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  Dirty Diggers Interview
interview 0274 added 18.01.05 words: Nikesh
technical:
QED
It’s nice when a hip-hop crew comes along and you can hear the passion in their music and their sheer love for the artform. Dirty Diggers, Zebra Traffic’s new signing, are definitely one of those groups. Relying on beats and breaks heavy hip-hop, they conjure a sound that shows their excellent skills as beatsmiths, spending hours digging in the crates, and their mic skills with the iller rhymes. London-based Pat Stash met Leeds boy Young Max at university and since then they’ve been making as many beats as they simply can. Their first EP, starting with the sublime and brilliant “For the Haters” is a worthy introduction to the compulsive world of these two, from digging in the crates to sequencing the breaks, they are about to explode.
Having repeatedly missed each other over the Christmas period, Young Max had to return to Leeds, so this interview was finally conducted through email. It still makes for good reading as they wax lyrical on their haters, their habits and the Sussex crew.
Introduce yourselves and tell us who your haters are?
 Pat: I'm Pat Stash, MC, beat digger, producer and heavy drinker. The haters are people who want to see us fail but don't know us. I'm not bitter though. We're shaking haters this year.
Max: I’m Young Max, same duties in the crew as Pat but more Northern with it. The Haters are normally just people who have trouble with new shit. They’ll get it eventually, give ‘em time.
Pat: They have trouble with new concepts.
When was your last day off?
Pat: I never have days off. Not from digging. I'm on it every day. Anywhere I am, whatever I'm doing, I'm never off duty. Work now, that’s a different matter. From work, today I am having a day off. Aaaah.
Max: I don’t have days off from digging, but I do get laid off due to lack of funds sometimes. I just got a proper job, so today is my last day off for a while. Damn. I’m making beats as soon as this is done, though.
Describe your music and the elements that go into it.
Pat: Our music is basically a process of digging for records, making a million beats each, picking from those and coming up with the rhymes for them. The beats take the lead. For me, anyway. We both produce and we both MC.
Max: We both make way too many beats then tell each other which ones are hot and which ones are just shit. Then we take the beats we agree on down to Shepherd’s Bush to Tommy C’s lab and do the vocals and mixing. Recently we’ve been trying to come with whole concepts for tunes, instead of the abstract nonsense we’ve been doing up until now. But they still come out as abstract nonsense, so maybe we’ll give up on that soon.
"...We both make way too many beats then tell each other which ones are hot and which ones are just shit...."
How did Young max and Pat Stash the Skolla meet?
Pat: We met at Sussex University, Kent House. I was drunk and I heard 'BBoy Document' coming through my ceiling so I stumbled upstairs and met Max. We just started cotching it out from there - drinking, smoking, smoking, drinking and eventually making tunes. Shouts to the whole Kent House crew.
Max: Yeah we were the big men on Campus back then. We handed that position over to Free Manz Crew who now run the Uni drinking scene for us.
How did you hook up with Zebra Traffic? Are there any label mates you hope to work with?
Max: That was through a CD we passed around to friends of ours. One did the rounds but got to them in the end. I’ll work with whoever hooks up the studio and gives me some busfare.
Pat: It was actually the first tune we made together that got the interest - '500 Whiskeys (at the open mic night)'. Based on a true story. I'm going to work with Cappo soon if he gives me a shout, although I'm not sure he's a 'labelmate'.
Who on the UK scene do you rate? Who do you hate?
 Pat: I don't hate nobody. I wish everyone the best of luck trying to make a go of it in this country. I'm feeling Kashmere, Cappo, Bone Idols, P Brothers, Harry Love, Mentat, Obviously Jehst, Sundragon, Diversion Tactics, the list can just go on forever. L Dolo. I really love his beats. 'Easter Island' was my favourite shit. Drew is my favourite UK producer right now.
Max: I love all them same lot. Ty and Klashnekoff are killing it too. Konny Kon and Microdisiacs/Broke ‘n’ English, Lewis Parker (but he’s in New York, innit?), there’s bare talent about. There’s really nowt much I’m not into. It sounds bait but my boys from Leeds, Brimham Rocks, are heavy. I’ve always rated my mates’ music.
Where are the good digging spots? How much of vinyl junkies are you?
Max: Do you want us killed? I’m not gonna name no spots! All I’ll say is West Yorkshire (the West Zoo, get me.) has its gems. Burnley, Halifax, If you’re ever in the U.S. California is ridiculous. Check Hollywood, seriously. The best thing is finding somewhere new, though. A little shop in the middle of fucking nowhere, run by progressive rock freaks, or an aging alcoholic uncle’s Bulgarian jazz crate. That’s the truth.
Pat: I was watching that film 'American Splendor' last night and he had some obsessive-compulsive thing going on with his records. I think that’s me. I get a real buzz digging. I can't stop. That’s the whole idea with the title of the EP.
Max: I dig in binges. When I get money that’s where it all goes, then when I’m skint I just work with what I’ve got stashed from the last binge. We’re both the type of dudes who’ll spend the bus fare on wax and then walk home. It’s a problem we share.
