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  Brad Baloo of The Nextmen Interview
interview 0595 added 20.09.09 words:
Andy Patton
technical:
Spoon
The Nextmen are back, and everyone’s favourite party DJs have only gone and done it again…
Their far-reaching, genre-melding fourth studio album, Join the Dots, is out now, and if you sleep on this one you’re definitely missing out. UKHH.com caught up with Brad Baloo to talk about their latest release, how to market a sound that can’t be pigeon-holed, the British desire to push things forward musically, and the effect that the evolving digital age is having on the music industry
What were your main inspirations in the making of this record?
We’re influenced by our DJ’ing in clubs as we enjoy seeing what works when we play out, which has a big influence on our production. And I guess we’ve started playing a lot more dance music over the last couple of years, and that’s been reflected in our sound. Also, to be really honest, the changing face of hip hop, which is a really strange place at the moment. We’ve been less influenced by hip hop than people think…
Well, you’re pretty synonymous for taking your influences from a lot of different areas, especially in your 4 deck mixes with Dom.
We’ve always been into loads of different types of music, but we’ve always been thought of as being hip hop, I’d say more by other people than ourselves. That’s not an insult to hip hop as a genre, it’s just that we’ve always loved the fusion of music styles, which I think is a very British thing. Like the way Massive Attack took hip hop, reggae, soul, dance and electronic music and kinda’ did their thing with it. And I think that’s what we’re probably best at in England; we create these fusions which throw genres together to make something uniquely new.
There always seems to be this hunger to fuse genres in the UK, and it’s not as if people are throwing things together by chance; we have a history of pushing things forward.
Yea, and its lead to us creating our own genres like drum and bass, dubstep, UK garage and grime, which are all uniquely British.
This album follows on from This Was Supposed to be the Future in the use of a more live and even orchestral sound on many tracks, the title tracks from your most recent two albums serve as good examples of this. Have you been working with a few guest musicians?
Well I play piano and keyboards and Dom plays guitar, and we both play drums and percussion and stuff… It’s basically us, then all the string parts are from keyboards. It’s about good plugins really, they’ve come on such a long way, and I’ve got a couple of new, really good ones that are just so killer.
Some of the tracks are so epic, it feels like there’s a small orchestra playing, or at least a few string instruments layered on top of each other.
We have used samples as well, if you look at the CD cover (that you’ve bought!) you can see which samples we managed to clear, because I think sometimes you just can’t recreate the sound of a sample, especially orchestral stuff. You know, when you’ve got eighty people playing in a massive room where they recorded the fucking Star Wars soundtrack, you’re not gonna’ be able to get that at home with your computer!
By the way, big ups for the Meters sample on the Round of Applause track with Dynamite MC.
We’re lucky to be able to use that really, I mean it’s one of the good things about being on a label like Universal, that you’ve got the ability to do it. And also the changing music industry – a few years ago people just weren’t clearing shit like that.
Is it a long process? Do you go through your vinyl and think, ‘yea that would really work on a track,’ and then go to the label?
Well for Round of Applause, I just made the beat and made the tune just after we finished This was Supposed to be the Future, for a laugh with Dynamite thinkin,’ to be honest, this is never gona’ get released because of the sample. Then I just put it forward for the album, and because we’re on Universal the sample got cleared.
 How does a sample like that affect who gets the publishing rights?
For the title track, Join the Dots, there’s one sample that we really chopped up, and they took one hundred percent of the publishing. But you have to make a decision.
I suppose you’ve gotta’ think in terms of the journey of the album, and whether it’s contributing enough.
Yea, with this track we think it’s different, it’s like it’s not really in one genre – it’s just a break-beaty thing. I think although not many people are buying whole albums any more it’s still really important to think about the shape of an album.
Eclectic music taste is needed to enjoy the whole album because you guys always have a lot of different styles going on, but I think a certain amount of people do crave a varied playlist.
Yea, but at the same time as you’ve got people craving it, it does a lot of people’s heads in. It’s probably held us back in terms of how successful we’ve become as producers because we’re really hard to pigeon-hole. We make a tune like Lion’s Den with Ms. Dynamite, and everyone wants us to do that now, but that alone won’t satisfy us as producers because I might want to make a reggae record, then a hip hop record, then a soul record…
But I guess that’s why the Nextmen are now signed to Universal, because of the style you have and how you reach out to so many different areas.
Yea, and the fact that there’s a certain amount of people who will be feeling the whole album, or at least enough of it to buy the album. But the fact that we appeal to different areas should help us with downloading. Some people will just get three or four tracks, and that probably happens with most albums now anyway; most people just download the track they like. I grew up just buying loads of albums and listening to them tirelessly. I always had a walkman, now an iPod, and would listen to albums over for months. First of all I’d really like certain tracks, but after that long period of listening to it there’d be other tracks that I’d love, the real slow burners, and you end up fucking loving them. I wonder if real young kids now are ever gonna’ experience that kind of thing.
