DJ Fresh

His No. 1 track “Louder” provided the soundtrack to our summer (and Lucozade) and his 2011 ended on a high after a huge UK sell-out tour. This year, with a new single already en route to No. 1, Dan Stein AKA DJ Fresh, has even bigger plans, with an album release and another tour ready to go. BBM’s Alexandra MacLeod caught up with the man himself to find out how it’s all been going.

You’re new single with Rita Ora is a contender for Number 1 this week. Things must be mental for you right now?

Yes I know! I can’t tell you how grateful I am, how amazed I am about what’s going on right now with my music, and with bass music as a whole.
You’ve been recognised repeatedly for your contribution to the drum n‘ bass music genre, what was going on when you first started producing bass tracks?
It was really different to how it is now, it was much more urban, much more street. I came from Reading and had a relatively privileged background, and it was funny because I had a rather posh accent so everyone was a bit like “who is this kid, and what does he want to do this for?” It was really cool though, I met people who had the most amazing perspective on life, and on music. In drum n’ bass music there was this kind of family, and when you’re welcomed into it, it’s great, and there are always going to be these people that I respect and who I’m influenced by.

Where did you draw inspiration from?

Originally I was into indie, but I liked classical music and jazz up until I was about 12-13 years-old, I never liked pop music. Then I heard people like Jean Michel Jarre, which introduced me to electro, it was like classical music to me in a way, I loved how you had complete control over the sound. Then I heard hardcore when I was at school, the older kids would go out to raves and bring this stuff back, and I was just blown away by it.

Your sound has changed quite a lot since you were part of Bad Company, what made you go solo?

Well, a lot of the Bad Company stuff near the end was stuff that I was making pretty much on my own, and I think the guys felt, understandably, that the sound of Bad Company was supposed to be the sound of all of us, and it was increasingly becoming about me. So I said to them, “what if I call myself Fresh, and when we do stuff together I’ll use a separate name?” They felt that wasn’t really what they wanted, so I didn’t really have much of choice, I started out doing my own thing which was quite scary.

Well it worked out for the best, you’re doing pretty well for yourself! How did the collaboration with Rita Ora come about?

Well Jessie J’s management wanted me to try and produce something for her, so they put me in the studio with these guys called The Invisible Men, who produce for her. We never ended up doing anything for Jessie, but we just sort of hit it off really, and started working on a couple of tracks, and ‘Hot Right Now’ at that point was literally just the backing track and the main hook. I couldn’t find the right person to sing it, and I tried a whole load of different people, but it was so fast and so high-pitched that people couldn’t really do it, and the guys said to me, “we know this girl Rita Ora, she’s kind of locked down to Roc Nation, we’re not really supposed to talk about her but she’s coming in tomorrow, and we know she’s going to be able to nail it.” They showed me her a video on YouTube and I knew straight away that she was the girl, because she just had this incredible energy and vibe, and she came in to record it the next day. Jay-Z signed it off, so we got permission. Apparently he really loved the track!

You’ve done a few collaborations with female vocalists now, what is it you like about working with them?

Well to be honest I’ve always written songs, you know since I was a tiny kid, the only thing I was ever good at in school was music and creative writing, I used to sit down at the piano and write songs, and that’s what I used to do every day. The past 10 years I’ve kind of ignored that, just because drum n’ bass was so anti-vocal to that point, but now everything’s changed recently and its all opened up, and it’s become the right time for me to write songs.

Your concept show FRESH/LIVE was a sell out last year, are you planning anything similar this year?

Yeah we’re doing another tour in the UK in May, and we’ll be doing most of the UK festivals and some European festivals, and hopefully I’d love to get it out of the UK more but it’s really expensive to put on those kinds of shows, hopefully next year we’ll be able to go out to America and Australia, which will be really cool.

Are there any new music producer’s/artists that your supporting or listening to right now?

There’s a guy called SongBoy that I think is going to be massive soon – he’s a dubstep producer – and I’ve been a massive supporter of Flux Pavilion since the early days and he’s about to drop an album, which I’m sure is going to catapult in to god knows what, he is a really talented guy. But recently I’ve been so busy with my album I haven’t heard much outside of the studio!

An album! When’s that due for release?

I think we’re looking at September time. I am really excited about finishing it and getting it out there, and well it leading onto the next sounds, I’ve always been hooked on to change.

By Alexandra MacLeod

Also on at Chinese Laundry This Month:

March 3rd – Steve Bug (Poker Flat, Ger)?MYNC (CR2, UK)

March 10th- Chase & Status, Zane Lowe, Ian Pooley

March 17th – Aphrodite (UK)

March 23rd – DJ Hype
March 24th – Border community – Avus, Fairmont, Luke Abbott?Club Junque

March 31st – DJ Fresh & Messy MC