Pat: I use the HandyTrax to check when I can, but I also like to gamble and just buy a load of shit just in case I find a gem. When I can check records I'm looking for drums. When I can just look at the cover its about the instruments. You can tell what kind of band it is to some extent. I'm mostly trying to dig UK and non-US shit now cos the people in America that dig have got the American shit you get over here. I hate hearing some sample that I used on a US track. I dig in charity shops and I like to check the Brighton Record Fair. People should pay their dues and listen to a lot of records, it will make you a better producer.
"...We’re both the type of dudes who’ll spend the bus fare on wax and then walk home...."
What was the first record you bought? What equipment do you use?
Pat: The first record I bought was 'Please Hammer Don't Hurt Em' as far as I can remember. I use the MPC 2000XL, my PC running Goldwave (shouts to Goldwave users) for editing samples and the Sequential Circuits Pro-One synth. I just got the synth. It is too heavy. Its real analogue with mad filters. Hands on, fuck that digital shit. And loads of old records and a crap deck and mixer. And some live percussion – tambourines, claves and shakers and stuff.
Max: The first vinyl I remember buying was this 101 instruments of the orchestra thing. Just separate sounds of a whole orchestra with this old British guy talking you through them, that shit’s amazing. I’m still sampling it for separates now. Equipment wise I use my laptop (Mac) and this bit of discontinued Swiss shareware called Playerpro. It’s like a software sampler. I’m saving for an MPC, hence my getting a proper job. Long.
When either of us have a finished beat we normally dump it into pro-tools at Tommy C’s and then tweak it from there. That lad’s got all types of nice mics and compressors and that, which is why our new stuff sounds better than the old bedroom quality Diggers tunes that are knocking about.
"...The best thing is finding somewhere new, though. A little shop in the middle of fucking nowhere, run by progressive rock freaks, or an aging alcoholic uncle’s Bulgarian jazz crate...."
What are your plans for an album and for future projects as well as your hopes for 2005?
Pat: I'm not sure yet, we haven't really had a chance to sit down and talk properly about our plans yet this year as Max lives in Yorkshire and I live in London. Definitely more music on Zebra Traffic and possibly some solo 12s. Some remixes. An album would be nice if we had the money and time to do it. Our next shit is going to kill it, whatever form it comes in.
Max: We’ll do as much music as we can afford to record. We’ve got the beats for a couple of albums if someone will pay for the lab time. I’ve got enough earnest, socially conscious lyrics for a light opera about tuberculosis. Serious. I’ve got some tunes recorded in Hebden and Oakland that might see the light of day, too.
What is your favourite bit of wax?
 Pat: That is hard. I actually lost my favourite record, which was by this Hungarian band called Energit. Gutted. I'd say one of my Top of the Pops records with the 'Superstition' break on it. Not very rare but its just a fucking heavy
break.
Max: I’ve got this one called ‘Galaxis’ which is supposed to be this intergalactic, time-traveling funk orchestra. That fucking moves me. Nasty Girl by Betty Davis is hard to beat. I’ve got the original Electric Ladyland with the naked women on it. If I had a favourite I wouldn’t be digging though. I love all records. It’s like that Slum Village tune, I want them to myself, I can’t help it.
Pat: That ‘Galaxis’ shit is heavy.
How do you view the state of the UK scene in 05?
Pat: I really like a lot of the music coming from the scene. I'm not one of these people who thinks 'any minute now' its going to explode. That just isn't going to happen. The UK music industry is extremely different to the US one and we should not expect miracles. Saying that I'd like to say congratulations to Estelle and whoever else can succeed and make a living from UK black music. I'm just happy making tunes and having people like my shit. I would love to get paid but I'll do it regardless.
Max: Without waving a union jack or whatever, I rate loads of UK stuff, and I hope we see artists able to support themselves off it soon. But kinda like Mos said, We are UK hip hop so it’s doing how we’re doing. Probably broke, down the local, trying to get twenties together for a game of pool or summat. I’m just expecting more of the same, which is peace with me.
"...I’ve got enough earnest, socially conscious lyrics for a light opera about tuberculosis...."
Final shoutouts/big ups?
Max: The extended HBBA family, Excalibah and 1xtra, Carraldo, 42 Blues, Josh, all that Leeds lot, All the 42 crew writers, Safehands (get a job), Khingz, and Sean Money in O-Town, Cal Hiphop, The Loop Advisor, my daughters in Berkeley (heh). A FAT shout to Tommy C (run that.) Cloyne Court, Kent House, Manchester, Brighton, London, West Zoo and Liverpool people, Zebra Traffic, Free Manz, My familiars. This is getting to be like an Oscar speech, oh yeh, Diggers everywhere (except in my crates, the cheeky bastards…fuck off out).
Pat: Big Shout to DJ Excalibah, Shameless and GD, Dat, Colony, Cappo, Free Manz Cru (D Fresh, J Fly, DJ Sean Beazley DJ), Liam Balaclava, DJ Safehands, Willie Limplimp, Tommy C, The Sticky Kids, Forest Gate, East London and all Brighton heads-- you know who you are plus Mel, Moi, DJ Bingo and Shell and me mam. US-UK out of Iraq…….
victory to the resistance…. peesh.
- Nikesh
Shukla
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