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Amit - Drum & Bass - Interview by dallas herret (september 2003).

Dallas: This is rdu 98.5; I'm out here in Slough just outside of London sitting in Amit's awesome studio, looking at all his gear. Amit's a producer that not a lot of people in NZ would have heard of yet, but they will by the end of the year. They would have heard a couple of his bits on the Klute & Marcus tour, as a couple of bits are signed to Klute's label and one to Metalheadz and a couple to Spirit's label. How's it going Amit?

Amit: Cool, cool.

Big year, well big end of the year for you probably even bigger next year with the releases. How'd you get this far, I know you've been around working for quite a while.

Well, I've been in and out of studios for about 8 years, working with different people. I've been sending Steve Digital and Brillo demos for probably about 2 years and then things started happening.

Wicked, definitely with your tune roots that you played me before you've made your mark. That's an Amit tune and if I was at a party and heard it I would think "that's Amit".

One of the main things I go for when I make a track, number one it has to capture something, it has to give you more than ones and zeros computerised music, something more than that. I always try for a lot of percussion, a lot of sounds that would make you think "where the hell did that come from?". I really try and push the boundaries. But the vibe is the main thing, the vibe rather than loudness. Being Asian myself, my country of origin is India so I've been exposed to Indian samples, Indian films. So there's a lot of influence that came from that. I try and pack a lot into my tracks, but without overdoing them. But Roots has to be a track that took me, maybe, 2 to 3 weeks if not a month to finish. Everything had to be perfect, everything had to fit.

In actual fact it was intended to be a dub track, from there it just progressed and people picked up on it and, Tom [Klute] would probably say the same thing, it will probably end up being the a-side of that [commercial suicide] release, but who knows. It's a great tune, a song in itself. It's not a tool, like a lot of the tunes coming out now.

Thanks.

Your sound is kind of like Digital's in the way that your bass lines are really warm and fat, obviously that's because of the equipment you're using not so digital like a lot of the guys that are coming through right now. You've got the valve that you're putting it through and are you going to carry on with this?

Well to be honest with you all the tracks I have played you were internal, none of them used external gear. But there's tricks behind them. I've been in this game for 8 years as a sound engineer using equipment, you've got to know how to push your equipment, to tweak it, to make a track that was done internally on Logic sound like it's done on something else, rather than just using presets. But being linked to Digital is nice because that guy's stuff is tough.

Your tunes are coming out this year, but it might take people until next year to get their heads around them. They'll hear djs play them out and go "what's this tune?"

It is quite strange. I've only had a track on L Plates, Erazer & Snake pit, and a thing on the function EP, Dub Soldier. Just off those tracks things have really picked up, especially Erazer, that was a track I did and I never thought I'd get any real response from it.

They maybe wouldn't fit into an hour set.

But a 2 hour, a long set. That's another good point because an hour set isn't long enough frankly, and djs get paid loads of money, well good ones get paid loads of money for doing hour set, but really I think the standard should be 2 hours. I mean 10 tunes and you're already near the end of it and you're still warming up. In London most sets tend to be an hour or an hour and a half, and you can hear the nights are actually a lot better.

A lot of times they're thinking "I've got a formula" as well, but the dj before them has dropped 5 tunes that they want to drop. London's probably not the best place to try a musical set, say at Fabric from 12 til 1!

No it's not, it's not. I do hope it does change, that djs get allocated more time to play and I really do hope that djs, people that really want to play, not make tunes, people who wanna dj can actually get a shout and push the ones that are there for their places and the respect cos that's what it's about, it's about healthy competition. But the whole thing with djs now is you've got to be a producer before you're dj and maybe that won't change but I hope something does give and gives the chance to the dj of 10 years ago who would really strive to get a set together and just play for the sake of playing.

I know what you mean. I think overseas it's a lot different, coming from NZ when djs do tour it's not uncommon for 3 hour sets. So your tunes would probably be played at lot more overseas than they would be in your area.

Most of my so-called fans are abroad. It's great because abroad you get a fair chance than maybe what you do here, because there they don't know the big names, or maybe they do, but they are not so concentrated on one artist, they tend to be a bit more disciplined in the fact that they'll listen to the new stuff as well as the old stuff which is good. The way that drum & bass is going now where it's kind of globally dominating and we're getting loads of producers from different countries, Australia, New Zealand, the states, Norway, Germany it's spreading. The next five or six years it'll be a good test, things look really exciting at the moment, but there's always room for change and room for new blood which is the great thing.

So what's it like getting a call from Goldie?

Well, that all kind of happened at Headz in the right way. Klute played one of my tracks and Goldie was really into it that night, and asked him about whose track it was and it went from there, Tom pointed to me and the rest is history. It's a great thing, it's nice when your tracks go down in the club and then you get the response in that way, as opposed to sending demos because sometimes demos don't get heard. In that respect it's got that I linked up with Steve and Brillo cos they give everyone a fair listen, they don't miss any of the cds that they get sent, they listen to everything. And the good thing about those guys is they're always about what's new, not about what's hot and what's now which gives everyone a fair chance.

They're always good with their feedback as well, I remember Steve got a cd yesterday and he just sat there and he was going to give the person some personal feedback on it. It might not have been his thing, but he could appreciate it as long as the person has taken time to do it and then channel them towards maybe what they want to do. Which I think is great.

That is great and the thing is, it's very rare these days, very rare. I would send Steve a demo and then the next day I would get a call and we would discuss it.

So from here now, what's going to happen?

From here? I don't know, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing, try and treat everything as normal cos nothing's really changed if you ask me. I like that whole thing that you just carry on. Just because you're getting attention, or your tracks are getting played out, or you've got release after release, that suddenly your music's going to change, you should just carry on doing. It's all great that at the end of the day you're getting your stuff out there because 2 or 3 years ago I'd be hoping for that day to come closer, you know. But things want change, I'll still be myself, do the same tunes and try and push things a bit more. One thing I'm definitely into at the moment is doing stuff for film sound tracks, sound effects. My brother, Asham Kamboj is a film director, me & Steve did the soundtrack for one of his films called "Sandwich", which is something that me and him will probably pursue; again we've got a couple of projects we've got to work on.

I know when someone first mentioned your name, you know "have you checked Amit's stuff?" and I thought you'd just popped on to the scene. Then when I spent time out with Steve and he said that you'd been sending him stuff for quite a while, been working with you for quite a while, and that you've been around for a long time. There seem to have been a lot of artists that have been popping up, but you're one of those guys who have been putting in the hard graft and you can tell through your music, I'd say more on the intelligent side and it is very meticulous.

That's just Brillo & Steve, Duncan and Tom, they're just good guys. They always try and big you up and get you to another level, always pushing you, that's what's great about them. And it's healthy competition on their labels as well, there's some good guys doing some stuff. There's NJC whose part of Steve's crew as well doing some good stuff, got a few tunes coming out on function and cosmic web.

Is that Rhino is it?

Yeah Rhino. That's a track that him & Steve did. They've got some good people coming through. When I speak to some of those artists who have come through themselves, and we all have similar stories, you know "how was it when you first sent your demos to these guys, did you get the same sort of feedback?" It's quite funny, but it's great. I just feel glad that I got a chance to do something, put my voice through and make tunes.

Yeah wicked. Well I hope to hear a lot more of tunes in the coming months and in 2004 and good luck for the future mate.