I: Is it fair to say that Vibronics have been doing well?

S: Vibronics has been quite successful in the last few years in the dub scene, which is very small and there is very little money in it. We do get to travel to many great places and even though it sounds glamorous, and occasionally we do get lucky, generally its a lot of hard work, very underground and under funded. However, the main reasons for all this success have been the people I’ve been lucky to work with. Originally, me and Richi Rootz hooked up to form Scoops Records and we're still working together now 10-15 years down the line. Also I've been working closely with Parvez aka The Dub Factory, Madu Messenger, Jah Marnyah and Echo Ranks. More recently you’ve also come onto the scene with the CounterAction thing and hooked up with Richi Rootz so we're contributing more and more into UK dub and that’s why things have been good. It's because there is a great team of people behind it. I am very lucky to work with everyone, and your self included, a great percussionist, performer and producer, and I couldn't do a lot of that if I was on my own, there would be very little going on. I've been in a lucky position because there is a lot of untapped talent in Leicester and I’ve met with a lot of people that have all contributed positively to the Vibronics thing and that’s because of this city. It gives us a uniqueness since a lot of the other dub music produced comes primarily from London and you see the same faces and names appearing whereas we managed to come with new artists that are now internationally known and respected.

I: Leicester in the dub scene is famous then! Especially in the French and Italian scenes?

S: Yeah definitely! People know about Leicester. We're kind of creating our own musical history.

I: Are all of the musicians you work and tour with from Leicester then?

S: A lot of the guys I work with are based in Leicester. I do love working internationally, and I’ve been lucky to work with some of the old reggae legends like Ranking Joe and Earl Sixteen and people like that, but I love working with artists in Leicester and going out there and playing stuff just as good as anyone’s dub music. Because when you live in places like Leicester its very easy to think that music is something that happens elsewhere, but there is enough talent to be able to take out and say look, we've got it going on!

I: Lets start at the beginning. Who inspired you, what gave you the idea to do this?

S: It all begun in Leicester,
I guess really, it all began with me discovering sound systems, and discovering Aba Shanti I who has been playing in Leicester regularly for years now.
It was a time when I was listening to lots of different kinds of music but nothing was grabbing me. While I had been listening to reggae and getting into dub by people like Sly&Robbie and Scientist it was more from a sort of 'armchair', chill-out, point of view. And then, when I struggled up to Vicky park carnival time and Aba was playing, I remember it really strongly, I was standing there and it was really loud, and on reggae sound systems you can control the bass, the mids and the treble separately, so at that point he had the bass turned off and I was thinking "this is really loud but I am sure that this dub stuff is all about bass, this is why I like listening to it at home" (laughs) but then he dropped the bass and the whole park started shaking! (More laughs) I had never heard bass like that before, it was really amazing and it left an impression with me. It's really incredible playing music with such force and everyone's rocking out on it! Also though, the tunes where so dark, all in dark minor keys and dark baselines, and I’ve always liked dark music like rock and punk. I suddenly just thought, "this is the way to do it, and this is the way to play music!" Having come from a live music background, I saw that this guy wasn't just playing records, he was really delivering them. So that really influenced me and I started going to sessions regularly. I've always been a musician and back then I used to jam with friends often so when I got into the sound system thing by listening to the tunes I realised that not all dub music is made in Jamaica by people like Sly&Robbie, 'Flabba' Holt, 'Style' Scott and live musicians in the studio like I thought. It took me a while but I realised that the tunes I was hearing were modern and those were drum machines! I actually owned a drum machine and a little keyboard so with a couple of friends we started jamming with bass guitars, drum machines and keyboards and it all took off from there.

I: You've already mentioned a few influences, but is there anyone in the UK that gave you a sort of direction or that influenced you?

S: Discovering Aba in the beginning really was majorly influential. I had never really been to a Rasta sound system session and found the whole thing really uplifting and interesting. There was so much really wicked music being played. I had been into the Scientist who still to this day is my favourite dub from before, its just amazing stuff, but then I discovered the British dub, Alpha&Omega, Dub Judah and Disciples. They are the three main ones really, and still to this day I can hear their influence on the music that I make. If you're not into the dub scene I suppose they are obscure underground artists, but to the people within the scene they are the legends definitely.

