:: BB INTERVIEWS ::

:: HIGH EIGHT ::

The Lowdown on High Eight by Doug Vaccaro Neil Briggs has been DJing since 1995, leading to the formation of the Future Funk Squad with Glen Nicholls in 1999. Fuelled by a love of the breakbeat sound, championed at the time by the likes of Norman Cook, Les Rythmes Digitales and the Propellerheads (among others), the Future Funk Squad began making tunes as a side project to Glen‘s other interests in Drum & Bass, and House. After a run of more ‘big beat‘ type tracks, the Squad realised that there was more out there after hearing the more edgy breakbeat driven sounds by the likes of Tipper, Hybrid and Freq Nasty. The direction changed and CDR‘s were sent out of ’Sandstorm’ and ’Fatal Force’. Unfortunately none of this new material saw the light of day until ’Shakedown ’ was completed and pressed up as a white label. This was a big success stateside, and found it’s way onto the Future Soundscapes compilation put together by Draco & Exzact for Release Records in America. The track was also pushed to the maximum by Waxworks head honcho Guy Hatfield (DJ Hyper) and international DJ Lee Burridge from Tyrant. Soon after, Glen moved to London and met the likes of Dom from Stanton Warriors, the sound took a slightly more steppy approach towards what has been called ’breakbeat garage’. Neil visited regularly for production weekends and ’Pulse ’ was born, which was a big hit at nights like Beatfreaks at Gass in London where the pair played in December 2001. The record was the first release on Default Records, and was also licensed by General Midi for his ‘Genetically Modified’ mix album the same year. Glen then became involved with Champion Records, and started his own labels En:Vision and Re:Connect. After this Neil and Glen had to undergo a parting of the ways, musically speaking, due to circumstances beyond their control. It was agreed that Glen should continue using the Future Funk Squad name as it had just started gathering momentum. In 2002 Neil started his own High Eight project, learning more production skills, and adjusting to working as a solo artist. The first single to come from this was ‘Tear It Up’, released as the second single for Re:Connect. After this came ‘Open Your Eyes’, which was later used on the ‘New:BPM Volume 2’ mix album by Future Funk Squad released in early 2004. More recently Neil has completed remixes for Bless records in America, and remixes of ‘Audio Damage’ and ‘Deep Inside’, tracks taken from the Future Funk Squad artist album. Ladies and gentlemen, give a round of applause to the one known has High Eight. Glad to have you here with us Neil. Glad to be here sir! Thanks for asking me to do this. The pleasure is all mine. So what have you been up to lately? Well things have been fairly busy of late, certainly over the last two or three months. I’ve been in the studio a fair amount with Glen of Future Funk Squad. We did a few collaborative remixes together which was great fun as we’d not really worked too much together in the studio for a few years. We also went out on a ten day trip to the US, playing dates in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the latter being the Love Parade which was an awesome gig! I’ve been working on my own new material as well. Been hearing alot or positive things post-Love Parade. What did you think of it? The Love Parade was a crazy experience. And I mean that in the best possible way. The procession through San Francisco was awesome, I really didn’t expect so many people to be out in the streets watching us all go past, but everyone seemed happy and generally up for a good time. After we parked up and rolled out the lino the atmosphere was just fantastic. I’ve never really seen anything like that before where one of the main areas of a city gets taken over for a day, solely for people to have a huge party. You certainly wouldn’t ever see something like that in London. I guess it’s the equivalent of taking over Trafalgar Square, it just wouldn’t happen! All the people involved in the float were great people who took it very seriously and did amazing things on a small budget. Everyone was extremely friendly too, and it was a great opportunity to meet people that I’d chatted to online before but never met in person, especially Samira and Dave Carbon Community. The after party we played at (For The Love Of Breaks) was easily the best gig I’ve ever played. The people there were all completely up for a good time, and the DJ line-up was great. Aaron Jae & Samira did a fantastic back to back set, Myagi & Greg J did their thing with a laptop and live scratching, and Carbon Community played an awesome live set which we had to miss half of as we had to go back to the hotel because of an early flight home the next day. I really enjoy playing the back to back sets with Glen too as we know where we want to take the set. It seemed like that night we just managed to hit it right and the crowd really responded in such a positive way. I’d like to say a huge thanks to the whole crew that got us over there and looked after us so well, especially Aaron and Bam. You’ve got a good relation ship with the Future Funk Squad and have done