Chronic Redeye Interview interview 0471 added 26.09.06 words: Dirty Den technical Spoon For the last three years Norfolk based Chronic Redeye have been pushing out their material independently, as well as rocking stages and festivals in East Anglia. With a previous CD 'Seein Red' and the vinyl release 'Free Up Tha Sound EP' under their belts, Chronic Redeye are back with an album destined to be their biggest release so far. UKHH sent Dirty Den to get the low-down and find out more about this infamous duo. Break down exactly who is in the crew and what each individual brings to the table. Chronic is our main DJ and handles the bulk of production duties, he’s also the creative force behind our artwork for our album covers and flyers etc… Redeye is the emcee and he handles day to day runnings like sorting bookings. He also makes beats, often bringing the straight up ‘boom bap’ element to balance out Chronic’s experimental side… Crez One is our human beatboxer and sick producer… DJ Mentis DJs at shows and has co-produced a few tings… Twisted is a talented emcee and producer from our area we are trying to encourage… Killatunes is a DJ, producer and record hustler keeping an eye out at the car boot sales for rare gems… Fudalwockit is a DJ, producer and sound engineer hooks us up with free studio time Emma and Anna – Two of the girls from our crew with lush voices that we get to lace our tracks… Concrete Roots is a reggae crew that we do shows with; plus loads more, too many to mention! Your first CD 'Seein Red' was released in 2005. What was the original response like to the album and do you feel that particular release got the attention it deserved? We are happy with how things went considering it was produced on zero budget and we were doing our own distribution, hustling hand to hand sales and promoting it on our own! We sold all the copies of the Seein Red album and it received enough attention and positive feedback to lay the foundation for future releases so it’s all good. The release that came after that was on vinyl. Did you feel that you needed to drop the vinyl to get the support from club and radio DJ's? We dropped a vinyl as our contribution to keeping the true school alive! We ain’t hating on other formats but as a hip hop crew we had to get a vinyl release under our belt because that’s a big part of what we fell in love with in the first place! The new album 'The All Or Nothing Days' is due for release soon. Who produced it and have you any guest rappers on there? Most of the production is by Chronic, but there are also tracks produced by Chrome of Def Tex, Twisted and Fudalwockit. Twisted drops a verse on the track he made, plus we’ve got verses from Ill Inspired, Ransom and Chrome – all heads from around our area that have been in this for a while. How do you personally feel about the album? Did it turn out as you wanted it? Straight up dope! It feels like we’ve come a long way since our first joint and we’ve managed to create a coherent album and not just a bunch of tracks thrown together, plus Fudalwockit at Valve Sound Studios helped us shape the unique sound we were looking for. What equipment was it made on and how long did it take to record? The tracks start out in a smoked out bedroom being made on PCs running Cubase and loads of plugins and software, but we take them to the studio where we’ve got access to compressors and all the hardware needed to make the tracks bump! The new album took a year to get from concepts to final product. What are your personal favourite tracks and why? One personal favourite is Hold Ya Head, because doing that track helped us deal with what we’d been going through at the time – it was recorded after one of our crew had been sent to prison and there had been rioting with Police and all sorts of shit popping off. That tune is like a soundtrack to our lives. Another favourite is Sweetest Sound just because it’s heat! EA pass the mic session with a big bad reggae bassline. Fire! Apart from yourselves is there any one else in East Anglia making moves? For sure man, gotta mention the long standing Def Tex crew, DPF and Mr. Laws, Future Relics, Visionary Records crew, IpSpit Crew, Pro Fam, plus there’s nuff talent outta Luton…. We could be here all day! How do you feel about the UK scene at the moment? There’s so much talent it is inspiring, plenty of big tunes for the sound systems! We are at a point now where if you are good enough there are ways to get noticed, while at the same time it’s not so mainstream that it’s being treated like a cash cow, so we should be thankful for what we’ve got. Do you find it hard not being from London? It hasn’t been a problem so far! We are happy doing our own thing and don’t feel we need to move to London to fit in with what other people are doing. We are carving our own niche in this hip hop ting! Have you had any love from overseas? We’ve generated a bit of interest in the States through contacts we’ve got near Chicago, and we’ve also had people contact us from Norway and France. As an act what would you say influenced you to make music? Life experiences and sound system culture, reggae music, the sound of early 90s NY hip hop, high grade and going to raves. Are you working on material for next year? No Doubt! We’ve been listening to old Saxon Sound recordings a lot lately so you can expect Chronic to be pulling out some ragga influenced riddims, plus Twisted’s got beats for days waiting to be laced so things are just getting warm! The 'All Or Nothing Days' 18 track CD album is available direct from the Chronic Redeye myspace (link below) for 6 quid! can't really argue with a punt on that surely?!... - Dirty Den Related Links: Chronic Redeye on myspace The All Or Nothing Days review

© ukhh.com 2006