Netsky Interview

Netsky Interview Hailing from a small town near Antwerp, Netsky, otherwise known as Boris Daenen, has been on the scene for a few years. His production earned him a nomination as “Best Upcoming Producer” at the Drum + Bass Arena Awards in 2008 and he fulfilled this ambition two years on with the “Best Newcomer Producer” award in 2010. With original material and remixes of Plan B, Leftfield and Audio Bullies, Netsky knows how to please his followers and his new album is ready to be released as he sets sail across the world with his exciting live show.

Good morning Boris, how are you?
Yeah very good thank you! I’m just at home chilling.

How has your journey been over the past few years?
Very good, this last year has been amazing for me. We just started with the live project and this has made it very exciting. It is nice to be working on something fresh and new, it feels like my new baby.

This all sounds amazing. How did the idea come about for your live shows?
There were lots of ideas behind it. I have always been thinking about the drum sections and the keyboards when I was in the studio. It is obviously a very organic way to express the music on stage although I have never been a ‘musician’ as such, but I did always play the drums. I wanted to show people visually how the music is made. After the last couple of summers playing festivals as a DJ act, you look around you and there is the whole stage not being utilised as you are there on your CDJs. I want people to relate to the instruments and use the stage and what people can see. The solos from the live instruments are exciting for the crowd.

This is very cool. It must be a lot more exciting to be more of a visual show rather than just the auditory. So, would you say that growing up near Antwerp which has a great music scene influenced your music tastes as you were growing up?
Antwerp does have some good bands. However, English music was my main influence as I was growing up. I lived on YouTube looking for new music, so I think it was mainly international styles that influenced me. It’s funny as I was a regular DJ in Belgium for a long time but I first made it over in the UK and then had success in Belgium.

Who in the UK would you say is therefore your biggest influence?
Soul always influenced me from the UK, my Dad was a huge 70s fan and so I listened to a lot of Motown and Soul music and I sample quite a lot of work from artists such as Marvin Gaye. I was never into very hard Rock or Punk as some people think. A lot of people think that I would be into the hard stuff but I actually like the Funk and Soul music which is sexy.

Your first release was ‘Memory Lane’, what was the inspiration for this track?
This feels so long ago, and I had so much pressure as I had been signed to Hospital Records. I wanted to prove myself to everyone and I think with my second album I just felt that I could do my own thing a lot more as I became a lot more confident as a producer. With many of my tracks including ‘Memory Lane’, I create the basis with a chord and a sample, and I like to work like this so that I can get as many tunes as possible into one track which has influenced me.

So what is the reason for choosing the artists which you have remixed?
Well the thing I don’t like about remixing is that there is sometimes no contact with the actual band or the artist, but is more of a management controlled process. With the remixes which I have done, I had the luck that there was some amazing music around when I did these. I loved the original Mike Snow tune and so I was lucky enough to remix this. It is always the artists which come to you but I have also been doing some bootlegs of tunes which are personal favourites of mine.

So who ticks all of the boxes for you at the moment in terms of the tracks that they are releasing?
I used to not listen to Electronic music at all at one point as I was starting to get sick of it if I was playing out a lot throughout the weekends. But at the minute there seems to be some amazingly good music, particularly coming from the UK. If you look at artists such as Disclosure, there is so much new Electronic music, which has brought me back around to listening to this style of music.

So Boris, what in life really gets on your nerves? Do you have a pet hate?
Yeah, I am going to give a very moody answer now which is strange as I was thinking about this today. They’re both computer orientated too. For one, Instagram annoys me, all these tags and images and I just cannot get my head around what the point of it is, even when people try to explain it to me. There are also a lot of artists and DJs which spend so much time on self-promotions. You shouldn’t be allowed to ask your fans to vote for you for an award show. Your fans should do it as they wish. They seem to get away with anything and they should be making music not promoting yourself. They need to remember that we are making music not selling hamburgers.

Yes exactly, they shouldn’t have to sell themselves. So you have played before in Australia and I bet you’re excited to tour the country again. What else do you have lined up?
Yes I am touring a lot at the moment and so I haven’t had much time to make a lot of new music but I hope to get some new material out by the end of the year. I am seriously concentrating on the live shows and really enjoying every moment of it at present.

By Frankie Salt