Sub Focus takes time out to discuss his new album and crossover into new sounds…

With the great success of Sub Focus’ self-titled debut album released last month, Lady V caught up with the D&B star and highly acclaimed producer as he crosses over into new genres to find out how he’s been celebrating his success, his current UK tour and what future hits he has in store.

Your entry into D&B as an artist has often been described as a fairytale - after your mate gave Andy C a cd of your tunes, a few days later, the founder of RAM Records himself was on the other end of your phone! I think it’s one that many Djs would love to claim as true for them - was it really as simple as that?

Yeah, that was pretty much how it happened. I had been handing out a few demo cd’s previous to that with some interest, but Andy made moves to release the tracks straight away and his professional response was what made me want to continue building a relationship with the label.

How active a role did Andy C play in the production of this album? I’ve heard that he’s not as ‘hands-on’ with his artists’ work as some other D&B label heads are?

Well he respects my artistic decisions about my music, but we did talk a lot about track selection for the record. I was trying to get a good balance of the dance floor DnB that I’ve made my name with and some of the music that I have done at different tempos over the last couple of years.

I think ‘eagerly anticipated’ is a bit of an understatement as we waited for your debut album with ridiculous excitement - something which personally lasted a good year, particularly when you started dropping tunes such as ‘Timewarp’ and ‘Follow The Light’ at last year’s Glastonbury - why did the album’s release date keep being postponed?

There’s a host of different reasons why the album was postponed. Mine and Chase and Status album were almost ready at about the same time, so to avoid clashing timings I elected to wait to add additional material to mine rather than to rush it. I think this has worked well to grow some of the tracks people didn’t know so well.

Now that Sub Focus the album is out, everyone is going crazy for it and copping a copy whether a D&B head of not, the response has been great - are you surprised at the stir it’s caused, within and even beyond the dance music industry?

I’m really happy that it seems to be reaching people outside of the DnB scene, I’ve lots of good feedback from people about it ranging from people like Annie Mac and Zane Lowe through to producers I rate like Skream and Jack beats. I even spoke to someone at Kerrang! recently which really surprised me!

With a variety of eclectic sounds heard on your album, and it not being strictly D&B, do you find that the process of producing music is easier or harder as you’re working with between several genres?

Well its definitely harder to do multiple styles from a production stand point, but its also much more refreshing creatively to do something new and different. It was important for me for the album to reflect a lot of the different music I’m into so it had to be a multi-genre LP.

One of your defining characteristics as a producer is your attention to detail and the way that you layer the sounds, which I find makes your tunes more interesting to listen to as they’re not predictable but still don’t alienate the listener - is this intentional or just become a natural feature of you work?

It’s definitely intentional - I always take a lot of time over the detail in my tracks, sometimes too much time I think! I also try to keep the basic elements fairly simple so it can work in a club context.

You’re currently on a UK album promo tour which carries on through to the end of this month - how is it going? What’s been the highlight?

It’s been really good, highlights so far from the album tour have been: the sold out launch party at Matter and having Example and Skream Mcing for me in Portsmouth! Mainly it’s been nice to see the crowd’s increasing response for the album tracks as the tour has gone on.

There’s been a lot of talk about the ‘Mistabishi incident’ - as a very talented producer who also plays out, what are you thoughts on it? Do you think the harsh reactions it’s caused from both fans and artists has been fair?

I’ve read up on it now because it’s become a bit of a talking point, but it’s hard to know what the facts really are. If he was playing a pre-mixed CD, as is rumored he did a few times, then he does deserve a bit of flak. It’s just lazy not to be able to mix competently if you are being paid money to do it. It is harsh for him though because the amount of attention it has got will probably affect his ability to make money from music, as the main income tends to be through DJing or live performance.

I heard that your next release will be ‘Could This Be Real?’ - it’s definitely a big one! Has it been hard choosing which tracks to release, particularly as every one is a ‘TUNE!’?…and each one can attract a slightly different audience?

It was definitely hard choosing which tracks went on the album as I wrote about 60 potential tracks for it. For the next single it was an easy decision though as I wanted to go for something non-dnb and ‘Could this be Real’ seemed to be getting a great response.

2009 has definitely been your year with so much hype and support for your work from critics to ravers and even attracting commercial music buyers, what have you got in store for 2010?

Well as mentioned above ‘Could this be real’ is the next single to be taken from the album and is coming out on the 18th January, backed with a dubstep remix by Joker and a DnB remix by myself. I’ve got lots of plans for the coming year including producing for other artists, developing a live set and doing more other tempo music including house and dubstep.

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