Drum and bass master Dieselboy came through Nashville for Halloween, and we got a chance to talk to him while in transit. Though everyone is now preparing for the winter holidays of joy and frivolity, we thought it was a good time to explore drum and bass as a good counterbalance. Talking to Dieselboy, you'll discover that drum&bass not all about the dark intense sounds, there are also jump-up tracks that rock the party and liquid sounds to groove to.

DJ Ron Slomowicz: Do you think drum and bass is the perfect music for Halloween?
Dieselboy: I think drum and bass is the perfect music for any show, holiday, what-not, but definitely for Halloween - especially the dark stuff. People come out in their costumes and they want to hear something scary and I definitely have plenty of stuff in my DJ bag that can fulfill that need.

RS: It always seems at big parties there's a house and trance in the main room and then there's the drum and bass room off to the side somewhere. Why do you think it's segregated like that?
Dieselboy: The music sounds are so different. House and trance at least have a similar kind of beat structure. Some promoters feel like house and trance is the "main room" music, so they put them in their own room which tends to be what they believe the main room is and then drum and bass, it kind of sounds just like a whole other thing, detached from that. It's not always like that, but definitely at big shows, it's like they realize the house/trance kids probably don't want to hear drum and bass and the drum and bass kids probably don't want to hear house and trance, so they keep them separated like dogs and cats.

RS: So where have you been playing lately, what cities?
Dieselboy: Let's see, the past month or so I've done a couple of shows in Germany, Portugal and Holland. I played Denver, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Diego, Port Win and Omaha, just off the top of my head.

RS: What's the biggest crowd you've ever played for?
Dieselboy: Good question. I played in Los Angeles and there must have been about ten thousand people, some of the really big shows. I've played in front of crowds that have been between five and ten thousand or more.

RS: When you play over in Europe, do they respond differently to the music you play or is it the same that they respond here in the US?
Dieselboy: The response is very similar. The only place where it is a bit different would be in England. The thing about England is that, depending on the show you play, people expect the DJ there to play a certain type of drum and bass like - one show it might be that everyone's playing dark and for one show everyone plays like more commercial kind of jump-up style. So in those kinds of situations, as a DJ, I'm forced to play way more towards the crowd, like I can't just freeform DJ like I usually do. In those situations it's like the crowd will not respond if you play something that they're not expecting, so it's a bit different. But in any other place, I can play whatever I want and just like over here, people are into drum and bass, they get into it, they don't really care. They're not that specific about what they want to hear, they just want to hear drum and bass, so in that regard it's a similar response.

RS: You just mentioned the different sub-genres of drum and bass. What are these sub-genres and what kind of music would they entail? What would be a typical jump-up track and what would be a dark track?
Dieselboy: Dark drum and bass sounds like the word Dark - it's like really very intense kind of scary and heavy, almost like the black metal or death metal kind of equivalent in drum and bass. It's just like really heavy and a lot of times dark drum and bass isn't even that dancy, it goes from the shock value and the integrity level of the music. A jump-up track would be something that's a big bouncer, something by Roni Size or Aphrodite. It's more dancy, a bit more funky and not in your face and abrasive. Then there's liquid drum and bass and mellow drum and bass, which is a smooth type of drum and bass that's been sourced by House, jazz, and salsa. It's groovy and definitely not in your face at all, it's way more removed from dark drum and bass and even jump up. Then there's all kinds of stuff in between like kind of miniature sub-genres which could go on for days actually, but the main ones are pretty much jump-up, dark, and liquid.

RS: Where do you see the drum and bass movement going right now?
Dieselboy: You never know, there's so many styles in drum and bass that everything is heading off in like a hundred different directions. Every now and then someone will kind of come in with some new flavor or some new influence. It would be hard to like specifically pinpoint like the direction it's heading. In my bag right now, I'm playing really amazing futuristic-sounding techno, hard drum and bass and I also have some really good mellow drum and bass. There's such a good variety that it's hard to say.