I: We've gone through some of your musical influences, I wonder though since FD2D is a graphics-loving magazine, whether you’d like to talk to us a bit about your logo and record label graphics?

S: It’s quite funny but as a visual artist personally I haven't got a clue! When I started in the early 90's I needed a logo. So this friend of mine was going out with this guy I knew as Robin. He was a designer and graffiti artist, a drinker and party-er, and an amazing visual artist with amazing paintings so I asked him whether he could make us a logo. He designed for us this beautiful painting which funnily enough looked kind of like what I looked like at the time. The face looked like mine, he had long locks like I had then and basically it was this Rasta dreadlocks character with a red gold and green background. When I saw it I thought "that’s absolutely amazing, and how lucky am I to get this!" It turns out that this artist moves on and becomes Banksy the now world famous artist, but this was years ago before he was known. It was one of those being-in-the-right-place-in-the-right-time moments. I still use it now and people still talk about it all the time and love it.
For Scoops our label I’ve been lucky enough to work with Madu who is a great singer and a brilliant graphic designer living in Leicester. He came up with the design for the Scoops Records Logo. So again, I’ve been lucky enough to work with some really great people.

I: You have been traveling and repping Leicester a great deal recently, would you like to 'name-drop' a few countries? Are there any favourites?

S: Well it’s the end of year and I’ve been going through a few stats about what we have done this year and where we've been. I've been quite geeky and got into twittering and have been presenting information that I find interesting, other people probably don't, but I’ve been 'broadcasting' it out! I think this year it's 12 countries and 3 continents. And its great, especially the 3 continents bit because it’s the first time we've broken out of Europe. This year Madu and me were lucky enough to go to China. We did a show in Shanghai, and we're officially the first UK dub act to do a show there. We had a great time in Shanghai at the 'Shelter Club’, really nice people there.

I: Wicked! So there is an actual dub scene in China?

S: People love dub all over the world, and certain countries like France where we play all the time have big scenes. Then we get to go to China and the scene is small but people love it and I am sure people love it in Azerbaijan, New Zealand, Somalia, and in Slovenia. In fact any other country you can possibly name would have some people really loving dub in it. We also went to Mexico for 3 or 4 shows. Again that was an amazing honour, to go so far and find ourselves in Mexico City on the motorway on the way to Guadalajara! We were thinking, "We're going to do a gig, this is mad!” I mean just a few yeas ago I was jamming with my mates on Evington Road and then 10 years later we're on the plane to China! Mainly we play in Europe though, the intercontinental stuff is rare and special!

I: Which brings us to my next question which is: Are there any places that you still haven't been able to play dub at that you wish would book you? Just put it out there man!

S: I want to go Japan! Fascinated! It would be interesting to go to America as well, but there is no dub scene. In Japan there is a dub scene, and I am just generally fascinated with traveling in Asia!

I: So there is more to Japan culturally for you, it's not just about the music?

S: Yeah, that’s it. I have traveled in Asia a lot, but not so much the developed side, I’ve been to India and South-East Asia. I would be fascinated to see what the super-modern developed Asia is like. Its just generally very interesting being somewhere where there is a completely different culture. And like I’ve said before, I kind of 'get off' on the idea that it all started by making these rubbishy little tunes with this rubbish equipment years ago, and now we get to go to these places. And I don't want too much money, I don't want to big it up to much into a celebrity thing, its just nice when people say come to my country and play some of your music for me because I think people here will like it. And you end up having fans in these different countries.

I: Do you reckon that is something that comes with this particular music? Remaining humble, i mean, and not giving in to the whole 'stardom' business?

S: In terms of the music message spread, I am a white guy form England, and I got into this reggae thing. It’s got a very universal message about the struggle of people, and a questioning of the political system and there are people everywhere that could relate to that! To dub and reggae these are main themes that people will always be interested in.

I: Obviously its best we don't name promoters and venues, but are there any especially mad gigs in any of those places worth mentioning?

S: There have been all sorts of stage invasions in the past! Sometimes we play to really old crowds and sometimes to really young. There have been a couple of times where we have played to very young audiences in France and by the end of the night we had something like 40 teenagers jumping up and down on the stage!
Another good one was playing in the heart of the ghetto in Mexico city, in one of the areas that we were told we couldn't go in without some sort of escort. We arrive at the venue only to find a massive 10-foot poster of me and Madu outside the venue! Its the most bizarre thing seeing this massive poster of ourselves in the ghetto in Mexico City! I mean again, how did all this happen, totally random!

