The man behind the Scuba mask is Paul Rose, an ex-garage DJ, now dubstep producer; remixer of Fever Ray and Red Snapper, owner of the label behind Mount Kimbie and Joy Orbison, Hotflush, and runner of Berlin club night Sub:Stance. He’s also managed to squeeze a new album in amongst it all; the tight, melodic amble of Triangulation. We wonder, when does he come up for air? On the phone from London Paul dodges his mother’s cat, tells us about the origins of dubstep and the first album he ever bought…

Can you explain the name Scuba?

(Laughs) I had been messing around in the studio, doing more stripped back, dubby, direct tracks. I sent a CD to Hatcha [of Big Apple Records] – who is probably one of the only people who can say, ‘I invented dubstep’ and played the first all-dubstep set in 2003-ish – and because it was quite different to my other stuff I thought, let’s just see what he thinks of it cold. I had to think of something to write on the CD and just picked out the first thing that came to my head! He gave me a call as soon as he got the CD and I said, you know it’s me, and he said, ‘well fuck’! That’s the story, it’s not deep or meaningful!

As you said it’s been around for a while but it’s really gaining momentum in Sydney now. Can you take us back to the roots of dubstep?

It came out of garage, which is obviously a big thing in the UK but didn’t really travel that well. In the end part of garage’s popularity the music split between being very commercial – people trying to make money by getting signed to major labels – and the flipside of very dark, bass-driven stuff. That actually became grime. At the same time between 2001-2003, there was a really, really small thing going on based around a club in London called Forward>> that did dubstep. People used to come down with their tracks and give them to the people playing, Hatcha being one of them. You were looking at 50 people really. It was never full! Most of the people writing tunes then are the prominent people in it now. So Distance, Caspa, Skream and Benga. The way it has taken off since then is pretty incredible. We thought we were making the most inaccessible music! For it to get popular is quite a surprise really.

What was your response when you first heard this strange new inaccessible music?

It wasn’t really a case where you heard something and thought, wow, that’s a crazy new thing – it was gradual. It went from dark garage into the Horsepower stuff and the first releases from Big Apple Records. There were records that were made back then that weren’t ‘dubstep’ records that are now seen as proto-dubstep.

To step back even further, what were childhood influences? Can you trace you interest in electronic music to anything?

I’ve always been very musically-inclined. My mum was quite into me playing instruments, so I was on the piano from the age of four or five. I got really into electronic stuff when I was 14 or 15; Orbital in the mid-‘90s, techno, US house. The things that have been the most influential would be the early ‘90s Warp Records stuff; Autechre, Aphex Twin. And then jungle, drum and bass were quite fundamental because obviously it’s quite a departure from the usual 4-4. Garage as well – even now. The problem is that garage is seen quite differently abroad to the UK – here we look back on it quite nostalgically. But it had its bad points, and those were exported the most!

What about the first album you bought?

First ever? (Chuckles)The first thing I ever bought using my money was actually the Pet Shop Boys.

You moved from London to Berlin in 2007. What brought that about?

Well, in around 2006 I started to get quite bored of the whole thing in London. I was getting a bit stale musically. It got to the stage that I thought, if I don’t leave now, I am going to wake up one day and I will be old! Berlin is quite a unique place. The mayor says it’s poor but sexy. The unemployment rates are astronomical, but the flipside of that is that it’s very cheap to live so there are lots of artistic people living there. The club scene is unlike anything else in the world. It’s getting a bit more mainstream but there’s still no restrictions on opening hours or anything, all those kinds of things that hold back clubs in other cities.

Has it effected your work at all?

I think it’s impossible not to be influenced by your surroundings. Berlin is dominated by techno, and it does house and minimalism as well – although that’s a bit of a dirty word there now. The main influence is that I’ve done the SCB project [Rose’s more club-oriented music].

Can you tell us about your label Hotflush?

Hotflush was originally a night I did in Bristol which pre-dates the label back to 1999. The night was jungle and garage, one room each. We kept the name – it’s been following me around for over ten years now.
I had absolutely no clue what to do at the start, we’d just turn up and ask if we could press a record! It was completely DIY, learning as you go along. When I started it, it wasn’t intended to be just a dubstep thing, that happened by accident really.

One of Hotflush’s big successes of 2010 has been the Joy Orbison track Hyph Mngo. Were you pleased with that?

(Laughs) Um, yeah, of course!

What normally clicks with you when sign someone?

It’s difficult to pin down. There are common themes to everything we’ve released, but it’s not something I can put my finger on necessarily. I certainly know when I hear something. A lot of what we put out is quite melodic, in relative terms anyway. Beyond that, it’s hard really.
A gut instinct?

Yeah, I think that’s it. The key thing other than the first reaction, is what feeds out of my DJ set.

What’s the reaction in the scene to the recent mainstreaming of dubstep-flavoured remixes and vocal crossovers (like The XX, La Roux, Kelis and Eve)?

The problem with anything when it gets popular is that people start to think they know what it is, and clichés grow out of that. The interesting thing about dubstep originally was that it was quite wide-ranging, there weren’t a lot of common aspects to it apart from tempo and the fact there was always a lot of bass in it. Now it’s a sound and a beat. But there’s a lot more to it than that. I’ve been pretty frustrated to be honest over the past four or five years with the way the mainstream side of it has gone. But I feel a responsibility to it, to keep it interesting. On the other hand, it’s nice to be able to make a living out of it! It still seems completely ridiculous when you think about 50 guys in a room in 2002 – and it was all guys, there were no girls! – to how it is now, it is incredible in some respects.

You’ve been to Australia before?

In 2008 – I played in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Wellington, NZ – and Sydney was the best gig, definitely. It was cool. It was still quite small then. I am expecting that the general exposure means it has increased quite a lot over there now. So I don’t know what people are going to make of what I play!

Scuba 2010 tour dates:

Sunday 18 July – PERTH
Thursday 22 July – CANBERRA
Friday 23 July – SYDNEY
Saturday 24 July – BRISBANE
Saturday 24 July – MELBOURNE (night show)