RS: When I think of drum and bass I think of you, Aphrodite, Roni Size, and, of course DJ Rap. She's been experimenting with other genres and playing House, and on your Dungeon Masters Guide you are working outside the drum and bass genre. Have you been doing any other work outside the drum and bass world?
Dieselboy: To be honest, in the past year/year and a half I haven't done a lot of production, I've only really done one remix for a friend of mine's label, Gridlock. But as far as experimentation, I'm going to work on a new CD and I'm definitely going to get into having remixes done of other genres of music, just like with the Dungeon Master's Guide. I find it interesting to play around with different influences when it comes to drum and bass. As a matter of fact, I've spoken with a friend of mine whom I'll be DJing with next month in Atlanta, the guys from Evil Intent which is a drum and bass crew. We've discussed doing something like a drum and bass that's got like a kind of industrial influence because, I've recently kind of rediscovered my industrial dance roots from like the late 80s/early 90s and I really don't think that there's ever really been a drum and bass tune that has that influence in it. I'm all about experimentation, it's just I need to get off my ass and start writing some new music and put my influences out there and see what I can do with it.

RS: I'm totally with you at the industrial edge, I was a big fan of Nitzer Ebb and industrial too.
Dieselboy: They performed here in New York about three or four weeks ago and I went with a friend of mine on a whim and it was like wow, this sounds really good. I remembered why I liked it in the first place back then. I was a big fan and that music does still have a lot of impact. So I was digging out all my old Front Line Assembly and Front 242 CDs, and listening to some of the old kind of like horror movie samples and stuff and I was thinking that these are just like kind of influences in drum and bass, you can make a very interesting kind of track. So I'm going to see what I can do with that.

RS: Well talking about making tracks, in your studio are you Mac or PC – Logic, Protools, or Cubase?
Dieselboy: Mac with Logic

RS: When you're working on music, do you have in your mind what will sound great on the dance floor tonight or are you thinking of an album idea? What's more in your mind when you're making music?
Dieselboy: When I'm in the studio working, I'm just trying to find inspiration going through samples and working with all kinds of concepts - waiting to hear what's going to kind of spark your attention. When you find that sound or whatever, a sample or what-not, then it's all a matter of like how can you manipulate this sound or how can you like grow this sound or sample out so that it's going to have a impact on the dance floor and people. It's not too difficult to write electronic music, but it's very hard to write music that people are going to want to dance to or going to want to hear at a club or are going to want to hear over and over again. That's the trick. So it's really a matter of sitting down, hearing that in the studio and then working with it till it's something that you think people are going not want to hear/ It's hitting you certainly, it just sounds good, and that just takes a long time.

RS: I'm guessing that's the reason behind the Human label, so you have a place to put out the music that you think will work. When did the Human label come about, when did you start doing that?
Dieselboy: I started up Human in 2001 and the whole concept behind my label was really initially to promote US drum and bass, to promote artists that I feel were really talented, and I wanted to present the label as this professional high standard-setting label, almost like a US version of Metal Head. When people would see the record on the wall at the dance store or hear the name it would automatically come with an air of prestige. I really wanted to help promote the guys that I was putting on the label. Over the years, that's pretty much the same philosophy I've had. Now I want to promote music not just from US guys, but really just from people around the world, people that I not only think are talented but people who I think are cool people and nice guys. So that's what I'm doing now, just pushing music for people that I think are good people that are talented.

RS: Where do you find the music or where do you find the people that you think are talented?
Dieselboy: I talk to a lot of people on AIM and I'm dialed into the drum and bass scene. I'm contacted by new artists, meet people at shows, go out of the country and I meet random artists. One of the guys I met, Counterstrike, he has a lot of tracks right now. I met those guys when I went and DJed in South Africa, it must have been like six years ago. I met this person randomly and now this person has blown up, and I really got to be friends with him over the year. It's stuff like that, random encounters with people or reading about somebody online and then talking to them on AOL instant messenger. There's like a whole social network out there that I'm kind of like tied into for drum and bass.

RS: And are you into MySpace?
Dieselboy: I resisted and I wasn't for a long time and then after I saw literally ten fake Dieselboy MySpace spaces I realized that I needed to make my own. So I have a couple of MySpace spaces; the Dieselboy Human Imprint one which I use for all professional stuff, and then I have my own personal one that's me, it doesn't say my DJ name anywhere, it's not related to what I do as my job. it's just about me, my personal interests, people that I know personally. Myspace is a bit addictive.

RS: Very cool. Also what would you like to say to all your fans out there?
Dieselboy: I just want to say that I appreciate all the love and support over the years, not to sound clichéd because everybody says kind of the same thing. I have plans for the label and plans for new stuff for myself, and hopefully in the next few years I can get some good product out there. For people that want to come and check out drum and bass, I'm still one hundred percent into it heart and soul. When I do my shows and what-not I'm giving everything I've got and really still busting my ass to kind of give everyone the best show possible. So thank you for all the support.

