The Upbeats - The Upbeats Newsletter Interview
In the wake of such a prolific impact on the worldwide drum & bass scene, The Upbeats continue to push the boundaries. Perennially packed with enough energy to rock the floor and backed up with genuine emotion and an infinite capacity to inject a taste of something different into their music, The Upbeats’ albums drag you deep into their own personal world of drum & bass. Their fourth album Primitive Technique is out now. Dylan answered the following questions for muzic.net.nz:
How would you describe The Upbeats’ music in one sentence?
Raw grungy electronic pub rock with a musical touch.
What is your most embarrassing on tour/gig moment?
I think it would have to be a toss up between Jeremy falling asleep on stage during a show (Few too many shandys) or me falling through a gap in the stage in Bali in front of the whole crowd at a festival. Good form.
Where is your favourite place to relax in NZ?
In the Upbeats mansion private library with the fire roaring and one of our corgis curled up asleep on the lap, whilst devouring some poetry and listening to jazz.
What can you never leave home without?
Headphone splitter - for breaking up long journeys watching silly comedys on our laptops together.
What local albums have you been enjoying recently?
Have been really into the stuff UMO have been doing lately - even though I guess it's not 100 percent NZ. Love the treatment on everything and feels really fresh but nostalgic... Vibes!
What can we expect to see from The Upbeats over the next year?
Well we are pretty busy now promoting and touring the new album and will hopefully have a bunch of remixes to support that coming out soon. We also really want to follow up these with another EP of newer tunes that we have been working on in 2013. On an totally different thing we will hopefully have a collaboration hip hop / slower tempo release out within the year with MC Armanni reign who features on 'Primitive technique' as well.
About The Upbeats
Nicknamed Terror Snake and Downie Wolf respectively, Jeremy and Dylan are not your average, boring producers. Meeting at school through mutual interests in surfing, skating and ‘being gangly teenagers’ Jeremy had to work hard to pull Dylan into the world of drum & bass. But, armed with a stack of Mickey Finn & Aphrodite mixtapes and an unrelenting attitude, the snake soon overcame the wolf’s natural propensity for rock music and, fortunately for us all, a love of fast breakbeats and low-slung basslines soon followed.
This love soon grew into a passion for creating their own music and by 2001 the pair were balls deep writing their own D&B. Fuelled by New Zealand’s isolation from the rest of the world and its staggering natural beauty, The Upbeats’ unique take on 170bpm+ bass music has seen the duo work alongside scene stalwarts such as Ed Rush & Optical, Bad Company, Hive, Gridlock, Bulletproof, TREi, State of Mind and Noisia while releasing tracks across a plethora of the D&B scene’s most respected record labels.
Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for The Upbeats
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