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Issue 47 - 2013 - New

Monthly newspaper and online publication targeting 18 to 35 year olds. The ultimate guide to the hottest parties, going out and having fun. Music, fashion, film, travel, festivals, technology, comedy, and parties! London, Barcelona, Miami and Ibiza.

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GUESTLIST Issue 47 / 2013 www.guestlist.net 9 7 FAKE BLOOD For several years no one even knew who Fake Blood was, and then it was announced that Theo Keating was the man behind the myth. Better known as Touché and one half of The Wiseguys he is now making electro beats and causing a stir with his new album 'Cells." JIMMY | guestlist.net You've recorded as Wiseguys, Touche, currently as The Black Ghosts (with Simon), as Fake Blood and to some you'll be known as Theo. Has it been important for you to use different names when trying to create a new sound or go in a new direction? Sometimes not always. Within each project there's sort of variations anyway so it usually happens not when I'm trying to go off with a new sound, but more when I'm already doing something active and I want to do something parallel with it. So therefore to avoid confusion I give it a new name because if I'm already putting out a record and then I put out something else, I don't want it to interfere with the first release. So it's more of a marketing strategy rather than a deliberate attempt? Exactly. Like with Fake Blood it wasn't us going "Oh God we need to come up with something new". It was more accidental. Upon launching as Fake Blood there was plenty of mystery about who you were with conspiracies flying around: was it Switch? Fatboy Slim? Soulwax? Was it fun to sit back watch all of this? Yeah it was fun. There was no plan, no marketing, no PR, it was just me by myself making beats. I didn't want it to distract from the Black Ghosts because the album was out and we were in the middle of an album campaign and I wasn't going to take the shine away from that so I did it anonymously. The whole 'secret identity' thing was created - and I know it's a shit word - but it was sake of it; I wanted to put tracks out in small numbers so people could focus on two tracks at a time rather than overloading people with music. So I had a collection of ideas that I hadn't been able to release because they weren't right for single release so I used them for the album. Albums are the perfect place for ideas to live because what might sound weird on an EP would sound perfect on an album. Its the same when you DJ live but when I'm on the radio I'll put in some other stuff which some people may find your own music even if they're not [a positive] influence on you, they work as a deterrent to make you make better tracks. I'm very into digging for old records and samples and stuff, which I guess other producers from this arena aren't doing, which I'm doing because enough people aren't doing it and because its my say. I started out on making hip-hop and that kind of sample based music so where others may get excited about a new synthesiser, I'm getting excited about an old record " The whole 'secret identity' thing was created - and I know it's a shit word - but it was almost viral. It had nothing to do with me I was just making beats but it was fun." almost viral. It had nothing to do with me I was just making beats but it was fun especially when I'm talking to people who have known me for years and they like the tunes but have no idea that I'm the one making them. It was unique because it was the biggest thing I'd ever done without any marketing whatsoever so now I've got people coming to me and saying "How did you do that? I want to do that" and I'm like, I don't know how I did it because it wasn't planned. The new album Cell was out last year are you happy with the end result? Yeah definitely. I initially I didn't want to do an album just for the bizarre but you know, [I'll put it on] because that's just what I like. It's the same with the album; it's your chance to put down your own agenda. Are you closed in when it come to new music when you're producing or are you avid consumers of new things around you? Erm, a mixture of the two as in, I'm quite insulated as in I work alone. But my influences, I mean obviously I'm consciously influenced by the music I hear now, I hover up new music and so things can be exciting. I mean even if you don't consciously take on the influence of the track, it excites you to do something new with I've found. Just a note [from an old record] can make me go 'ooh' haha. I guess its the atmosphere of certain music from certain eras, certain genres, certain films, [that makes me want to] sample them and I try to sort of create the same atmosphere but in my own way. Cause some of the stuff I make, when people listen to the album they might think, "Oh, it's quite weird" and that's just cause it's the music I listen to coming out [in my music], so it's not intentional. What are your big interests outside of music if any… or does music consume your life? Films, movies, any kind of movies. Design and stuff. I'm into all kinds of things but music is the dominating thing. As a kid I was always drawing and painting. So that sort of visual side has always been big in my life but it's not a side I present to the world, it's sort of behind a curtain. Do you have a hand in all your artwork then? Definitely, I mean [for] the artwork for the album and the EPs, which is all based on paint, I did all that. I painted this big wall and I used paint rollers, spray paint and brushes and stuff. I wanted to show how the paint interacts and because I do graffiti I really wanted to show the interaction because you get some beautiful colours. So these guys from graphic design took some close up photos of where the colours meet with each other and we chose the images and they added the typography. Then for the Yes No EP we put out 100 blank record sleeves and painted across all of them with numbers on the back and when people bought them I got tweets saying "Oh, I got one!" with them showing it in the photo and you can see they've got one. I'm totally involved and I've always got a hand in how my artwork looks. Check out www.facebook. com/iamfakeblood or follow @fakeblood

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