Ed Rush Interview

Back in those early rave days of 1993, Ben Settle, better known as Ed Rush collaborated with his good friend Nico Sykes in a small loft room in West London. The rest is history. They had created a fresh and unique sound which still resonates today and is known by many as ‘Neurofunk’. A lover of all electronic sounds, Ed Rush has been producing music with Optical and other artists throughout the last three decades and ever since the creation of their label ‘Virus’, the production of Techstep and Jungle classic tracks are endless.

Hello mate, how are you? Where are you right now?

I’m not too well Frankie! I have been laid out for a couple of days but i’m on the mend today.

I’m sorry to hear that Ben. You grew up in West London, how did this affect your musical tastes and passion?

Yeah I grew up in Barnes and then lived in Chiswick for the past 10 years. A lot of my friends are from that area, MC Fierce and Matt Optical and all the rest. A lot of Drum and Bass heads are from that area and there was a great vibe throughout the ‘90s.

I can imagine, I would have loved to be my age now so like mid-20s back in that era!

Yeah there was a big room we all shared in Acton, and people were always there kicking about making music. It had a great community feel and yeah, it had a sick vibe.

So Ben, what would you be doing if you weren’t a DJ/producer?

Music has always been everything. I worked in places like Waitrose to pay for equipment. I worked for Oddbins too and I loved it and very much enjoyed tasting of the wine and stuff. So maybe I would have pursued that. Although, now I’m older my passion is food and I love to cook.

How has a typical day in your life changed? What set up do you use for making music? Do you think the Digital Age has affected you a lot?

Well obviously it was always vinyl and dub plates. Then Pioneer released the CDJs, which is obviously pretty standard, or the Traktor system. I have no beef or qualms with how anyone wants to DJ. It’s all horses for courses; I don’t think it’s cheating no matter what you do with the digital process. It is a unique process and if you give two different people the same tunes, it will always be individual. I like to use CDJs to be honest, I don’t like to take my laptop into a club as I know how easy it is for them to become damaged. I am just about to use Record Box, which allows you to use your CDJs with your USB or memory cards as I find it sometimes a little much looking for different CDs when you are playing your set in a dark nightclub. I don’t like to plan my sets too much and everyone is different so I don’t want to have things too organized and in place.

How did you firstly come about to collaborate with Optical and how has your label ‘Virus’ grown over the years?

I first met Optical as we grew up in the same part of London. We both knew the same people and we used to cut our dub plates at the same place for the weekends. We got talking and shared many interests in music and we both had the same vision of how we saw music going in the future. We wanted to sample the same beats and loved Techno, so we hit it off and were smoking copious amounts of weed back then which is always a good common ground (laughing). He is a wizard in the studio and we made quite a few tunes in the first six months, as a sound became to develop. We had an abundance of tunes that we didn’t want to keep giving away to other labels and so we decided to make Virus.

I remember hearing your track Wormhole for the first time when I was a teen and it was something I had not heard before, how would you generalize your music?

Well thank you for your kind words! I think the reason the success came from that record was because it was unique at that time. It sounded fresh and we were new to the scene. We didn’t have many influences within the industry as it was a new sound and a fresh way of thinking if you like. It was prolific sound and we weren’t trying to copy anyone, it just felt right to us at the time. Apparently it is ‘Neurofunk’ and I only really like to think of it as ‘organic yet funky’.

You are also passionate about House music, how are you getting involved with this side of music?

I have always liked House music. As the foundation of Electronic music, I got into it in the Acid House days. There is a lot more funk and swing with such vast variety. There is so much choice to play with and that is what I like. It’s a little different making 128BPM than 170BPM (laughing). There are a few bits of my House production floating around and we are looking to produce a new D&B album.

House music always fits, it’s uniform and so many people relate to it with that BPM.

Yeah when we used to be in tribes and used to bash drums, they probably did it to that beat more than the Drum and Bass beat which is probably how we are hardwired.

(Laughing) What’s to come from you then mate next year? What are you looking forward to doing most in Australia?

I am doing Sydney on the 5th of January and I haven’t been there for a while so it will be a great break from the winter here obviously. It is so similar over there in terms of attitude, food, sense of humour but then the sunshine helps and their love for dirty Drum and Bass too. It does get too hot for me so I love the poker rooms which are air conditioned and I have played a few of their casinos which are cool.

Enjoy Australia and the music Ben, stay out of those Poker rooms (laughing)

I will do Frankie, unless I am winning!

Ed Rush Tour Dates:
Saturday 5th January- Chinese Laundry, Sydney