D:BRIDGEA step above the rest
Darren White, a.k.a D-Bridge, has his fingers in more pies than you can shake a stick at. From his label, Exit Records, which will next year release its second and third artist albums, to his numerous collaborations with the most talented producers around, D-Bridge is an influential man in drum and bass. We catch up with him after his set at Glo Bar to talk about the scene, the music and the future…
RECENTLY WE’VE SEEN SOME OF YOUR VOCALS IN YOUR TUNES, WHERE DOES THE INSPIRATION FOR THE LYRICS COME FROM?For my album, it was what I’ve been going through with my missus really. I think she influenced most of the songs on there, there are probably songs where you can tell she’s pissed me off, and songs where I’m madly in love with her. So it’s all kinds of things really, I’ve been singing a lot more so there’s a lot more to come. Some of it might surprise you actually!
DO YOU CONSIDER THE DANCEFLOOR WHEN PRODUCING?No, not at all, in fact that’s probably my biggest problem! My stuff generally doesn’t work on the dancefloor generally. Occasionally I’ve got lucky, but I don’t really make music for that reason anymore, that was what being with Bad Company was about. Nowadays, I just want to do what I want to do.
WHO WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO COLLABORATE WITH? DEAD OR ALIVE?Vangelis, is he alive? I think Stevie Wonder would be fun to work with, I think I’d whip him back into shape, get him to get some of those old keyboards out. I’d like to do a tune with Dillinja, I working on getting a tune with Krust done, just people I look up to within the scene. Generally anyone who’s up for it really.
HOW DO YOU THINK DRUM AND BASS IS VIEWED BY PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF THE SCENE?That’s a hard one. I think to some extent it’s not taken seriously, and I think some people just see it as a kind of party music, which it is to some extent, but there is another side to it. Drum and bass used to be seen as a cutting edge genre, and I think even to this day some of the music that was produced from ’94 to ’97 still hasn’t been surpassed. These last two years, it has started to be taken more seriously again from my point of view.
DO YOU THINK RADIO 1 AIRPLAY FOR DRUM AND BASS IS GOOD FOR THE SCENE?I think it’s good, I just wish they’d listen to a broader spectrum of it, it’s pretty obvious what’s being pushed and it’s usually one of 4 labels that they tend to play.
DO YOU THINK THE FACT THAT SOFTWARE IS MAKING PRODUCTION MORE ACCESSIBLE IS A GOOD THING?Yes and no. I think it’s a good thing from my point of view to get ideas together, but I think it’s almost giving too much power to some people, for example there are mastering plugins that do jobs they really shouldn’t be doing. A lot of the more mainstream drum and bass is really just a wall of sound, it’s not the kind of music I grew up listening to or liking. For me it’s just a bit much.
HOW HAS YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS PRODUCTION CHANGED SINCE YOUR BAD COMPANY DAYS?I’m going through cycles really. In Bad Company, we were all about hardware, and then we started to embrace the new technology like Pro Tools and plugins and things like that. Nowadays I’ve just come back around, since I’ve been working with Instra:mental I’ve been getting back into the synths and hardware. Even though it’s probably easier with the digital music, I personally like the sound of the old equipment, and that’s enough for me to use that stuff. I’ve just been buying synths like crazy recently!
DO YOU FEEL THAT BY EMBRACING THE DIGITAL AGE (E.G. ABUNCHOFCUTS.COM) YOU ARE TURNING YOUR BACK ON VINYL?No, not at all. I think as a record label, we’re all trying to make money somehow, and it’s just a medium that other people besides us are embracing. It would be foolish not to really. It’s hard for me to get my head around it though, I’m not really a big fan of it as such, because it doesn’t really feel like you’re selling anything tangible. I think we had to embrace it; we’re just doing it really slowly.
FOR HOW MUCH LONGER WILL VINYL BE COMMERCIALLY VIABLE?Always, I think, it’s becoming a collector’s item at the end of the day, but who knows? Some kids born today will have no idea what vinyl is, because they’ll be growing up around this new technology. As a crate digger, I’d like to think that vinyl won’t die out.
WHOSE TUNES ARE REALLY DOING IT FOR YOU AT THE MOMENT?At the moment, Instra:mental, Calibre, Survival, Commix. I’m putting out the Survival album on my label Exit next year. There are also some guys from New Zealand doing some cool stuff; Cern is a guy I really like, there’s another one called Consequence who’s really cool.
WHAT’S IN STORE FOR YOU OVER THE NEXT YEAR?I’m working on my next album, and another one with Instra:mental. I’ve got my brother’s (Steve Spacek) Black Pocket 12” coming before the end of the year. There’s also the Chris Inperspective/Calibre 12” out now. I’m also working on getting the next instalment of the Aptitude series out. It’s weird for me because it causes me a lot grief but I also get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I like buying records, and I know what it is that makes me buy them, and the way the scene is at the moment, there’s this attitude of “we’re not making much money, let’s cut corners and sell tunes in just inner sleeves or whatever”. I thought well, at the end of the day if we’re not selling that much, why not put more effort into it and give people a reason to want to buy a record, other than just the music.
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