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  The Disablists Interview
deejay feature 0037 added
04.10.06
words: Pootle
technical:
Spoon
Ever since Pootle saw three guys not only do a wicked turntablist routine, not only do that routine blindfolded but also do that blindfolded routine live on Childrens’ BBC flagship magazine show Blue Peter, he knew he had to track these guys down for an ukhh.com interview. Fortunately, those helpful chaps at 7thirty Entertainment were all too willing to fulfil this request and to cue up the interview. What follows is a transcription of a telephone conversation between Pootle and Ollie/The Mighty Atom who had been appointed by the group as their official spokesperson.
Well I guess the most obvious place to start with would be your group name.
Yep.
 Which came first: was it the group name or was it the party trick of doing the blind-folded routines?
It was the name. The blindfold thing was just a bit of a corny stunt we came up with but it seems to have stuck. That’s all anyone ever really says: “Oh you did that blindfold thing once.” That was like in 2004. When we got to the world finals in 2004, our set was really simple and was really just wack compared to what everyone else was doing. So we were like “Fuck it! We’ll just throw in a bunch of corny gimmicks.” So we did the blindfolds and then we did this thing were, since we all rotate on this bit, we thought “we’ll all pass round a giant spliff! Yeah! That’ll look really cool.” If you watch the video, we fuck that bit up so badly hehehehh. It’s hilarious! We’re all cooked up under the lights ‘n that and we’re spinning out – so that was a very bad idea.
So what’s your favourite like body-stunt or party piece that some one else has done?
Body Tricks? When it comes to body tricks, there’s that one that I think Craze did in his routine (I can’t remember which year). He does a scratch, he turns around and as he turns, he uses his shoulders to turn the turntable off and to spin the record back as he turns.
Wow
That’s a real sick one from about 200. Yeah, that’s a real sick one.
Coming back to the name, can you tell me how you decided on the name “The Disablists?”
Well the thing is, it’s just a play on words. Everyone says “oh yeah we’re Turntablists” and there was that Rob Swift album The Ablist –
Uh-huh.
 We just thought… Well this was back in 2002 and we all just weren’t very good at that point so we thought “Okay then, we’re the ‘Disablists’ because we’re a bit rubbish.” Heheheh. So that’s basically how it came about. It seems to have stuck. I remember I met Mr Thing and he was going “That’s the best name I ever heard for a deejay crew EVER!” So I was like “Wicked: we’ve got to keep that then.”
How did you form as a band?
The thing is, there’s three of us. There’s me (I’m Ollie) and there’s Joe and another guy called Ollie. Me and Joe have known each other since we were at school. He only lives round the corner from me so I’ve known him for years. We went to college to do music technology and on the first day, they had all this new equipment and they had some turntables and we started asking all these questions like “Ah! Can we have a scratch?” Ollie comes up to us and was like “Yeah you’ve gotta scratch! Wicked-wicked!” We just went and hooked up with him: went back to his place, had a big smoke and bonded over all these records and which classic hiphop we liked. And it all just kicked off from there really.
Speaking of music technology, have you embraced things like CD turntables and Turntable notation [TTN] software? Or are you still about back to basics with two decks? – well with you, it’s five decks; five decks and three mixers?
We have to a certain extent. I was quite blown away with the CD things. I am quite cynical about CDs: I’m very much a vinyl purist. I don’t own many CDs, all my music’s on vinyl – but I was quite blown away with it. It is good: you can scratch properly on CD decks now and that is quite amazing but I dunno… We like to keep it pretty much back to basics – but it’s kinda a mix of both because the guys, the other guys, they produce a lot of music, they’ve both got their own computers and we do use Final Scratch to put together routines, test ideas and stuff and then we’ll take that and press that onto our own vinyl. It’s a bit of a backwards way of using all this technology to then just press it back onto vinyl and go back to the old analogue ways. I think it will always be vinyl for me.
And speaking of vinyl, I’ve been reading a couple reviews of your previous DMC exploits and people have praised you for using your own tools.
Yes.
Do you use commercial battle tools at all?
 Well the thing is, I guess we all use them to a certain extent. As scratch deejays, we all need to use records with your “aaaaaah!”s and your “Ffffffresh!”s and stuff. But we just try to dig for records. The first two times we were in the world finals, we did it all off records we had found and searched for. That was really hard because you’re getting a whole load of different records and you have to pitch them up and down live so they all work together musically and stuff. But then you’d look at the French guys and everything just sounded so tight and so smooth and together, we just thought “well that’s the way it’s got to be done.” So this year, we pressed our own vinyl and came second – so this is the way to go with it I think.
What sort of material do you draw upon for your own tools?
Ohhhhh! EVERYTHING! This year we had a Big band version of the Drum’n’Bass tune Super Sharp Shooter –
Heheheheh.
