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.
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/903274
Growing up in Bristol, what were the best parties? Part of the reason why I got into drum & bass, was that it was the only place that would let me in! There was Lakota, that's a mas- sive part of my youth. All the clubs in the St. Pauls/Stokes Croft area of Bristol were a massive part of growing up. There used to be a free festival called Ashton Court Festival. That was always a great place for us to go when we were kids. It really exposed us to jungle/drum & bass. Roni Size was playing around the time he won the Mercury Prize. That was blowing up massively and having a ripple effect on the city. So Bristol has an incredible legacy when it comes to electronic music, what makes the city so special? There is definitely something in the water. I grew up listening to early jungle, DJ Die, Roni Size etc back in 92/93 when these guys were just starting up. That's what inspired me to get into music. Older broth- ers and sisters were passing tapes down to us, me and all my friends got into music that way. It's always been a great city for music, the drum & bass/jungle emergence, trip-hop like Massive Attack, Portishead right through to modern drum & bass and dubstep, it's had a massive influence on the city. I think because it's quite small, it feels like there's a community. Everyone sort of knows each other and gets along well. It's a really vibrant place to be in music. You said that you met Nick at uni, where was that? Well, I was at Liverpool and Nick was in Manchester. In the North- West, it's not very far to get from Liverpool to Manchester and the d&b scene of the time was quite linked. We properly met at a party in Liverpool. I booked him and we got chatting. It worked out we were both moving to Bristol about the same time. When we moved down we got in contact, ended up meeting up a few times and started getting in the studio together. How did the party scenes com- pare between the North-West and Bristol? Back then it was quite different, coming from a city where drum & bass was so prevalent. It was very house oriented in Liverpool and Manchester. For me trying to come up through the scene was really good because it gave me an op- portunity to play at nights, whereas in Bristol it was quite difficult. I also met Futurebound who was based in Liverpool and still is. He was run- ning a night up there and he made me a resident, which was a good start to my DJ career. You've had a massive summer, ticked anything off your bucket lists this year? Yeah, Reading & Leeds was a good one. We've done most of the major UK festivals over the course of our career but Reading & Leeds is one that we've never done. It was great to play there this year. That's more of a rock orientated festival, so how did it go down as a drum & bass act performing there? It's not a festival that I'd ever been to growing up, but I was walking around the festival and the busiest tents were the Radio 1 Dance Stage and the Radio 1xtra where all the grime was! You played back to back with Matrix & Futurebound for that as well, some clash of the titans go- ing on! It was really good, not something we've done before, but I have a lot of history with Futurebound. It was really nice that 15 years on, starting where I was a student at uni and he was running a small night in Liver- pool, that we're both going back to back at Reading & Leeds Festival! You've been a massive part of RAM'S legacy, what makes RAM so special to Loadstar? It's always been the label that we've aspired to be. It's always been the sound that, throughout all the changes in drum & bass, has always been at the cutting edge. That's mainly down to Andy C, his ear for talent & good music while One of RAM Record's leading and long-standing artists, Loadstar talks exclusively to Guestlist. The pair, formally known as Xample & Lomax, are one of the world's leading drum & bass duo's who've achieved major success. After one of their biggest summers yet we spoke to Gavin from Loadstar about Bristol, Ram's legacy and some of their crazier shows. 42 ISSUE 104 / 2017 DRUM & BASS Arren Haynes | Guestlist INTERVIEW: LOADSTAR