I: What does the future hold in terms of live shows and Scoops Records?

S: I am always trying to come up with new ideas and projects. We've been releasing records for a few years now and I am always trying to think of new ways of doing it. When you're releasing records you're essentially selling records to record buyers, it sounds overly simplified but most people don't buy records, record buyers buy records and that is a small market.

I: When you say records, to clarify, you mean..?

S: Vinyl records! Vinyl singles and some albums, but predominantly singles. In reggae people want something new all the time! So what I’ve decided to do next year is to release 12 7-Inch vinyl singles. One 7 every month presented as a collector's series where they are numbered, 1 of 12, 2 of 12 etc. and announced month by month. Just a way of keeping the profile up by hammering down people's throats every month with a new release, but also to give the collectors the excitement of following the new releases each month.

I: So those wont be available as a download at the same time?

S: At the end of the year they will be available as an MP3 download album but also probably as a CD album as well because all the vinyl releases will be limited edition.

Live show wise, I shall continue to work with the people I am working with but also we're looking into the Vibronics live dub studio project. It’s about incorporating more live elements to the shows like live drums and keyboards and me doing the live mix alongside the singers. Similar show but more like a dub studio live, and especially if we're playing bigger festivals stages and big venues there's more stuff going on stage.

I: More stuff to go wrong as well, which makes it more exciting I guess! (Laughs)

S: Yep! More stuff to go wrong, more cables, more stuff to carry around, more stuff to argue about at Stansted airport and more stuff to break, lose and get stolen! (More laughs)

I: Okay, veering off from the strictly Vibronics and Scoops section, this magazine is generally all about Leicester, so it would be interesting to talk about local stuff as well. But on a more personal level is dub and reggae the only music on say your ipod? Any all time musical favourites you'd like to mention.

S: I listen to a huge diverse selection of music. I am really interested in singers/songwriters and anybody from the more contemporary American stuff like Bonnie Prince Billy or Bon Iver, as well as the classic stuff like Neil Young and even stuff like Nick Drake, British folk, and also Nick Cave. I'm really interested in people who write their own music and tread their own path, the real individuals.
The biggest influence for me as a youngster was the punk and post-punk scene, and the whole 'do-it-yourself' culture. Putting your own gigs for yourself, getting your own band together, doing your own stuff and doing independent music. A lot of the political stuff I was into came from Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys; he was my hero when I was 14. At one point he even run for governor of California and made suggestions like all businessmen should always dress in clown suits! He was a clever guy and a lot of his ideas stuck with me since I was a teenager. So yes, there are a lot of pre-reggae influences.

I: Was punk the way into reggae?

S: Punk was when I was a lot younger, when I was 14-15 years old. For me the getting into reggae happened at the sort of crossover phase that happened in the early ‘90s between a few elements like the 'crusty' scene which was Ozric Tentacles, the space rock thing and and stuff like that. Zion Train were doing the dance end of things and free parties. Meanwhile reggae had the DIY culture, building your own sound systems, releasing your own records and producing your own tunes and at that time studio equipment became a lot more affordable and you could sequence stuff rather than having a band. There was a lot going on in those days in the early 90's, and different scenes feeding into each other. I was more of a hippy-stoner-punk crusty sort of type and I fell in love with the bass and got into the dub and roots thing through that.

I: I know these days you are a busy man, and the little free time that you get you like spending at home with a good glass of wine. Still are there any venues or bands locally that you would like to mention?

S: On a personal note it's good to see the Charlotte open again as a venue, even if it is briefly! I have loads of fond memories of going to see bands there 20 years ago and then promoting and playing there later on. The Charlotte is a good place for Leicester.
In terms of the dub scene though in Leicester there have been some great artists, bands and sound systems throughout the years but its never had any big names that came up through the roots scene. That is a bit of a crime really because there is so much talent in this city. I guess that’s what I am trying to do, fly the flag for Leicester and its great artists.

I-mitri
Leicester 12/2009
Many thanks to Steve Vibronics!

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