And people love that – people go crazy for that because it’s something different. It’s just taking modern music and giving it an old twist. We all love old reggae, dub and ska, roots stuff, jazz, big-band stuff – anything really. We draw on absolutely anything. We don’t like to pigeon-hole music: if it’s good it’s good. I’ll listen to it: we’ll all listen to it.
With like normal bands everyone has their own different roles…
Yeah.
Given that you all play the same “instrument,” do you have defined roles within the group in terms of composition and performance?
 Ah! Well this is the thing. This is the good thing. Since we all play the same instrument and since a turntable can play any sound, we can all switch. Even within the same routine we might switch. Like for one minute, Joe might be doing the bass and then I might take over the bass and he’ll start cutting a horn stab or something. We sometimes have a little argument over who wants to do what. Somebody might want to do the main part – like the guitar licks might be real juicy and so someone might want to do that but then someone might not want to do the bassline because that’s a bit more in the background. It all just depends on the composition and what it needs for each part. So it can change from routine to routine: there’s no defined roles for anyone to take.
And coming back to the notation question, how do you like record the structure of your routines for performance? Like do you have cue-cards or something to say “flip this phrase for X bars and then change to..?”
Heheheh. We have experimented with things like that at the rehearsal stage (writing bits down to remember). But really it just comes down to practising it and practising it and practising it just until you know exactly what cut you do in each part, when you drop that sound etc. That’s the only way to do it really because then when it comes to performance, it has to be ingrained in your brain so you just know. It’s just like a robotic act that you don’t even have to think about really.
And in the world of “proper” music, people who play the piano will like the action to be a certain way and people who play the guitar might like their instrument to be tuned to their preferences for performance.
Right.
Do you customise the gear you work on? Or are you happy to work with whatever’s available?
Yeah definitely. We all have our preferences in terms of mixers. Certain crossfaders have quicker cut-ins. We used to do loads of customising stuff. Joe still uses Vestax but me and the other Ollie (Asian Hawk), we don’t like Vestax faders any more because the cut-in isn’t quite as quick as we’d like it. We used to do things like take the face plate off and sellatape like a big chunky bit of card to stop the fader going right back so it would cut in quicker and stuff. We often lube up our faders so they’re slippier and stuff – that was an old trick Dixie (he was an old DMC UK finalist from back in the day) taught us. He used to run the shop and we remember how, when we went in there as kids he taught us a few little tricks that have stuck with me.
Do you have any superstitions or rituals before you enter any contests or performances?
 Heheheh: there is a few…there is a few weird ones. Me and Joe have these lucky flannels that his mum gave us before we did the first finals. They got all sweated up and because that went alright and we didn’t fuck up, we were like “Okay, they’re our lucky flannels.” The other guy, Asian Hawk, he’s incredibly superstitious and weird – he baffles me sometimes. He has some strange superstitions… But I think it is important to have your little rituals.
Have you actually released anything that we can get in the stores at the moment? I’ve seen your myspace page with your routines on them but can we go out and buy any of your stuff at the moment?
“At the moment?” No. This is something Asian Hawk and Clever Monkey are working on. Those two guys have got a lot of production they’re sitting on. They’re sitting on a biiiiig back catalogue of beats. We’ve got a lot of talented people working with us down in Bath and we’re really trying to work towards putting something together. We had a little chat with Skinnyman the other day and gave him some beats. So hopefully, we’re looking to get a release out there to show that it’s not just about the live element of it. We love competing and performing but there is also a wealth of produced music that we’d love people to hear. Obviously the dream is to do an album but if we do it, we want to do it properly and not just some shoddy hundred-copies-pressed-up-in-our-bedroom job: we want to get some proper guests in there. We’re in discussion re getting some really good people on board. We’ve chatted with a few people but it’s all still in the pipeline.
Two questions arise from that: firstly (and I should have asked this at the top of the interview). I’ve read all the DMC reviews and you’ve all turned up at different heats so I couldn’t work out…Where are you based these days?
Me and Clever Monkey, we’re from Wokingham (just outside of (Reading). Asian Hawk, he lives in Bath –
He’s a neighbour of mine then!?
Oh Really!? What, you’re down in the West Country? Whereabouts: Bristol?
Nah, near Frome –
Out in the sticks yeah?
Yeah but I’m moving to Bath very soon.
Oh are you!? Oh wicked! We’re down in Bath pretty much every week. We practise down at Asian Hawk’s house because he’s got a pretty big yard where we can make noise and not piss everyone off. I’m still living with my folks and they’re not too happy about loud scratching at four in the morning unfortunately.
 The second question that arose from that previous one is, do you listen to much turntablist music for like non-study, recreational purposes?
