A Melbourne trio with musical wisdom, a collective love for hip-hop, neo-tech house, breakbeat, drum’n’bass, and rock riffs – all glued together with electro soul? That’s the mouthful that is NuBreed.
Jase, Mykel, and Db are guaranteed to walk their talk and give you an earful. Putting deejayisms aside, NuBreed renders live sets with echoing tubular grooves, and basslines so raw and buxom that ogling becomes inevitable. sixthdegree q’s and a’s NuBreed on their second CD release ‘Sleeping With The Enemy’ and all things, well, Nu.
‘Sleeping With The Enemy’ is your second release in Australia after the much airplayed ‘Welcome’. Tell us a bit about the single…
We were looking forward to doing something. We weren’t sure exactly what it was going to be…’Sleeping’ came about when we were at a stage where we really wanted to start pushing things. ‘Welcome’ was very different, appealed to the mainstream music, but at the same time it was at a degree which was accessible – nice melodies, very uplifing. We wanted to show another side of NuBreed and give a new fashion to it. ‘Sleeping’ was putting vocals over drum’n’bass; something that was really edgy, that was in your face, a real departure from what we’d done with ‘Welcome’. Keep them guessing.
The sleeve design resembles a tribal Transformer. Does it have a specific meaning?
It does. Everything we do does. In the same respect we like to use local artists and it was important for us to get working on the ideas on the place we were at. The guys who did it really encapsulated what we were looking for in terms of NuBreed – that mask was like a front. At the same time it’s got that tribal feel and at the same time it looks really futuristic. So, basically, combining cultures. So when you look at it, it’s not like ‘that’s really European looking’. It’s ‘no form’. At the moment we’re working with graff writers and pushing the local talent.
We’re influenced by our own Australian music. We’ve grown up with Come Said The Boy and INXS. In terms of breakbeat for NuBreed…meeting Andy Page and Phil K was one of our most integral meetings. The stuff we learnt from those guys was really pivotal.
Do you think there’s too much focus in Australia on the international producers then?
Yeah, but slowly it’s changing. There’s so much good music. It’s not all based in Australia or UK. It’s just getting out there. It’s really important for the DJs, the more well known DJs, to educate the scene as to what’s going on out there. Not just sticking to the same form. We’ve got a strong scene in this country. It goes off in this country! Australia DOOD!
Internationals are buying houses here! Adam Freeland already bought land in Sydney. The guy from Artful Dodger is up in the Gold Coast.
You met ten years ago, how did that happen?
We were all involved with music at the time. Since we were young. We met through music but we were friends as well, and over the years while we were working on different projects our sound progressed, touring and finding different things to get into, alternative-based stuff, drum’n’bass. At that time we were like sponges, taking in everything. Everything was happening; hip hop, dance music exploding.
This is the start of the early Nineties?
Yeah, that’s right. We were just getting exposed to it all, finding our niche. It took that long; working on projects, jamming, to find what we’re doing right now. And that’s still evolving too.
So it took ten years of cultivation?
Yeah, experience. A journey. Since we met each other we always knew that there was a dynamic there between us, that was definitely something we could hone in on we could just never find the thing that was going to be “it” for us. Then breakbeat came along, and we were introduced to new sounds and we thought, ‘Yeah, this is it!’ It’s got everything.
That’s the thing with ‘Welcome’ too, it’s got the dark side but it’s so uplifting…
It strangely works. I think one of the guys from Mixmag described our stuff as “dark and moody without the evil” – I suppose it’s true. A lot of the times we produce, we find it hard to keep that balance without the track fighting itself. Like, ‘I wanna be evil, nah I wanna be good.’
What are your musical influences – past and contemporary – and how does that shape your production?
It subconsciously shapes it. Because you don’t go, ‘Oh I’m gonna draw from this influence today’ and write a song. It’s about everything you hear in your life, it gets mixed up inside and comes out a different way’. And our influences are so varied…if you were to go to our music collection…it’s so schizophrenic…you’d find old-skool jazz, mixed with soul, funk, hip-hop, drum’n’bass, it’s all good music. And that’s essentially what we’re trying to push. It’s not so much the idea, it’s more ‘appreciate what’s good’. If it’s good music, no matter what it is, it all stands on the same level.
