When you’re ready to get down... When you wanna’ spin
on the ground... When you wanna’ lose that hideous frown,
it’s time to check out London’s Freestylers. Straight
up, I’m not pullin’ your cock, these guys know how
to lay down a funky ass groove. With a debut rekkid entitled
We Rock Hard put out by Mammoth in May of this year, Freestylers
fans have been recruited by the thousands. We Rock Hard is a
ruffneck blend of dub and house influenced hip hop that breaks
all molds and surpasses all barriers. To see these guys live
is to see a tribe ten man crew includes two award winning b-boy
breakers,three MC’s,
a DJ, guitar, bass and drums. Heading the whole project up is
Astin who bobs up and down while surrounded
by towers of keyboards, samplers, computers and MIDI electronics.
The Freestylers are the epitome of Mad Max
in music where technological advances meet organic humanity.
Like a blend between Funkadelic and the Beastie Boys, Freestylers
are a force that, if they can recoup the over one million dollars
they have already spent on top quality production, will be rocking
heads worldwide for years.
-Sonny Mayugba
Isac:
Tell me who’s in the band, and who does what.
Aston Harvey: There’s myself and Matt, and Juice is the
band We do all the music. As far as Freestylers goes, it’s
a studio based project. The first time we’ve never used
any of our musicians. Apart from that the tracks are studio
programmed. But when we take it live, that’s when we have
a full band, so we can create what we did in the studio with
a dummer, a bass player, a guitarist, scratch DJ, two breakers...
How is it reproduced live?
We’ve done it in a way that what you hear on the album
is even more dynamic, more energetic. Because it’s live
and it’s a three dimensional look at the album. It’s
really in your face, and the energy from the album comes across
live. It’s a party kind of vibe with the band as well,
and it comes across as having a good time. How many Freestylers albums are there?
Only one. We’ve got a mix CD for F.A.C.K., where we play
DJs. Breaks are still a small scene over here, but I think it’s
going to kick off over here.
I think bands like the Freestylers are bringing hip-hop and
electronic music together in a form that everybody can appreciate.
I have a lot of dance music that has come from England. I think
the breaks definitely has a British identity, and is the sort
of music that an American audience will understand because it
does have hip-hop in it, with the beat and the samples. But,
as a mix it has a lot of elements. Our album’s got reggae,
ska, rock. It’s got everything, and it’s something
that people can relate to.
Some of the albums have got an old school theme to them, but
it doesn’t sound old school, and it represents rock and
music. Our album covers our history of music. When we made our
record, we took records to the studio and kind of vibed out
and very spontaneously made music, and what excites us comes
across in the music, and you can hear it. We used some obvious
rock. Not so obvious, but some older people, my generation,
people say “Oh Public Enemy, blah, blah, blah..” But
to a whole load of kids, they’ve never even heard of Public
Enemy. I noticed a couple samples in there, I don’t know if
it’s a coincidence, but the DJ Punk Rock album, is that
just a coincidence?
Yeah, probably. Just coincidence. What part of England do you come from?
We come from London. I lived just outside, near Wembly. I just went to England last summer. All I did was go record
shopping.
Mr. Bongo’s? Mr Bongo’s, Camden Market five or six times. I came
back with three bags.
That’s funny because I come over to America and buy my
shit.Jay went to a shop down by Haight, it’s a dance one.
I’m going to go to one down in L.A. There’s this place
called Record Finders. When I was in Japan, we DJed in Japan
over Christmas, and we did some mad shopping over there. Spent
like 350 pounds. Everything is so neatly laid out. I did some
shopping at Virgin also. I read in some press release that you guys had Oasis trouble.
I tried to listen for some Oasis sampling.
What happened was, on the original version of B-Boy Stance sung
the melody of Wonderwall, but changed the lyrics. It was quite
a reggae tradition. You kind of use a popular melody and change
the lyrics, and we did that and they didn’t let us use
it. So, it’s just one of those things. The record was an
underground tune. In dance press, Oasis got a lot of stigma.
Obviously for us, it’s old news. I know you guys got a write up in NME.
Yeah. We won New Music Best Band for ‘98. Are you guys into breaking a lot?
I saw that video.
I used to be able to break, but I don’t do it now. It’s
part of my musical history, you know breaking and I love watching
breaking. I never get bored of watching it. Is there a big breaking thing in England?
Yeah. It’s getting a bit ridiculous, because every new
pop video has breaking in it. It’s kind of getting in people’s
faces. The thing is, our breakers also do a lot of dancing and
acrobatics. Unfortunately, you’re not going to be able
to see much tonight. They might do a bit, but it’s a small
stage. We did this show at this club called Cream in England,
it’s a really big club and there were about 1800 people
in there and they didn’t build a stage big enough. So when
there was a breaking tune, we had to move all these people back.
