I got to sit down with Antonio from Dub Elements to talk about his new EP, his event, and his creative process.
Your Invasion EP was released on the 4th on EatBrain. Can you tell me about your creative process approaching this EP and what you strived to achieve?
We’ve worked on this EP for months, it was a long process but ‘POW’ & ‘Shots Fired’ (our latest tracks on Eatbrain) working really good so Jade and ourselves wanted this EP would be match up to those tracks. This last year we changed a lot of tracks to the point of finding 5 tracks what deff fit for this EP, later we were also working a lot in the sound of those tracks but finally we’re really happy and I think the result is a good package! 🙂
You mentioned how excited you are for your upcoming Open Air Festival in Spain next September. The massive lineup speaks for itself– What can you tell me about your involvement in the event? What are your goals when you put an event together?
Our involvement in this event is total! We plan every details … line up, venue, production, etc etc. For this reason we’re super excited with it, It’s our little baby! We’ve been promoting gigs and d’n’b culture in Spain for a decade but we really wanted to do something that we really felt our own, completely in our way, from the line-up to production tasks or the location. That was the initial idea with our first event alongside friends and artists we wanted close to us. May 2016 was the first edition and we invited three labels that have been important for us: Prspct, Eatbrain and Viper. So, first edition with three different stages each one of them hosted by one of these labels. An amazing experience with artists such as Matrix & Futurebound, The Prototypes, State of Mind, Panacea, Countertrike… and around 1000 people! A total success not only in the numbers but also for the sensation of freedom in doing things our own way. We quickly decided that was just the first stone… Next edition will be held in September, two days, open air, with amazing artists such as Noisia, BSE, The Prototypes, Macky Gee, Emperor, Alix Perez, T & Sugah… couldn’t be happier!
Your first release can either says a lot about an artist’s path, or nothing at all. Looking back, how important was that first release to your career? Do you wish you could’ve started somewhere different? What advice do you have for producers in approaching their first release?
Well, our first release wasn’t too much relevant, maybe we could call like first important release when we sign on the Dutch label ‘Prspct Recording’ our first EP called ‘Bass Up To The Top’, that moment was the beginning of our career. We’ve really fond memories from back in the day… a lot of big Prspct events and experiences around Europe… we’re really happy to start our career together with the Prspct family, it was a nice experience. I would say to the new producers approaching for their first release that they make the music that they feel in that moment, don’t be only influenced by the latest fads and when you feel is the moment to launch your music, go for it! To be patient but works hard … work, work and more work is the key 😉
You’ve produced an incredible variety of music throughout your career–inside and outside the drum and bass genre– What are your feelings on producing music outside of your predominant genre? Assuming the music is coming from a genuine place, does it hurt you or help you as an drum and bass artist?
We both got interest about in because the breaks, the breakbeat scene, was huge back in the days in the south of Spain. Most of the guys here used to listen to breaks, so it was the first style we produced. In my opinion, dnb is just fastest breaks, so we totally dig it when we heard it for the first time around 1998. We always reflect my mood and feelings in my music, life goes on and your tastes change, so years go by and we don’t feel the same motivation with a kind of sound while others were making our hearts pump. For a few years we also tried dubstep and electro, but there was a time when D&B (always inside us) was again giving us very good emotions, so we concentrated back on it and personally I think that work other kind of genres help to keep an open mind.
You’ve also witnessed a lot of changes in the music and the industry over the years– Do you have any feelings on some of the fads of the past 10 years?Â
Maybe the biggest fad we recently saw … it could be the Dubstep, I don’t want to say that Dubstep is dead right now but in our opinion and due to our experience cuz we were involved in that scene a couple years, it had an awesome boom, in the beggining was something new and fresh with a lot of energy and positive vibe but in a short time every track sounds in the same way, a lot of tracks sounding exactly like Skrillex xD and then it had a huge descent. However other styles like D&B were always working as well, a years stronger than other but always keeping the level.
If you had to pick one single source of creative fuel for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Without a doubt the music when we’re talking about the day to day and the same life when we’re talking about music hehehe 🙂
Storytime! Tell us about the best or craziest rave you’ve been to.
Maybe the time we played on a truck at the Dance Parade in Rotterdam and around 100.000 people on the street or Ibiza, it’s the craziest place in the world. Summer of 2014 in Privilege was magic! One of those nights, in what is to be said one of the biggest clubs in the world, we shared the bill with Dirtyphonics, Borgore and Kill the Noise; in the VIP were Skrillex and Steve Aoki, who somehow ended djing alongside the rest of us. A legendary b2b set!!!
Listen to “Invasion”
