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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Subsource
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 6 October 2009
Subsource popped up on our radar about a year ago, when a copy of their debut EP, ‘Dark Is The New Light’, was pressed into our hands, which wowed us with its blend of breaks, drum n bass and punk. Since then they’ve been further building their already sizeable live following with a whole host of acclaimed festival shows this summer, and they’re finally releasing their debut album later this year, too. The first taste of that is a single called ‘The Reason’, the launch party for which is happening at The Scala in London on 9 Oct. Ahead of that, we grabbed frontman Stuart Henshall for a chat.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I first got excited about music when I was eleven and discovered the electric guitar. That teamed up nicely with a growing desire be rebellious. This combination tends to turn into heavy metal which was where I was heading until the mid to late nineties when I discovered drum n bass. The new desire to perform heavy electronic music, but not be a DJ, was what has compelled me to this day. As a band, we each have very different musical backgrounds, which has led to this place. Den’s got a classical background, Kimba’s from the hip hop scene, and others got turned on to jazz.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
We started with a singular mission statement to put together a live act that created dance floor smashers for club environments, and hadn’t thought as far as writing albums. Now we’re a couple of years down the road, we tried to create an album of duality. First and foremost, something you can jump up and down to, but also an album where you can take meaning from the lyrical content. The album is inspired by the great original music still coming out of the UK. Lyrically, the songs express anything from seeing our crowds explode to the burning anger and love we have for this planet and the people in it.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
We write in slightly unorthodox way. We’ve got a few production studios and a main studio, so one of us will come up with a concept for a song, whether it’s a dancefloor banger or a melody. Then we all have a listen and whoever’s feeling the track jumps on board. Eventually we all get involved. Like I said, it’s a strange one, but means we’ve ended up with a diverse record pulling from different members’ diverse backgrounds and influences.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
As I mentioned, we’re extremely proud to be part of the UK music pool and drink from it daily, but we all listen to massive spectrum of music from Nat King Cole to Noisia and Beethoven to Buraka Som Sistema – they tore it up at Electric Picnic a few weeks ago.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Generally the rule of the live show is louder, faster, harder. And when you’re done sweating and you’ve got your copy of our latest release, give it a listen. As socially and culturally aware people, it’s hard not be political when you believe something different to what’s being spoon fed to the masses on a daily basis. Brands are all over new music trying to help the fledgling bands ‘make it’. We’re proud to be different and push back against this a little. There are one or two things we want to get off our chest but dance first, think later.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
We’re still relatively unknown in the media despite our big live following built over a couple of years of big shows at the likes of Koko, Glastonbury and V. So getting a full album out there is a reward for our loyal fans. And we can’t wait for people alien to the Subsource sound to get on board. We hope this album gets them as pumped up as we are. We’re releasing the album on our label, Doombox Recordings, with the whole Subsource family involved in the making of this monster right from the studio to press and promotion. The album is a great representation of the last two years and where we are right now, but we’ve still got a lot more sound systems to tear up across the UK, Europe and beyond in the next two years.
MORE>> www.subsource.co.uk
