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DIESELBOY
DIESELBOY PRESCRIBES SUBSTANCE D
The doctor is in, when DOA calls him at home in Brooklyn on April 15th. Actually Dieselboy, aka Damian Higgins, M.D. (for Master DJ, no doubt), as he is identified on the futuristic pharmaceutical packaging of his new 2XCD, SUBSTANCE D, has just returned from a visit to his dentist. “If I talk a little funny,” he says, “it’s because I just got a serious amount of Novocaine in the left side of my mouth.” Better living through chemistry, as the saying goes.
On May 6, America’s foremost drum and bass icon, and now one of the genre’s most popular and charismatic ambassadors worldwide, Dieselboy will deliver one of the most anticipated and long-awaited mix CD events of 2008. Speaking of wonder drugs, Dr. Higgins breaks down the radical science of audioceutical SUBSTANCE D right here:
DOA: How did SUBSTANCE D, your ninth mix CD project, originate?
D: I’d been planning on a new CD for a while and thinking about whom I was going to work with but hadn’t come up with a concept yet. I went to see the movie “A Scanner Darkly,” and was like, hey, maybe I should call my CD “Substance D,” obviously because of Dieselboy/Damian, you know, the D ties in. I said it half seriously and put it in the back of my head. As time went on I hadn’t really come up with anything else and the more I thought about Substance D as a concept, the more I thought I could get some good ideas out of that name. Eventually my subconscious decided that was the way to go.
DOA: How did you conceive the remixes you wanted for SUBSTANCE D?
D: The first thing I had done was that track “O.D.” which Demo pretty much wrote specifically for this. SUBSTANCE D is a drug. O.D., or overdose, ties in with the idea of too many drugs. I wanted the name to reflect the CD. Also, I’d had some music signed to HUMAN that I’d intended to put out on 12” but had some troubles with my distributor and hadn’t got some tracks out like I’d wanted to, like “Parallel Universe” (Infiltrata), “Pressure Wounds” (Tetradin + Advance), “Machine March” (SPKTRM), and “Fatal” (The Fix), which should have come out a while ago that I’d been sitting on that are now out on SUBSTANCE D.
Then it was a matter of sitting down again, like I did with “The Dungeonmaster’s Guide,” deciding to remix Sasha, BT, Tiesto, Josh Wink. I didn’t want to do a repeat of “The Dungeonmaster’s Guide.” This time around I thought about getting different genres done, and different artists. I really wanted to get remixes of some electro-house, and maybe some old industrial.
At Shambala, a festival in Canada, Adam Freeland told me he wanted a new remix of his breaks tune “We Want Your Soul.” Ed Rush + Optical remixed it a few years ago and it was more of a jump-up style and I knew Raiden could put a totally different spin on it, like a techno/d&b style, and the vocal kind of fits with Raiden’s style, kind of creepy. I knew he could do something special. It’s really fresh. The kids who like the harder d&b really go off on it.
I’d met MSTRKRFT a few times and they said they were fans of d&b, so I thought it would be cool to get one of their electro-house tunes remixed. I got the Upbeats on board and they chose “Paris” to remix. MSTRKRFT liked it.
Computer Club, which is Gigantor of Evol Intent doing his electro-house project, sent me “Load Rocket” just to get my vibe on it. I was so impressed I sent it to System which signed it right off the bat. I’m really excited with what Gridlok turned in. Computer Club was into it. It gets a huge response on the dance floor every time.
Last year listening to my old industrial Meat Beat Manifesto CD’s, I thought it would be great to get something by them remixed. Jack Danger used lots of interesting samples and breaks. Jack was down with it, so we got the samples for “Helter Skelter” for Mayhem and Evol Intent. Meat Beat liked it.
DOA: That’s the one called “Trauma/Cell” and it’s called a “duomix”?
D: Yeah, the original is two tracks, “Traumatize” and “The Cell.” I had him take “Traumatize” and “The Cell” and make a track that combines samples from both tracks. I did the same thing with the Current Value “Fear/Machine”; Demo did two tracks together in one. You take the best elements of two tracks and get them made into a two-in-one mash-up.
DOA: Can we get a bit of background on the other tracks, too? Current Value’s remix of Limewax’s “One of Them”?