Yeah well the thing is, it’s kind of a love/hate thing really. I’m really passionate about it, I love to study it and if there’s something that really gets me (like I get a kick out of the composition and the technicality of it) then I’ll listen to it. But then, at the same time, when I go to some of the competitions and hear a lot of it, I just think a lot of it is rubbish – y’know, there’s no musical value to it: it’s just people getting up on stage, wanking and saying “look how fast I can do this scratch.” We the Disablists have this test where basically can you turn around, can you close your eyes and is it still entertaining then? Is it something you can actually listen to – that’s as opposed to have inflicted upon you. I think the main problem is, everyone’s trying to be technical; everyone’s vying to become the top guy and they’re just becoming clones. There’s no entertainment value in it and that’s why turntablism is kinda shooting itself in the foot. To people outside of that scene, they just see it as boring. Even I struggle sometimes at these UK DMC events. I just stand there hearing the same thing all night. I love turntablism but even I can’t listen to shit all night. I’m tempted to go over to the deejay to request he put a bit of Coltraine on or something heheheh.
Who of your peers are you feeling at the moment?
Just in the UK or the whole world?
UK, whole world, universe: whatever man.
Well obviously there’s the Amiercan guys: your Q-Berts, your Crazes – that kinda almost goes without saying. I’m into a lot of the European stuff – I mean, I’ve got a lot of respect for C2C. Obviously we’ve learnt so much competing against them. And not just them but all the French guys: C2C, Netik, Trouble…. German guys? Graphic, he’s sick. Another German guy, Uncut, he’s really good. In Britain there’s Tigerstyle… Muzzle - these are all people who I look up to on both a musical and a technical level. They combine both those things which I think is important.
Why do you think it is that France, Germany and also Japan tend to dominate turntablist music and competition? Is it something in the water? It’s a bit like Brazilians and football.
 Yeah I know what you mean. I don’t know… I think that if you look at it overall, there’s peaks and troughs and I just think that they’re really coming into their own at the moment. If you look at these nations, they’ve all got their own styles. The Germans are just very hard, very electronic and just uber-techy. They’ve got that strong work ethic and they’re very tight. The French have a kind of Gallic flare to it. They’re just really musical and passionate about what they do. The Japanese style is very…Well they still do a lot of body tricks and it’s very close to the Old Skool ethic of hip hop. I find with a lot of the Japanese guys, they’re very entertaining and at the same time, very technical so… I don’t really know how to answer that question: I think every country has its own little takes on it. I like to observe, get geeky and try to take as much from each of the different styles as possible.
If, say, Pioneer (or whoever) was to approach you for consultation on development of some kit, what sort of kit would you like that isn’t presently on the market? What feature would you most like on your turntables and the mixer that most people don’t offer?
Hmmm..I’m trying to think…I don’t know what will be the next thing. There’s so much stuff coming out like with this new DVD turntable so I don’t know what the next big idea will be…. Scratching with your mind or something like that? Some virtual-reality scratch thing? That would be the only thing I could think to top it.
Alright then, we’re on the home stretch now: Can you tell me what you’re up to until Christmas in terms of performance and work?
At the moment? What have we got coming up? We just literally did Bristol Academy last Saturday. We’ve got a gig in Cambridge this Saturday. I think we’ve got another one at Bristol Academy, October 28. Asian Hawk’s laying out in Austria in October as well. We’re just in general getting back into the lab and working on next year’s stuff. We’re trying to spend as much time practising as possible. We try and plit the time we devote between performing and doing the whole live element and just putting in as much as possible, really practising hard and stuff.
And those gigs you’ve got lined up: is that you headlining or are you supporting?
It depends . It depends how cheap the night is really hehehe. Quite often, we have headlined a lot of gigs and our manager will swing us some little headline spots or whatever. At Bristol Academy we’re playing with Skinnyman so obviously he’s going to headline that. He’s already got so many years of representing and we’re happy to just play our role. Not that many people have heard of us so we’re just slowly trying to build up a rep through doing shows.
Do you or any of the other guys have aspirations to be radio presenters or VJs or anything like that?
 Asian Hawk did a couple of radio appearances lately on 1Xtra. He was on Semtex’s show and he did a little twenty-minute podcast thing for them. Judging by his confidence on the mic, I don’t think he’s going to be getting a radio show any time soon heheheh. We’d all love to do that. If 1Xtra or someone was to ring us up tomorrow and offer us a weekly Disablists show, we’d jump on it like that – it’d be wicked.
OK then. Just to wrap it up because I’ve got through all my questions pretty quickly – I’m quite surprised really. But yeah, as usual, if you want to end with shoutouts, messages to anybody – and if you want to flag anything up that we should know about?
Let me think… Obviously there’s the Disbalists myspace page. Shout outs? Gusto Fresh, Mike Ayre, John Sniff, all the Bath & Bristol crews; all the Reading crews and yeah, I think that pretty much does it.
Superb!
Props to Ollie/Mighty Atom for taking the time out that Wednesday evening to do the interview. Thanks also to 7Thirty entertainment for the hook up.
- Pootle
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