I’m a bit of a romantic, but I like to think there will always be enough people who appreciate vinyl and CDs to keep them in production.
Well we’ll have to wait and see won’t we? I’ll wait and see if they ever end up properly protecting stuff against it being copied, because now, you can listen to anything you want for free whenever you want. I mean, to be honest man, if people wanna’ put our music on their blogs for free download and stuff, and take the time to rip the album, scan the artwork and do the whole shit, then that means people wanna’ listen to your music. And even though it’s a kick in the dick, in a way it’s good.
Like you say, in some regards it’s detrimental, but I think it’s given the live scene a kick.
Well yea it has done really, it’s exciting to go out and a lot of people are going out and seeing music right now; it’s become much more of an event.
You said earlier that it’s often hard to pigeon-hole your music. The track Lion’s Den featuring Ms. Dynamite sees her step back into days of old when she appeared as an MC on garage radio. Is this something you encouraged from her, or did it just kind of fall into place?
That track was done with Andy from Groove Armada, he did some of the keyboard stuff and then we did the bass. Dom did the drums and I think when you listen to them on their own, they sound a little bit like Push It by Salt n’ Pepa – they’re not really break-beat or garage, but then when you add the bass-line there’s definitely influences from UK garage and also from jungle, but it’s a dubstep kinda’ bass. Then the keyboards could be taken from some euphoric house record, so the track was purely us in terms of where the music came from, and Ms. Dynamite liked it.
You’ve got a cool video for that track as well…
Yea it’s wicked, the guy who did it, Kenny Frankland - he’s a complete genius, he did the videos for All Hell is Breaking Loose by London Electricity, and Printer Jam by Mistabishi.
 Dynamite MC is a man you’ve had a long working relationship with, and returns once more to collaborate on the tracks Round of Applause and So Many Girls. What was it like working with him on this album? It must be almost second nature by now?
Yea well he’s a mate, we’ve toured with him a bit and been to Australia with him a couple of times. He’s a really easy person to work with, and he really puts a lot of effort into the tracks he’s done with us. I think Round of Applause, vocally for him is great. He should be a big star. He’s the sort of person who can work and control a room. I’ve been to shows with him before where the crowd could have been really difficult, but he takes it on and sees it as a challenge. We did a gig once with some mates of ours called Resin Dogs in Australia, in Byron Bay, in this massive old pub. There were fifteen hundred Aussies who weren’t really on the Nextmen sound, they were just straight up drinking Aussies. But Dynamite saw it as a challenge. You know, at the start they were doing that thing where you slit your throat with your finger and say, ‘you’re gonna’ die,’ but they’re loving it by the end. He’s got that ability, he can get anyone on his side… and that’s brilliant. If you listen to the verses on Round of Applause, and the way the tune’s constructed, it’s probably his most complete vocal performance outside one of the Represent records (Roni Size). It’s just got everything. When you’re hearing a tune that you quite like, and you’re listening and thinking it’s cool, you don’t even think about it too deeply, and that’s when a vocal performance is really good.
Like you said, sometimes you don’t realise these things until later, maybe you’ve heard and album ten times and there are still more levels to the listening experience.
I guess if you make a hit record, people get that immediate… WOW! Whereas with our type of music it takes a while to sink in, ha ha.
The range of tracks that you put into an album does cater for many different audiences though, and some people will be feeling some tracks more than others.
It reflects what we’re like as music listeners. We’ve never liked a massive amount of each genre, we’ve always picked the artists and the songs that we like from each genre. Growing up, hip hop was definitely the first and most important genre for us, and I think that’s become less and less so as we’ve got older. I think we’ve become a lot grumpier about a lot of music. I guess that’s just because, now, I find it so hard to listen to music as a fan, although I am a massive fan, obviously.
I guess when you’ve got that production mindset you start dissecting music more, and sometimes it’s hard to just take the tunes you’re listening to on face value.
I’ve gone through my stage of being massively critical and hating everything, and I’m sort of coming out the other end of it now, and managing to enjoy certain things again. There will always be certain artists and records that I just love straight up though. I think there’s some exciting stuff going on in British music. I’m really into some dubstep, like Benga and Rusko.
I know Dom has worked with Groove Armada before on their albums, Vertigo, and Goodbye Country, Hello Nightclub. What was it like to work with Andy Cato on your own album, and what level of input did he have?
He did some of the keyboard stuff on Lion’s Den, and I think he used the same keyboard as he did on the Groove Armada tune, Get Down. He’s a good person to work with, we’ve DJ’d with him a fair bit, and they got us along to their night, Wonderland, in Ibiza. We went back there again this summer to do a set with them, and Zane Lowe. But really, in terms of dance music, Andy is an incredibly talented producer and keyboard player, and he’s massively cool. He’s got a good ear for sound, you know, the ability to write and play good sounds. When you’re working with keyboards and stock sounds, they’re rarely gonna’ sound good in their stock form, you’ve got to fiddle with that shit and get it right. It’s all about the manipulation of waveforms and layering sound, and he’s got a really good ear for that.