D: I didn’t line that one up. SPL sent it to me and I really liked it and licensed it. I also licensed Psidream’s “Death Sentence” and the Upbeats’ “SFX.” The “N/V/D” Counterstrike Zentraedi remix I’d had for a while and decided I should put it on the CD. I think it sounds kind of like what it probably originally should have sounded like. The structure is very similar to the original but the production’s a lot better.
DOA: What’s Zentraedi?
D: The Zentraedi were the enemy alien race in the Robotech anime TV series. (laughs) What else can I tell you?
DOA: How about Technical Itch + Kemal “The Calling” (Evol Intent and Ewun remix)?
D: I basically wanted something remixed by Evol Intent and Ewun and they picked “The Calling.” I spoke with Rob (Playford) at Moving Shadow, he cleared it, and Mark (Caro, Technical Itch) was down. They had to pretty much write that tune from scratch. They had to remake “The Calling” riff because no one had the sample anymore, which made their job a lot harder. I think Gigantor from Evol Intent did that. It was huge that he was able to do that. Mark liked it.
The “Timewarp” VIP is one of my favorite Counterstrike tunes in the past few years but I didn’t want to use the original, so they did a more beefed up, more polished version of it, which was great because I love the original of that tune.
Mark (Technical Itch) agreed to remix his track “Pressure Drop,” which was one of the first tunes I thought of that I wanted to have remixed. At the last minute Mark had just got his new studio set up, went in and completely rewrote the tune from scratch. I was so happy with what he turned in. It’s a really hard-ass, steppin’, d&b tune totally different from the original, very unique and very fresh. That was the last track that got turned in for this CD.
“Midnight Express” was something I started with Evol Intent in November of ‘06 and because of our schedules and whatnot it didn’t get finished till the end of ’07, so that was a long time in the making. When we started the tune I was all about making something Raiden-style. It doesn’t sound like Raiden but I wanted something with that techno/d&b hybrid sound. Working on it, it turned into this acid roller. The whole time we had this idea it would have this breakdown that would be chopped up, filtery electro-house. It ended up being more like an acid/techno/house breakdown with some electro sound effects in there. I wanted some hard, techno-y, up-tempo club music. It goes from like techno roller to hard ass acid club tune. It gets a good response when I play it.
DOA: Who’s the voice in the “Warning Label” intro?
D: I spent an afternoon on the Internet going through voiceover demos of all these different narrators and found this guy, Tom Kane, who’s done lots of documentaries, has been the announcer for the Oscars, is the voice of Yoda in the Star Wars videogames. I contacted him and he was down to do it.
When I write my scripts, I’m trying to walk that line between sounding serious and not sounding corny. I try to make it sound appropriate but not cheesy. Tom did a few takes. In one he sounds like HAL in the movie “2001.” I almost went with that one because it sounds detached, but in the end I wanted a voice that had a little bit of humanity in it. The last take he did he sounds like Anthony Hopkins in “Silence of the Lambs” in this weird British accent, but we didn’t use that one.
Then Ewun and I went over how we wanted to do it and finished it. Instead of crazy movie trailer sound effects in this intro, I wanted it more subtle, real minimal, with just a voice and little details in the voice. The voice pitches down in places, and there’s little glitchy sounds. I did some phasing on the voice, like it’s automated, so it sounds kind of like it’s sucking in and out of your head. If you listen to it with headphones you’ll hear a slight liquidy sound in the voice that comes through in certain parts.
DOA: How did you decide which track to start with?
D: I spent a lot of time losing sleep over how to intro the mix, what d&b track to use. I was seriously bugging out because once you have the first track figured out, then you can connect the pieces. If you don’t have your first track you can’t do your mix. I’d originally wanted to use the SPKTRM remix of “Trauma/Cell” (Demo) as one of the last tunes because it’s so epic. I wanted to build up to it. I went to sleep one night and I had a dream that I was working on my CD and started off with that track. I woke up and was like, yeah, I should use that for my first tune, and that was my breakthrough. It was crazy. Once I used it, like this medical sample comes in, then it goes “the mothafucking saga continues” which ties in with the new mix. It fit perfectly.
One thing about this CD is that the guys I worked with are guys I’ve worked with before, guys from my label, guys I mostly have personal close friendships with and who I knew would step up their games and do really good jobs with their remixes. I also really wanted to help promote and push guys I have really good relationships with and who I think are really talented. That’s why I chose to work with these people on this CD.
DOA: How did you envision how the mix would progress?
