It is 12pm on Monday afternoon and I
finally manage to run an exclusive interview with someone
who has taken breakbeat music and beamed it up where it belongs
- DOC SCOTT. Describing himself as nothing special only as
Doc Scott from Holbrooks, Coventry he manages to give us a
deep insight into himself and the underground dance scene
as a whole.
So where did it all start and how did you discover house
music
"Well, I had my first pair of decks when I was 15 or
I was into hip hop and got my first pair of Technics on my
18th birthday. I was a breakdancer and I did graffiti. When
I was going shopping in Birmingham buying my hip hop stuff,
these new records were how I got into house music."
So what made you want to become a DJ
"That’s a bit of hard one, it’s just an
interest in music. I have always been into music. When we
were at school and hip hop came out, I was always the person
who had the stereo playing tapes, it was just a fascination
with music. In my opinion it’s the DJ’s who create
the music at the end of the day, they are defining what’s
happening. When the scene took off I was already a DJ, I was
already into house music or techno or whatever it was when
it first came out. It was never really an ambition like, Oh,
I wanna be a DJ. It just kind of happened simply because I
was into music."
Who gave you your first major play
"The first time I ever played out at what would be classed
as a party or rave was an illegal rave called Utopia in 1989.
It was in a field and the police were at the gates, so I had
to go across some railway lines with my record box to get
to the marquee. It was a geezer called Chops who asked me
to play and it was a real mad one. The people who did it got
arrested and sent down for it."
Who was your biggest inspiration in
those early days
"I went to the early Sunrise parties in ’89 and
I went to Energy. I heard DJ’s like Fabio, Grooverider,
Jack Frost and Carl Cox and they freaked me out man. They
were playing sets of music and I was hearing it in a different
way. I was hearing it put together on the back of another
record being mixed in a set. Fabio and Groove are people who
influenced me tremendously in learning how to play music and
playing a DJ set."
So what about your DJ name, how did
that come about
"My real name is Scott, and loads of people ask me this
- I don’t know why. I think they expect it to be Kevin
or something. Doc Kevin wouldn’t really go. When I was
at school people knew I was a DJ and I used to do tapes of
house music for them, especially when it first came out. Nobody
knew what it was or where to get it. I was buying early stuff
on import especially a lot of Detroit stuff.
Anyway, people started coming round my house all the time
for a copy of a tape or dropping off blank cassettes. They
then started to say it was like going to the doctors getting
a prescription - going to Doc Scott and getting their music,
that was where the name came from, it started off as a nickname
‘Doc Scott’. People were well into their music
in them days, but nobody really knew where to get it from.
When I played at the first ever party I never had a name and
the geezer who was doing the party asked me what I was going
to call myself, I didn’t really want to be called DJ
Scott, because that sounds pretty shitty. So we decided on
Doc Scott."
At what stage of your career did you
give up work and start DJ’ing full time
"I had an apprenticeship with GPT to become a telecommunications
engineer, but it was hard what with DJ’ing at the weekends
and getting home Sunday evening ready to go straight to work
Monday morning. I gave up work towards the end of 1990 when
Amnesia House were doing the Connexion parties. It was where
I really took off and made a name for myself because there
were so many people there. From there I started working at
different places, so towards the end of the year it got to
be too much, what with working as well. However, I was still
going to college and managed to complete a four year Diploma
course."
How would you describe the type of
music which you play
"I class myself as an underground DJ who plays intelligent
music. I don’t just play jungle and I don’t just
play strings. People like to pigeon hole a DJ and say, "Oh
yeah, he plays jungle or he plays breakbeat." I can play
across the board. I play stuff with vocals in, pure instrumental,
breakbeat, heavy drum and bass strings. As long as it’s
intelligent, intelligently made and of a certain quality level
and sound. I am not into cheap gimmick records, I leave them
to other people. This music is about progression, I call it
progressive. It’s roots are from hip hop through to
house, it’s progressed from house and we have started
using breakbeats at 150+ bpm, and now you have got people
using jazz influences and live vocalists on their tracks.
