy to have him on the project.
Kieron mentioned last time that you guys were working with Krafty Kuts on a track. What happened to that?
That one didn’t come to fruition. He had to finish his album, and we had ours to finish. We did start it but we ran out of time to finish it.
What was it like working with Kool Keith on the Crash Berlin collaboration, ‘Movin’ the Hype’?
That was unbelievable. That was a great moment for me.
But it didn’t make the album?
It’s not on the UK and Australian version. It’s on the American and Japanese version. That’s the new version, the 2006 rock mix.
So how do we get our hands on that?
It’ll be on the ‘Team Players Revisited’ album out later this year, which will have the remixes from the 12 inches plus remixes that haven’t come out. It’ll also feature recordings of our rock cover versions of Team Players track, and the tracks with Kool Keith and Phil Hartnoll [who appears on the ‘Girls & Boys’ B-side, ‘Crosswire’] on a bumper CD. Hopefully, with some videos as well.
So you’re been playing Aquasky tracks as a rock band?
It’s just something that we wanted to do that hadn’t been done – 100% pure live breakbeat. It was a 10 piece when we went on stage two weeks ago [at Breakspoll and the afterparty]. Six musicians, four vocalists all up.
Are you pioneering a new genre – rave metal?
Yeah, well we’re gonna record the tracks and see how it goes. It’s what we’re about – experimenting with production and not falling into traps. We’re always trying to be imaginative as we can be when it is so easy to rest your head and keep replicating what you’re already done… and it’s great to play guitar.
Are you guys itching to get back into some drum & bass?
Nah, not really no. I love drum & bass… you can never leave it. We’re proud of what we’ve done, but it just got to the point where we loved it too much which is why we had to leave. Our passion was too strong for it. Things weren’t happening the way we thought they would happen. Styles weren’t progressing, formulas were common, stuff had to sound a certain way…
With the release of the new LP, can we expect to you guys touring Australia soon?
I believe May or June, we are coming down. I wish I could bring the band down but it’s not in the budget for ten. I’d love to though.
‘Teamplayers’ is out now through Passenger/Inertia. Keep an eye on ITM for further details about Aquasky’s upcoming tour this May.