I don’t know how we did it. It was quite incredible. What kind of music did you grow up with? Before
getting into hip-hop and electronic and all that, it was sorta
what my parents listened to. The first record that sort of changed
my life was Planet Rock, and there was an album that came out
on Tommy Boy, like Best of Social Course, that album really
did it for me. Then I just sort of followed it through, and
went into hip-hop. The whole thing really changed in England
where you have the acid house scene and the rave scene. That
totally changed the whole way of life for the people who club
in England. It brought people together a lot more; the rave
scene. It was a massive musical influence. A lot of producers,
like Prodigy comes from the rave scene. It was fusing so many
different ideas, like hip hop ideas and house ideas. It was
a very big change for music in England. That’s where the
dance element comes into Freestylers. Do you think that will be the new break in music? Like a
new scene. Like a scene that combines every scene.
I think so, because even us DJs, when we play out, we play so
many different styles of music. When you go to a breaks club,
you’ll hear house, you’ll hear hip hop, you’ll
hear reggae, you’ll hear jungle, you’ll hear such
a big wide variety of music. And it’s all positive music.
You’ll get a wide mix of music all night long. You’re
not gonna get bored. You’ll hear a lot of cheers... The
thing is DJing is all these style of music. There’s a knack
of doing it. You just don’t flow in here and flow in there.
There’s a certain way of doing it. It’s good that
you get to hear a load of different music. Hearing house all
night long does get monotonous.
I’d much rather go to a place where you can hear three
or four different styles of music and take a break when you
wanna’ if you don’t like something or not. Do you
actually have a system when you start out a song? Do you play
around a sample?
It starts many ways. A lot of times we start with the beats,
the rhythm. That kind of leads to where it’s gonna go.
If it’s a hard beat, it’s gonna go in a certain way.
If it’s gotta hip hop beat.. you know what I mean. It starts
most of the time with the rhythm. But then you might find a
sample and have to fit the rhythm around the sample. But, 95
percent of the time we start with the rhythm, everything else
follows suit. How long have you guys been together?
We’ve been making music for 3 years, but I’ve been
making music under many different names.
I used to write under Joe Rock? and then Blapps. I worked with
DJ Rap. I mixed with her for a couple of years.
She’ll be playing here in a couple months. I didn’t
even know it was a girl for while.
Well, I worked with her for a couple of years and then I was
making house music for a bit. And for the past few years, I’ve
been concentrating on Freestylers. Even my mixture of music
I’ve made and produced, I’ve picked up different techniques
on how to make this music and that music. And blend it into
making it the Freestyler sound. Everyone else in the band has little projects?
Not really. They’re all really just musicians. The only
person is Jay. He actually makes that kind of dancy, hip hoppy
sort of stuff, hip hop based. Who do you think’s coming out of England right now that’s
changing music? You guys are bringing in a different style of
music making people aware of different genres. Who else is doing
the same thing? Who’s opening people’s eyes? What’s
the next new thing?
There’s a group Agent Sumo? Their album sounds really good.
You got Wise Guys, Dub Pistols. They all sound pretty different
to each other. I like the Aphrodite stuff. Any jungle I like
uses the funky...I don’t like any music that’s just
noise, doesn’t have any melody. You did the Jungle Brothers mix, didn’t you?
Yeah. We did the Jungle Brothers mix as well. It’s a really
good mix. It’s really weird cause it’s all Jungle
but it’s all hip hop sounds and hip hop bass lines and
noises and stuff.
Jungle Brothers is another one of those groups that used to
be strictly hip hop but then you see them do some crazy...
Yeah, over the years, Jungle Brothers have really opened up.
They were all housey. It was really mad going on tour with them.
We did a few dates and we played with them. But they were definitely
an inspiration to me. I was like only 18 when they first came
out. I used to love Jungle Brothers.
Isac:
Tell me who’s in the band, and who does what.
Before
getting into hip-hop and electronic and all that, it was sorta
what my parents listened to. The first record that sort of changed
my life was Planet Rock, and there was an album that came out
on Tommy Boy, like Best of Social Course, that album really
did it for me. Then I just sort of followed it through, and
went into hip-hop. The whole thing really changed in England
where you have the acid house scene and the rave scene. That
totally changed the whole way of life for the people who club
in England. It brought people together a lot more; the rave
scene. It was a massive musical influence. A lot of producers,
like Prodigy comes from the rave scene. It was fusing so many
different ideas, like hip hop ideas and house ideas. It was
a very big change for music in England. That’s where the
dance element comes into Freestylers.