some things together in the past. What is it like working with him? Glen and I have been friends for years so it was basically a natural progression that we’d go into producing together. We discovered breaks around the same time and were both inspired to give it a go as a duo. We come from similar backgrounds musically, both into song based music as well as club based stuff too, and I think we work well together being on a similar wavelength. Glen’s been hands-on producing for longer than I have so I do look up to him and have a lot of respect for him as a producer. I think I take a lot of inspiration from him. Rumor has it you’ve got a rather large release with some wicked remixes coming up on Re:Connect shortly. What’s the deets on it? I’m actually really excited about “Rock My World” as it’s my first proper full vocal track. I teamed up with a very talented singer and songwriter Liz Melody from Canada, who has recently worked on the Splitloop album, and we recorded it this summer. This track more than anything I’ve done in the past really shows my influences from eighties music, whilst still retaining that rougher dance floor edge. It’s been a long process to get it to where it is now, but we’re both really proud of it and are excited about the release next year. It’s certainly been doing well in clubs when I’ve played it recently, and the remixes that have been done cover all angles from rough breaks through to tech and progressive house. Splitloop have turned in a stunning mix, and the other remixes come from Janette Slack and newcomer Dogmatix. Sounds wicked! Do you have any other originals or remixes in the works you can tell us about? I’ve just finished my second remix for MBN records as well, a track by Pilch & Play called “Elektrify”. It’s very different to the original and is a lot darker and moody than I’m probably for. I’m about to start on work for Peter Paul’s label 2Codes as well, and have also completed a remix of one of Glen’s album tracks “Deep Inside”, which features vocals from Gemma Ticehurst, who supplied the vocals on my track “Thru Time”. It was awesome working with such a great original track, and such a gorgeous vocal. Thru Time is certainly one of my favorites of the year. Thanks man! So where does High Eight go to purchase his music? Purchasing music – I play off CD a lot these days and have recently started using the nsb and DJdownload stores. They’re kept really well up to date, and I’ve managed to nab a few gems off there recently. It’s especially good for the radio show I do (on nsb, fortnightly on Wednesdays – shameless plug there) cos if I’ve not got any new vinyl to play you can just quickly hop online and grab a few new tunes. When I’m after vinyl (I’m still a vinyl junkie by the way) I tend to order online, or go to stores when I’m in London. I love to go crate digging when time allows to try and find those gems that you missed out on a couple of years ago. How is your label doing in these days, and what do you have in store for 2006? This year has been a little sporadic for the label. We kick started this year with my single and followed it up with an amazing record from Etostone (one of my favourite producers this year), which seemed to almost go unnoticed. To be honest there were difficulties with that release and I don’t think it got the exposure it deserved. Things went quite slowly from there up until we signed up Refunk and Janette Slack’s singles and they’ve really breathed new life into the label. I feel it’s important to have an identity as a label, but not necessarily stick to just one style. With “Never Enough” and my forthcoming single we’re exploring a wider audience of club music by having house mixes on the releases as well. It’s not selling out because we’ve really been feeling a lot of the tech and electro house that’s going around at the moment, and the label has to grow and explore new areas if it’s going to evolve. 2006 is going to be an exciting year for me as an artist and for the label, mainly as it’ll be my single that starts off the year. We’ve got more quality releases lined up though from Merka and Refunk, and I hope to have something else out towards the end of the year as well. Refunk seems to be making some waves at the moment. Where did you guys find him? Refunk sent a CD of tunes to Glen actually and there were these two absolute standout tracks on it which made up the first single “Glade Belter/It’s Groovy”. We’ve always said that his music is the illegitimate love child of the Plump DJ’s and Chris Carter, which is a pretty damn good combination if you ask me. Both those tracks did serious damage when tested on an unsuspecting audience so it was inevitable that we’d put them out on the label. And expect more quality stuff from Refunk too – we already have his second single pretty much locked down, and he’s working on a third. Thanks so much for chatting with me and I hope the New Year brings you continued success! Thanks very much! 2006 is going to be a very interesting and exciting year. :: January 2006 :: For up to the minute news and dates for High Eight peep his website at HighEight.com.

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