Do you think that’s why you went towards breakbeat…because it does encompass so many cross-genres?
For sure. It was one of those genres that crossed over so well over everything.
There’s so much different breakbeat that do you can’t even classify it just as “breakbeat” anymore, because they’re all doing different things?
Yeah, even looking at the labels, you’ve got like TCR that emulates that purist nu-skool breakbeat. Then you’ve got labels like InFlight which is more melodic music based – early evening breaks.
Are your shows always live?
No electronic music is completely ‘live’. We use samples and loops. And 8 track, keyboards, mixer and effects. A combination of that. Our style leans towards dub in terms of real time remixing of our songs live on stage. In that sense it is live, but acoustically, no.
Still yet to see a person uploading a drum machine manually! Or someone that’s triggering off a pad.
But they are our drum loops. Our programs.
When you teamed up to make music, had you always set out a goal to put on live shows?
For sure. Because we were all performers.
M: Danny’s been singing all his life
D: Yeah, I did the whole circuit …around town anything from cocktail bars, to bands.
Like ‘The Wedding Singer’?
D: Nah I didn’t go that far
M: But he did sing at a wedding!
We live off what were honing now and that’s why we could take it to the live arena and add a human feel to it. Make it interactive. And still that’s developing too. It’s a big confidence thing to get up there and say: “This is what we do.” It’s putting your balls on the line.
Do you ever get nervous before your sets?
D: Yeah sometimes
M: All the time
D: Sometimes I’m not
M: There’s always that adrenaline. If you didn’t get that anxiety you couldn’t do it.
That’s why you’re always bouncing up and down on stage? During your set at Adam Freeland when you played ‘Sleeping With The Enemy’ everyone just went nuts…
Yeah, which is unreal. We’ve got such reactions. We see everyone. We feel everyone too…when they’re slowly going down…you feel it. But it’s all a big energy high. That down is not really high, it’s just a drop that gets up again. Its hard to gauge how much response and how much feel is coming.
You played at the DMC championships last year but played a more hip-hop based set…
DMC was first the gig ever as NuBreed. We knew we had to come out there and open up with hip hop, then [we moved onto] drum’n’bass, after that all dance. Really a good gig – weird vibe.
Where would you like to see yourselves in five years?
Still making good music, in 50 years! In the next five years, we’d just like to get a couple of albums out, get some international touring, stuff like that, we’ve got to go to London.
There arent any concrete plans to tour internationally?
Nothing set yet, at the moment, it’s good for us to be doing the national circuit, get our profile up and going round here, whilst at the same time give our show a chance to reach a new level – get ready to take it overseas.
Everyone seems to be doing stuff with Arthur Baker these days, do you think you guys will collaborate too?
Arthur Baker’s new CD is interesting, it’s being released on Perfecto – I want to hear it. Anyone in that mould, who has that cred would be great to work with or collaborate on.
Are you working on anything at the moment, any new tracks?
YEAH! Heaps, actually, we’ve got three weeks not doing any gigs at the moment – everyone is jumping up and down with excitement and staying home writing tunes, so we can come out in summer with a heap of new stuff – always good to do, don’t want to always do the same stuff.
You’ve done remixes for Apex on Adam Freeland’s label, Marine Parade. How did that come about?
That’s through contact with Phil [K] probably. Adam Freeland was really integral for us in terms of breaking us internationally. And that was solely because of guys like Phil K and Zero Tolerance in our early days. They saw the vision of what we were trying to create and they saw the potential in our music and got it out there and got it into the right DJs’ boxes and before we knew it, we were offered remixes for Adam Freeland. We were really into it because we’d go onto the internet and look at these mad labels we wanted to be on and think, ‘Geez wouldn’t it be great…Marine Parade’, and bang, it all started coming after that.
Do you prefer doing original stuff or remixes?
Definitely original stuff. We enjoy doing remixes at the same time. [They’re] a little easier, you have the plan laid out for you, all you have to do is elaborate on that, but sometimes you hear remixes that don’t even sound like the original.