 What’s the best gig you’ve done with Groove Armada?
We did a funny gig with them actually, at the Velodrome in Athens. The gig was for Bacardi and it was fucking weird. Three or four thousand kids in this Velodrome, and you know in Greece you can smoke everywhere, but it’s the fucking Velodrome! You know, the next day there’s gonna’ be cyclists in there training for the Olympics, and with four thousand kids smoking B&H all night they ruined it! There were people running back and forth up the cycle track, it was mental.
Besides hooking up with heavy MCs such as Rodney P, Ty, Dynamite and Sway, you’ve worked with some of the most soulful voices in the industry, for example Alice Russell and Joe Dukie on the last Album. This time though there is a massive range of talent, from Jonny Tarr and Betty Steeles to Lindsay West. How do these collabos happen, and are you generally the instigators?
There’s no hard and fast rules to any of it really, I just work with another guitarist called Patrick Hatchet, who worked with a kind of reggae band called Yes King, and he was the guy who I wrote Whisper Up with - the Betty Steeles track. He played guitar on the track, Rocket, with Jonny Tarr as well. Jonny’s in a band called Tarr Baby and plays horns on our album, and he played horns on This was Supposed to be the Future – he’s a mate we hook up with regularly. He also sings and plays sax in Part Time Heroes. Betty Steeles is a mate of Patrick’s, and she’s got her own album coming out soon. She’s got a really nice, different voice. With Lindsay West, Dom saw her at an acoustic gig and really liked her so we asked her to do a track. It’s just one of those things. We should probably be a bit more calculated, but we’re not. I like the idea that we’re working with people and maybe bringing other artists through a little bit.
So, you’ve just finished your fourth studio album, and with an ever growing roster of talent in tow, life is pretty good for the Nextmen, yes?
Yea, I mean, DJ’ing is still really our main thing, and we’re really lucky to be able to release albums as that invigorates our DJ’ing careers.
A far cry from blagging a remix for the London Posse’s Style single in 97’. Would you encourage young producers to throw themselves in at the deep end as you guys did?
I think the most important thing I can say to a producer or an artist or anything, is that you have to grow up, and the only way to do that in my eyes is in public, and if you want to make music you gotta’ put records out, and now it’s easier than ever. You can try and get some little deal and just get your music out there, then get feedback and just let the music breathe a bit. Then you should know a bit more about whether you’re heading in the right direction. I think music as art is more or less dead, but you’ve gotta’ try and hold onto that and make the music that you wanna’ make.
Like we talked about earlier, the music that you guys make reflects your taste as listeners, and I think it’s important that you channel that through your music, because once you make something you don’t really want to make, you’re heading off course.
Yea, we worked with some pop writers about a year ago, and I’m not gonna’ say who they are, but it was one of the biggest pop records of recent years, and I guess we’re just different to them as people. One of them would be singing like: ‘oh baby, your hair is so beautiful,’ and the other one would be like, ‘that… is amazing!’ They really loved writing their pop music, that’s what they got off on, but they weren’t ridiculously cheesy people – that was just their shit. And it was lucky that it was super hit writing cheese because they believed in that cheesiness and that’s what made them successful. Whereas we’ve always been quite subtle, and I don’t think that helps.
How you think UK hip hop has changed since you came on the scene over a decade ago.
 As far as hip hop goes I think it’s cool that there are people rapping over dance music, and people rapping over different tempos, especially with dubstep and house music which is really refreshing. Straight up hip hop wise, I don’t hear too much nowadays that excites me, personally. I think its records like the new Breakage record, which features Roots Manuva. It’s like a dancehall thing produced by a drum and bass producer and a dubstep producer – and I think that’s wicked. I think it’s still hip hop but it’s this fusion of genres happening, and that’s what’s exciting for me. I think good music will come from it.
And so, the inevitable question… what’s next for the Nextmen?
We’re doing a Join the Dots UK tour which starts very soon. We’ve just been working really hard, in the studio every day. We’ve just got back from Croatia, and next week we’re off to Spain to do a set with a mate, but we’ve already started working on another album as well, and we’re doing production for all sorts of people. We’re producing with some bigger people now, and it’s heading more along the lines of the Lion’s Den track with Ms. Dynamite; kind of a dance music and rap fusion. So we’re excited, and we’ve got a lot of gigging to do!
Brad Baloo and Dom Search never cease to amaze with their live mixes and releases which reflect their diverse tastes as listeners and fans of music. Joins the Dots is no exception, and for those who favour certain styles and specific tracks from the album, give it a listen in its entirety as there are some slow burners on there. Join the Dots is out in stores and available for download now, to check tour dates and more, check the links below.
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Andy Patton
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