By DJ Ron Slomowicz, About.com

Translating electronic music to a live stage performance is quite a challenge. With their new CD In Silico, Pendulum have fused drum & bass with their punk and metal background to create music that works as well in a stadium show as it does on the dancefloor. With the insane energy of their live performances, Pendulum have been dubbed by many as The Prodigy of the new millennium bringing together the rock crowd and the club crowd.

DJ Ron Slomowicz: You're based in Australia, correct?
Gareth (of Pendulum): No, we're based in London now but we're from Australia. Rob and I, we grew up and started out in Perth. We moved to London to make a go of it - the UK is the musical center of the universe for us.

RS: That makes sense. Did you start more as a rock band or a drum & bass artist?
Gareth (of Pendulum): Back in the day during high school, we'd always been in rock and metal bands together, me and Rob, but we also had a passion for electronic music. Rob produced electronic music on his computer and he got me into producing on the computer as well. We both made some drum and bass tunes and they became really popular, so we kind of put the whole rock and metal thing to rest for a while and became DJs and started producing electronic music for a couple of years. Now, I guess we've come full circle now because we're back on the road as a band and performing more of guitar and drums & bass influence in to the music.

RS: Why do you think drum and bass fits so well with metal and the rock?
Gareth (of Pendulum): It's the energy of it. The first time I heard drum and bass it was the kind of drum and bass that I like. We weren't really into the jungle thing. We got into it late and when we heard it, it was kind dark and twisted and really aggressive and energetic. I think that's the same as rock and metal and punk. It was just something about the energy of it was just really similar and they go really well together. That's why our audience is all like emo-screamo kids and punk kids and skaters and stuff.

RS: Yes, you weren't really going after the traditional dance audience or the club kids, you're going after the rock guys.
Gareth (of Pendulum): We're not going after them, it's just that's what we've attracted and it's just part of it now. It's like literally our audience is this big motley crew of different people who like different things, there's dance people and there's people in mosh circles and stuff, so it's just getting them all together.

RS: Was it difficult to translate electronic music into a live show?
Gareth (of Pendulum): It was for us because we didn't want to do it halfheartedly, we wanted to make sure it was perfect. With electronic music, you have a lot of concerns with the sonics and how the mix sounds. When you play a record or a CD on the turntable, it's already mixed and mastered and ready to go so it sounds as good as it's going to sound. With live performances, it's different every time and there's so many variables. We had to rely on a lot of technology being invented for us to do it, and we're lucky that the technology was invented. We've got thirteen computers on stage processing the sound so we can play a hundred percent live.

RS: When a DJ does a set for a huge performance, it's often pretty much planned, at this moment he's going to play this song and everything is choreographed around it. When you're up there playing live is it more like a jam band, where you can change the way you play each song.
Gareth (of Pendulum): We can change it around if we want, that's the beauty part of it. The thing we love about it is, if the drummer breaks a stick or if I smash into Perry or someone's fallen over or breaks their leg, that part of the music stops. If the drummer misses the drums the drumbeat sort of stops, we like that because it makes it more real. There's no hard track, there's no sequencing or stuff like that.

RS: So it's not like a bunch of loops going on behind you, what you hear is what you guys are playing on stage?
Gareth (of Pendulum): Yes, literally. It took a year to develop the ability to do that.

RS: The twelve computers going on stage, what software programs are you running on them?
Gareth (of Pendulum): It's one piece of software that's running all the different things to process the sound, it's a computer but it's a stripped down PC that's been modified to run completely stably. It's by a company in South California called News Research and the box is called a Receptor. It runs computer plug-ins that we would use in the studio but run them live and without crashing. People ask if we could trust the computer and stuff like that. We've had broken strings, broken drum ktis, we've had two broken ankles and we bash into each other and all sorts of things, but the computer's never gone down.

RS: When you're in the studio making the music, what programs do you use to make your music?
Gareth (of Pendulum): Hold Your Color was done on Nuendo 3 and Cubase FX3, but then towards the end of In Silico we moved to Nuendo 4. We also use a lot of ProTools for recording.