I am into progressive, intelligent underground music, so if
you want to use a label, that is what I am into."
So what made you decide that you wanted
to produce records
"It was not really a decision. When I used to buy early
rap stuff, I used to listen to it. Not just listen to it enjoying
the music, but listen to it and wonder how it was made. I
used to wonder how it was put together. When house music came
out, I was even more intrigued. I went to a club in Birmingham
called ‘The Dome’ and I met a geezer there who
I bought a sampler from. I didn’t even really know what
a sampler was but I had seen a picture in a magazine of 808
State with this Akai sampler in their studio. As soon as I
saw this sampler I recognised it from the picture and bought
it, even though I didn’t know what it was. I bought
this in 1990, took it home and put it under the stairs for
ten months. I then met someone who knew how to work a computer,
so we put the computer and sampler together and started making
these early chonk - chonk kind of beats, I had always wanted
to make a record. The first record I ever made was the absolute
definition of a bedroom track, it was made on one sampler.
I didn’t even have a desk in them days and I mixed
it down with a hi-fi amp and put it onto DAT. That record
went on to be massive, the Surgery EP. I gave it to people
like Groove, Fabio and Jack Frost and they were like caning
it man. It really freaked me out. From that time people started
looking at me as an artist already, or at least someone that
made records. It was very fortunate for me at the time that
I did it so early. I made my first record in ’91 which
was before a lot of people started making records - in this
country anyway."
How did you get onto the Reinforced
label
"I have always respected Reinforced and I have always
thought Reinforced were on the cutting edge of music, totally,
it is definitely an icon label. During the ’92 to ’93
era people would buy Reinforced without even listening to
what was on it, simply because it was on the cutting edge.
It was different, I felt that the music that I was making
was suited to that label. After I did an EP called, 'Here
Comes The Drums.' Goldie was asking Groove about my music
and who I was, I was asking Groove (just after Goldie had
made Terminator), fuckin’ hell who is this Goldie man,
you have got to introduce me. One time we met up in a record
shop and started going to Rage together, listening to Fabio
and Groove. I did an EP called ‘Let’s Go’
the remix and I gave it to Fabio on a plate. Goldie wanted
to ask me for it for Reinforced and I wanted to offer it,
but we both kind of had that much respect for each other that
he didn’t want to ask for it and I didn’t want
to say, 'Well, you can have it if you want,' because I thought,
'Well, who am I at the end of the day.' But not to beat about
the bush, I said well I would love to go on to Reinforced
because I’m into the label, what they stand for and
the people that are running it, that was how it happened."
Well, what do you think about the way
the music has become so categorised
"I suppose it’s a shame in a way, but it’s
inevitable as well. If you look at the 1990 to 1991 era, you
had euro techno which was more kind of industrial house being
played along side house. Everything was the same tempo and
everything had the same kind of feel, so you could play across
the board in a set. You could have DJ’s playing all
different types of music in a set, because it was basically
all at the same kind of tempo. What was classed as early kind
of jungle tracks came along and the bpm within the space of
twelve months went from 135 to 155bpm. That broke a lot of
boundaries in the music. The music started getting categorised
rapid. My personal taste on all nighter is that I would like
to listen to a certain flavour of DJ’s and that would
be it, but I know that wouldn’t work with a crowd of
1,500 people. There are certain clubs that operate a pure
happy policy and people are going to get fed up with that
in six months time. No matter how much you like your music,
if you listen to it totally, you’re going to get fed
up with it. Like me at home, I can’t listen to what
I play at the weekends all day long because I would be sick
of it. I wouldn’t want to go out and work."
But how do you think this has affected
the scene
"The way I look at it is that there is a lot of misunderstanding
between the music types. There are a lot of people out there
who will listen to me and say, 'He’s dark’, or
they will listen to LTJ Bukem and say, 'I don’t like
this, I don’t understand it.' This music changes so
quick. People should try and listen to the music itself rather
than listen for anthems to throw their hands up in the air.