D: Originally I didn’t really have an idea. I was thinking I’d start off “projectHUMAN” style where it kind of has more of an intro, tracks with a lot of synth pads and kind of builds up. But how I approached ‘The 6ixth Session” – started off with “Messiah” (Kemal + Rob Data) which went into Tech Itch “Heavy Metal” then kind of went rolling after that? The way “6ixth Session” starts - it comes in like Bam! Super impact. When I woke up after that dream about starting with that Demo tune, I realized, wow, it was going to be pretty heavy, but as I was laying it out I realized, if you listen to it, the CD starts out real hard, then it gets rollin’ in the middle, gets a bit funky with “Timewarp,” then the Upbeats’ “Paris” remix, then “Load Rocket.” Then at the end I always wanted to end with the “N/V/D tune,” just kind of a nod to the track I’m most known for. It goes from hard to rolling into funky then ends with one last punch in the face. (laughs)
DOA: Your CD art is always an important component of your projects. How did you envision the art for SUBSTANCE D?
D: I love working with Akira Takahashi, who lives in San Francisco now. His work is really clean. He never turns in anything half-assed and he’s a very diverse graphic designer. He can do any style and we’ve had a long-standing relationship. The original idea I had, and this is the art direction I gave him, was I wanted the CD to look like a futuristic pharmaceutical drug, maybe something that might be considered an illegal substance now but which would be legal in the future. An audioceutical is what I’m calling it.
I wanted the CD to resemble drug packaging, with the cleanliness of sterile drug packaging but if you imagine something you might get from a pharmacy is white with text, I wanted it to be black but all the ink to be fluorescent, psychedelic, a tripped out version of what a futuristic pharmaceutical might be like. Kind of the opposite of what it looks like now. There’s a huge drug warning. It looks like you’ve purchased a drug in the form of a CD. The wheels of the circles on the front of the CD booklet represent the time lengths of the different tracks.
DOA: Will there be simultaneous releases of SUBSTANCE D in other formats?
D: We’re going to do a simultaneous release of digital 12”’s on beatport.com off of CD2. The only track that’s not going to be on there is “Rail Gun” (Demo + Cease). Then I’m going to submit four, I think, 12”’s to the distributor. I actually need to work on the graphics today for the 12” sleeves for the label, but I’m not sure what they’re going to do with that. I want it to come out in vinyl but it’s really down to the distributor whether or not they can do it or not, so it’s not going to be simultaneous with the vinyl, but the digital will be.
DOA: What are you proudest about re: SUBSTANCE D?
D: It’s hard for me to get perspective on this CD because it took so long to make. From the time I started conceptualizing and working on it till I turned it in, it was over a year. What I’m proudest of is that I remember originally I really had no ideas. I felt like I’d set the bar high for myself with my last two CD’s, so okay, how can I try to beat that? So initially I had kind of a sinking feeling that I wasn’t going to be able to do it. Now looking at the final version, seeing how I managed to get all these various elements to tie together and have a pretty wide variety of d&b on the CD, and the text in the art, the graphics, the intro, the track names, all the subtle little details that I try to put into all my projects - I’m just happy that it came together the way it did. I was able to set the bar where I wanted to. I don’t know of anyone else who’s done anything like the projects I’ve done, so I’m happy with how it came out.
DOA: Are you still planning a SUBSTANCE D tour with rotating HUMAN artists?
D: It’s happening, actually. I’m doing a CD tour, and then I’ll be fully implementing that idea next year. The original name I came up with for the Planet of the Drums was Monsters of Jungle. I’ve been sitting on that so I decided to use it for my HUMAN artists tour. There will be certain stops on my SUBSTANCE D tour (May through July) that will feature the Monsters of Jungle. The graphics are being worked on now. When you a see a Monsters of Jungle poster, it’s going to have all our names. Each person’s name is going to be represented by an ‘80s metal band so the logos are going to look really cool. I’m starting that off on this tour and hopefully next year I’ll be able to do a full on Monsters of Jungle tour and try to build the brand up like we did with the Planet of the Drums.
DOA: What’s changed in your life since the release of “The Dungeonmaster’s Guide” in 2004?
D: My international DJ’ing career has taken off. I travel overseas a lot, lot more now. Since this year started I’ve probably been gone three out of the past four months. I’ve got an agent in Russia now; I’ve been playing Russia a lot more. My DJ’ing has really gotten a lot more hectic, so many shows, especially with the tour coming up for SUBSTANCE D. I’m playing festivals -- Fuji Rock in Japan, Summerfest in Milwaukee, Starscape in Baltimore.