RS: That's really cool. Listening to In Silico, it's quite an experience. When you all wrote this album what was going through your heads?
Gareth (of Pendulum): With the previous album it was strictly dance music and we were in a place where we were concerned only with dance music and I guess in a way it was a bit stifling because we love all sorts of music. We weren't particularly making our first album for a particular audience but we stuck to the guidelines of drum and bass and we weren't going to step outside those guidelines. Other than that, we sort of did what we wanted.

After we did that album everyone was saying that it sounds like a band playing it and I can hear these rock and metal influences in it. We were like really, did that sneak in? We tried not to let that sort of stuff in to it, because we wanted to make it strictly dancy. Since the album did so well and everyone could really hear this kind of rock influence and rock kids were starting to come to our shows and moshing to the tunes, we thought that gave us a creative license to let our influences get in on the music. The idea of the second album was to let whatever we're listening to influence the music and to take it in to any direction. We were all listening to a lot of surf rock and roll and blues and Led Zeppelin, Queens of the Stone Age, and Rage Against the Machine, as well as really heavily electronic music like old Prodigy and drum and bass. We let all those influences just steam in there and affect the music.

RS: Some of it is instrumental, some of it has lyrics – who writes the lyrics to the songs?
Gareth (of Pendulum): Rob writes the lyrics and does the vocals as well.

RS: I notice most drum and bass music doesn't have vocals to it. When you have vocals with drum and bass music does it react differently?
Gareth (of Pendulum): No. I think probably the lack of vocal in drum and bass tunes is probably because that would affect the way people DJ it. We play the songs live so it doesn't really matter. Another thing is putting vocal in tunes like drum and bass tunes, it would probably be a very difficult thing from a mixing point of view because the vocals would be kind of lost behind such big instruments like big sub-basses and big drums. We've got a good enough blend there so we can still haveafull force in the music and the vocals sitting on top as well.

RS: And usually in drum and bass you have an MC up there with the DJ kind of thing, right?
Gareth (of Pendulum): Yes, yes.

RS: I've heard Pendulum described as Prodigy for the new Millennium. How do you respond to that kind of comment?
Gareth (of Pendulum): Well I can understand why people would say that because we've followed a very similar path to them. It's through no design of our own, it's just the way things happened. They came from a really sort of insular, closed-off genre of hardcore dance music and they just kind of grew out of it and started introducing more elements in to their music and changing it that way. They became popular outside of the genre they were born from and I think that's what we've done as well. So in those regards we are very similar, but other than that I mean Liam himself, we've got our sound and he's got his sound and we're completely different.

RS: You've also worked with Freestylers, how did you meet up with him?
Gareth (of Pendulum): That was through out old label boss, Dan Fresh from Bad Company. They really liked our tunes and they were keen to hook up with us, so we hooked up and did a tune swap with us for our album and we did a tune with them for their album.

RS: What was it like interfacing drum and bass with break beat together?
Gareth (of Pendulum): It was cool and we sort of stuck with it. We've got quite a few break beat tempo tunes on our new album and I think they work well together. Breakbeat to me sounded like it was born half out of the Miami bass scene and a little bit out of the house scene and half out of the drum and bass scene. Obviously they took their tempo from the slower kind of Miami base house arena, so I think they're really compatible, they've got a lot of similar elements.

RS: How is performing this music live affecting how you think the next album will come out?
Gareth (of Pendulum): We try not to let the fact that we perform live affect the music as such because then we're going start thinking how are we going to play that live? In the last instance, we just ignored that and said we'll figure out how to play it live later. Let's just let the music be as complicated or as simple as it needs to be regardless of the fact we play live and we'll just deal with the playing live element later. Playing live won't affect it too much but now that we've sort of grown as a band and we've got more musicians involved and we've got a drummer and a guitarist - they're more permanent members. We're probably going to write a bit more together, which could be interesting. Both our drummer and guitarist played on In Silico and they just played what music was already written. So maybe next time we'll try and make it more of a band effort.

RS: I read that you performed with Linkin Park. How did you meet up with them?
Gareth (of Pendulum): They asked us to be part of a Projekt Revolution gig that they were doing, which was a pleasure because it was a good cause. It was wicked. We're not massive fans of theirs obviously, but it was good to be involved in something that big and it was a good opportunity to get out and play to a big audience. Jay-Z and N*E*R*D, their performances were absolutely amazing. It's always good to meet those guys and we really respect what they do.