The scene is predominantly a young scene, so there are a lot
of people who have only been going out for two years.
For DJ’s like myself, Fabio, Groove, Randall and Bukem
who are playing on the progressive tip, we are playing music
that developed from six months ago and that developed from
six months ago before that. These people that are coming into
the scene - they are kind of behind. They have not listened
to the progression to where we are at. I think that is one
of the problems and why people are saying, 'Oh, this music’s
too heavy or too dark.' This is because the DJ’s are
playing on the progressive tip - the progressive edge of music.
It’s accelerating away from what these people can probably
handle listening to. My main priority as a DJ is to make people
dance and if I’m not doing that then I’m doing
something wrong. If I am going to a place people can’t
handle this progressive edge of music, it would still contain
a quantity of intelligence. To me a pure happy policy is regressive
- it’s going backwards. They are going back to old ’91
classics and speeding them up, it sounds terrible. All it’s
about is getting on the level with the DJ and the DJ getting
on the level of the crowd that he is in front of. That to
me is keeping people happy. A lot of young people would find
it hard to understand a full on Fabio set of what he wants
to play. A few people might say, 'Phew, what’s going
on, this is too deep - NOT DARK. That’s the word - DEEP.
Take the Paradise Club in London, this has a very mature crowd
with the average age of around twenty four years old. It’s
the sort of place where your more adult person can go and
hear more adult music. Where as there is Pandemonium over
at what used to be JJ’s, which is aimed at a younger
crowd, they are promoting happy music."
Who do you think is making good music
in the scene at the moment
"Goldie has taken the music now to a different level
with a ‘Still Life’. He is doing a twenty two
minute piece using live vocalists and he is even talking about
using live breakbeats for this album which he is working on.
LTJ Bukem I rate immensely, I feel he is underrated and the
criticism which he sometimes gets is unfair. Grooverider,
Peshay, Ronnie Size and DJ Krust, Wax Doctor, Rupert from
Certificate 18 Records is making some blindin’ tunes
at the moment. I have got a lot of respect for Moving Shadow
because they are bridging the gap between underground music
and commercialism so well. Nookie, Gavin at Cloud Nine - a
person who is an A1 producer, but doesn’t normally get
mentioned and should do because of the quality of music which
he is making."
Where do you see the future for music
going
"It’s hard to say, this music is progression.
The people who are making the tunes now, sticking to their
guns and believing what they have always believed in - those
are the people who are going to be big next year. Goldie has
just signed an album deal with FFRR and this is already getting
media attention. When this LP takes off the spotlight will
be on a few certain people. The people who are on the cutting
edge like LTJ Bukem, Peshay, Wax Doctor, certain elements
from Formation, Moving Shadow, that’s where I see the
future of music. You know, the jungle thing is really popular
at the moment, but I can see what happened two and a half
years ago happening again. There’s some damn good jungle
tunes being made, but I doubt if they’re the tunes that
are going to cross over, just bullshit tunes that give a distorted
picture of what’s really going on. Just remember what
happened with Sesame’s Treat. I’ve just heard
that General Levy has done a track with Apache Indian!! I
don’t know if this is true, but if it is then that’s
a load of crap. People like that are taking the piss."
What are your plans for the future
"I’ve just finished some new material for Metal
Heads, which should be out for October. I’m also starting
up my own label which I’ve done a few tracks for, I’ll
be putting some other peoples stuff out on it too. I plan
to get together with Peshay later on this year to do a couple
of tracks together, and hopefully do the same with Goldie
and Wax Doctor before the year’s out. Some collaboration
kind of business."
And finally, any best experience which
you want to share with us
"The first time I ever heard one of my records being
played out, it was the Summer of ’91, Amnesia House,
Donnington Park and Jack Frost played Surgery in front of
5,000 people, that was a pretty good experience."
Artist's Web Links
| UK Old Skool Rave &
Hardcore Compilations :: Doc
Scott