DOA: How does the current generation of d&b compare to the era of “The Dungeonmaster’s Guide?” SUBSTANCE D sounds really different. Has song structure changed?
D: To me, maybe just because I listen to d&b a lot, the structure sounds similar. Most tunes still have 64-bar intros and a breakdown and the middle part could be 64-plus bars. Maybe some of the tunes I use in this particular mix, maybe some just have long intros, like “Timewarp” (Counterstrike VIP) is basically like one giant long intro, then a short breakdown and then it drops again, so it might be just the tracks I’ve chosen. I don’t feel like d&b has changed too, too much in the past few years. I was going to say that maybe “Midnight Express” gets into something that’s different, but if you listen to Tech Itch’s “Reborn,” an old d&b tune, it’s all like acid techno drums, which is pretty much what “Midnight Express” is. I don’t think it’s evolved that much. It sounds different a bit, but I don’t think it’s terribly different from what I was doing on “The Dungeonmaster’s Guide.”
Maybe it’s the tracks I chose. With “projectHUMAN,” “Dungeonmaster’s Guide,” SUBSTANCE D, I got people to do remixes for me and I had to rely on what I was given. When other DJ’s do a mix, they pick their favorite tunes, know what they sound like and know they work together. I take a Meat Beat Manifesto song and say, here you go, remix this, and I’m basically crossing my fingers and hoping that I’m going to get something back that I can work in with the other tracks I’m getting in. It’s really like doing it blindly. In the end you get more interesting tunes, which is what I want, but it’s definitely difficult because I don’t know what I’m going to get and have to work with what I’m given.
DOA: Would you say SUBSTANCE D sounds more like one of your live sets?
D: It depends. My CD’s and live sets are different. I pretty much don’t play dance floor tunes on my CD’s; I play heavier tunes. In my live sets I play dance floor stuff if I’m playing for that kind of crowd. If I’m playing in Eastern Europe I might play more the style of what’s on SUBSTANCE D. At my gig the weekend before in Holland, those kids like it pretty hard there so my set sounded more like what SUBSTANCE D sounds like, that style. But I’ve always played diverse d&b sets depending on where I’m playing. Definitely I’ve played shows where the sound has the same heaviness as SUBSTANCE D, but it just depends on where I am. All the tracks on SUBSTANCE D I’ve played out.
DOA: Will there be a Planet of the Drums tour this year?
D: Our ninth annual tour! We’re planning it to start in September.
DOA: Commander on DOA was asking about your opening your set at Renegade Hardware a few years ago with a “stunning rock intro” to KC’s “Extreme Steel.” He wanted to know what remix that was and if it’s ever coming out?
D: Yeah, yeah, I saw that. Actually I used a track from this metal band called the Haunted as an intro and just kind of faded in the KC tune, so there’s no special version. It’s two different songs.
DOA: Any other thoughts to share on SUBSTANCE D?
D: I had so many problems and weird setbacks pop up along the way preparing this CD, like stuff I thought was happening falling through. In the last three weeks before I had to turn it in, I felt like I was running toward the finish line of a race and my shoes were falling apart. (laughs)
It’s hard for me to have a really honest opinion about my own CD. Four years ago when I did “The Dungeonmaster’s Guide” there weren’t so many leaks of tracks on the Internet. For this I had to jump through hoops to make sure people didn’t hear these tracks outside of hearing me DJ. I wanted the dogs to see the tracklist on DOA and be like, wow, whoa, I don’t know these tunes! That’s something I really wanted. That’s not easy nowadays! I think I did a pretty good job of that but it was a pretty nerve-wracking, stressful road. I hope people like it.
DOA: What are you going to do now?
D: I took the past weekend off to be best man at my agent’s wedding and I’ve got the end of the month off before I’m going to be full on DJ’ing. After I get these Monsters of Jungle graphics knocked out I’ll be good to go. Then basically I’ll just be DJ’ing my ass off!
For more information, please visit:
http://www.djdieselboy.com
http://www.myspace.com/humanimprint
http://www.systemrecordings.com
***Click Here for Pre-release Special Offer ***
Words: Mary Ishimoto Morris
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Dogs On Acid > Comments > DIESELBOY
04-29-2008 04:18 AM