RS: Pendulum also did a cover of a Coldplay record for a charity of some sort?
Gareth (of Pendulum): Yes. For those who don't know, Radio One in the UK invite band on to the radio station to play their new single live and so we agreed to do that. Then they ask the bands that they have on to do a cover of a song that's on current rotation on the radio station. We looked at the list and there were a lot of songs on there that were just a bit too obvious for us, they were like oh that's pretty obvious that Pendulum would pick that kind of tune to cover. So instead we thought let's just pick something completely out there, and I think the opportunity to turn Coldplay into metal, drum and bass was too tempting. They loved it apparently, and the processes go to charity.

RS: Now a little bit on the goofier side – since you started in Australia we always have to ask - Dannii or Kylie, which one do you like better?
Gareth (of Pendulum): Kylie is gorgeous and she's such a trooper as well, surviving her illness and getting back on the horse and getting out there. You go to love Kylie, she's the kind of woman you could take home.

RS: What would you like to say to all of your fans out there?
Gareth (of Pendulum): To our American fans, I think we've got something that they're really going to like. We thought maybe the American audience were going to be a bit more sort of laidback or something just because they hadn't heard of us before and weren't sure what to expect. But the Coachella audience was absolutely nuts and it was such a good feeling to get a response like that in the States. We're touring the States for five weeks. I can't wait because I love seeing America. I've toured there twice before as a DJ and that was really good, so with the band, it's going to be a really good experience So definitely come down and see us, I think we've definitely got something for everybody.

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In its eighth year, the Planet of the Drums unites AK1200, Dara, Dieselboy, and MC Messinian in their mission to bring quality drum and bass music to the people. The summer tour of over thirty US cities proves that D&B is a powerful musical force and should not be relegated to the backroom. The crew plays a variety of D&B from jump up and rolling to dark – bringing out the newest underground tracks along with the most loved anthems. The POTD strives to spread their message that "drum and bass isn't just dance music, it is a way of life."

DJ Ron Slomowicz: So when you started the Planet of the Drums, did you think it would keep going for 8 years?
AK 1200: I never really thought about it; I guess, in hindsight, that we didn't anticipate it to go quite so long, but it seems like each year there was a meaning for it so we just carried on. We've always remained friends so it just seemed like the right thing to do. After a while we started realizing, 'wow, it's been six years, wow, it's been seven years, and wow, this is our eighth year,' so we never really paid too much attention to how long it's been before now really.

RS: What was your original reason for starting the tour?
AK 1200: The drum and bass music that we play was constantly being mistreated and we were always being hidden in the backrooms and treated like B-class DJs. Promoters didn't want to invest any amount of real money into a DJ that played drum and bass because there wasn't a crowd for it so why on earth would they put us on the main stage. Beyond that, why on earth would a promoter want to book all three of us at the same show because, after all, we were considered backroom talent in 2000. So we basically pulled all of our resources together and took a stand and said that there are enough fans out there, we sell enough CDs and there's proof in all of our individual shows. I was playing in a backroom that had more people than in the main room when I was playing, so it was just a matter of saying look, we're going to take it if you're not going to give it to us. That's why we developed Planet of the Drums.

RS: Why do you think there was that resistance?
AK 1200: We weren't in the comfort range of 124 to 140 beats per minute. We are the extreme end of dance music and the people that everybody loved to hate. Techno people hated us, progressive house people hated us, breakbeat people hated us and everybody hated jungle. The only people that were more hated than us were like the full-on hardcore people that played like that evil blistering hardcore stuff.

RS: You mean the gabba?
AK 1200: Yes.

RS: I've always had the impression that drum and bass in the UK was sort of like their version of hip-hop.
AK 1200: Yes, exactly. Over here in the US we created hip-hop, so you have that whole territorial thing. With the UK, at first they were delighted when jungle music first started because the Americans were calling and they thought they could get out to America. Then when drum and bass and jungle started getting really big in the UK they were basically dissing anybody that was American and said that American drum and bass is crap. Drum and bass in the UK was their only contribution to urban music as, apart from soul or R&B, urban street music was jungle. If you've heard any UK hip-hop from a long time ago, no hip-hop DJs over here would give it the time of day. So it was basically like the same thing on the other end, jungle is our version of hip-hop in the UK so it's a UK music. Then, all of a sudden it started blowing up and spanning worldwide beyond America, Asia, Australia, South Africa, and all of Europe – it was just everywhere. Eventually it became a global form of music that was sort of built on grassroots and code of conduct, like a ladder type of thing where you earned your way.

RS: I've always thought of Timbaland as someone who bridged the gap between US hip-hop and drum & bass with his early releases.
AK 1200: I wouldn't think so, maybe he might have had some influence. There were hip-hop artists before him going to London, like Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and Scarface that were doing shows. After their shows they would go to a London club that was predominantly black and they'd be hearing jungle music, so they started getting all these drum and bass mixes done. That is probably where Timbaland started here with the drum & bass or jungle vibe and started making beats out of that. I wouldn't say Timbaland was any sort of bridge between hip-hop artists and drum and bass whatsoever. I think it was the hip-hop artists that were going to London playing and then hearing drum and bass and going crazy with it. Then later on after that, there were the crews in Atlanta like Outkast and Ludacris. I played a show in Atlanta that Outkast were at and they were all bumping to my set, you know what I mean? That was back in 95 or 96.

RS: What exactly is the difference between drum and bass and jungle, or is there a difference?
AK 1200: I mean at the end of the day jungle is the traditionalist music, the more urban type and drum and bass is what it's called today. It's all basically the same thing. The only reason you don't call it jungle anymore is because there's a lot of techy stuff out there and a lot of darker, synth-based stuff, whereas all the jungle stuff was more sample based with ragga, hip-hop, and funk samples. Drum and bass adds kicks, snares, syncopated patterns, and washy synths with layered bass lines and stuff like that. Jungle was more of like a sub-sine wave bass with a big, heavy sub bottom that was just rolling through, and drum and bass went beyond that and started getting into the noisier side.

RS: Are you playing the more jump up or the more darker sound of D&B?
AK 1200: Planet of the Drums as a whole covers the entire spectrum of the field. We play some light tunes, some hard tunes, and we play a lot of middle of the ground stuff. We play a lot of anthems and a lot of unknowns - we try to cover the entire spectrum of jungle and drum and bass. To be more specific: Dara is more known as jump up sort of DJ, Damien Diesel Boy is more known as a hard, dark DJ, and I'm more known as like a roller, drum and bass rolling dance floor stuff. When we each get together, we sort of feed off of one another and play a bit of everything.

RS: So you, Diesel Boy, and Dara started the show, how did Messinian become part of it?
AK 1200: Messinian came on the second year of tour. The first year we had a guy named Dub Two who was Damien's MC, and the second year Messinian, who was a resident at Damien's drum and bass weekly called Platinum. He was just basically one of the MCs that would show up and MC for a little while. We had plans on getting a UK MC from Metal Heads named MC Rage for the second year, but his paperwork got messed up and he got held up at customs and got turned back and sent back to England. At the last minute we called on Messinian and he packed his bags and was ready to go. From there on he's been, one of the crew.

RS: On the tour has there been a city that you've turned up at and just surprised that the response was so big?
AK 1200: There's been a lot of places where we've just been amazed by the reception. Earlier on, it it was Puerto Rico. Every city has its phases, you know what I mean? The only city that I think has maintained its strength with drum and bass for the eight years every time we've played has been LA. Everywhere else it's give and take, some years are good, some years are bad. We've played a couple of weird cities that you wouldn't expect to be good but were actually good like Iowa City. Dallas is always good, DC is always like in the top two or three of our markets. San Diego's always good. Seattle's always good. Nashville's been really good to us. All the main markets are always good. Denver's always good. Orlando's always been good.

RS: Is there any plans to take this international?
AK 1200: We did one Belgium date but other than that it's just really hard to get it booked. It's four flights, work visas, and all that stuff that's sort of difficult. I mean, maybe if we got to a point where there was such a high demand for it which, who knows, who's to say. We'll go wherever we're booked, but at the end of the day we feel sort of obligated to keep it in North America, as high impact as it can get, with as much momentum as it can get as that's where our dedication is. We each play outside of the US on our own individually and that's just not the same thing. There's people that truly really appreciate us and everything we've done over here and all the opportunities we've given the up and coming DJs. If we were to go anywhere else, these are places that are already established and our whole point was to sort of to establish the scene.

RS: Are there any other plans to put together the DVD or CD for the tour?
AK 1200: We've gone back and forth on that a million times and I think the most likely scenario, if at all possible, would be a DVD set at some point, but we're still waiting. We're eight years on our own budget with no sponsor. This is the first year we actually even have a magazine sponsoring us and that's more of a coverage thing. We've done this out of our own pockets for the last eight years and the only way we could actually afford to hire an extra guy to come on to record us would with some sort of sponsorship.

RS: What magazine is sponsoring y'all right now?
AK 1200: Rinse Mag - www.rinsemag.com.

RS: What do you want to say to all your fans out there?
AK 1200: Thank you for your support over the years. Keep on coming and support your local scenes and make sure you check out your local DJs, artists and weeklies. They're the ones that keep the scene alive and it's not just about us, it's most importantly about the local events. If they do that then they're contributing to the scene and it makes everybody's job a whole lot easier.

By DJ Ron Slomowicz, About.com
Posted - May 29, 2007

After making their first live US appearance at last spring’s Coachella Music Festival, Pendulum has returned for their Tour of the Americas. We sat down with production mastermind Rob Swire to pick his brain about the evolution of Pendulum, as well as that of the finicky recording industry.

This is your first American Tour, do you feel like you have a bigger following overseas?
Yeah, definitely in the UK, that’s where our main [following] has always been. Other places seem to have picked up since we’ve started the live thing, the U.S. especially. You can take any place where we’ve had about 70 people for DJ sets before and it’s seemed to have [multiplied] itself by 10 – so we get 700 people coming out to the show suddenly.

It seems like Europeans in general have a broader taste in music.
I think that’s definitely true. Especially with the UK they’ve got that whole Radio 1 thing – and since it’s sort of government funded but not government controlled the DJs sort of just play whatever they want. I remember when we first moved to the UK 5 years ago there were DJs playing dancefloor rave anthem tracks, it was like another planet next to fucking Coldplay tunes in the middle of the day. You just don’t get that over here.

How did you guys make the transition from DJing and producing to being a live band?
I think especially for anyone who’s an older fan it seemed to have happened overnight, but it was kind of a gradual thing. We really didn’t notice or see it coming. One moment we were sort of messing around with Kodish and his drums and trying to experiment with different ways of him playing our samples, and the next thing you know we’re at the fucking Reading festival playing in front of 40,000 people. It happened quite slowly and we spent about a year putting all the bits and pieces together for the band.

Are you guys hip hop fans?
I mean, not hardcore enough to own obscure albums but I just get into a lot of the production. The recent Lil Wayne album, I think the production’s fucking nicely done.

What do you think is wrong with the American music industry?
Well I think a lot of the things that are wrong with the American music industry are wrong with the global music industry. I mean the music industry here hasn’t taken as much of a battering as it has in the UK.

You think it’s worse in the UK?
Yeah because downloading is more of an accepted thing than it is here.

So there’s more regulation here than there is overseas.
Yeah. It’s more accepted that “Oh, I’ll just download it for free.” And a lot of UK fans and UK artists are just giving music away for free on the net or on the front of fucking newspapers which I think is fucking ridiculous. I think in the UK there’s more of a culture to hunt and search for new music which I don’t think they have as much of here. Over here they sort of want what they want and they find their little box to put it into, and then it’s hip hop or it’s a Nickleback rock thing. In the UK you don’t have that as much.

Talk a little bit about what the process is like when you guys record.
Generally it ends up being something pretty simple. We just get a bunch of beats together, whether it’s Kodish recording a break, or it’s us fucking around with a lot of samples, or ripping a snippet of sound from one of our other tunes and messing it up, or sitting and coming up with ideas into [a digital recorder]  and playing it back.

Where do you draw most of your samples from?
We try not to sample that much unless it’s from older 70s beats. Even then we rely on single hits a lot of the time.

What do you think separates you guys from other electronica artists -- or at least people that are thrown into your category of music?
I think the thing that separates us from other people trying to do it is that we’re actually live. And when you look at how many bands are actually doing it live there’s not too many. They either run their shit from a sequencer and sort of bring in different elements or a lot of them will just have a sequencer playing and then musicians playing over the top of something that’s already sequenced. I don’t really think that necessarily counts as playing live. That’s just jamming along with a fucking demo tape. The way we’ve done it from the ground up is: the drums are actually playing the drums, the guitars are actually playing the guitars, and I’m actually playing the synth.

I notice that in hip hop too, a lot of people are trying to incorporate live bands.
You know who’s really good is N.E.R.D. They’re fucking sick. That’s probably the first thing soundwise in hip hop that I was really impressed with.

Interview by Dan Vidal