Jack Beats Interview: "It sounds like a group of angry trolls hoovering up cats"

Niall Dailly’s youth was spent in Edinburgh. In his teens, the school-yard was to be one of the most influential places in his life.

During a time when the mix-tape was King, Dailly and his friends learnt about music, predominantly hip hop, from the older kids. It was a peer-to-peer network in an offline world.

Today the London-based producer and other half of British house masters Jack Beats doesn’t know if he’d be where he was today if it weren’t for his time spent in Edinburgh. Known for their sonically twisted take on music where a familiar track is re-configured, the last thing Jack Beats is is predictable. As a collective they play most of their own productions while sourcing the rest from industry peers, though Dailly assures you that Jack Beats is no gimmick; ‘we’re not sourcing brand new music for the sake of it’. There is indeed method behind the madness. Like a controlled whimsy, everything Jack Beats create is calculated and hopefully you’ll always assume otherwise.

Jasmine Phull speaks to Niall Dailly about Jack Beats’ impending debut and empathises as he says his last goodbyes to East London.

You released the EP last year and the debut LP will be out this year. How’s that going?
We’re pretty much in the final stages now. We’re just finishing the vocal side of things before mixing down our tracks. We’ve got the first single from the album just mastered and that will come out at the end of March. We’ll probably drop the second single by Summer and realistically the album probably won’t drop ‘til then either. We don’t really have a release date.

In terms of sound, is the LP much of a divergence from EP or is it of a similar vein?
I think the EP is a fairly good representation of the LP. There’s tracks like ‘Out of Body’, which is a chilled-out one for the club, and then there’s the more weird, experimental stuff like on the A-side of the EP. There’s quite a lot of out-there hybrid house music, dub-step and electronica. We’re trying not to do the same thing every time just because people are starting to like it.

Where are you and Ben based?
We’re based in East London; the studio is in my house, but Ben actually lives in West London. We are about to relocate the studio to West London so we’ll be officially West London based in a couple of months.

And what was the idea behind moving Jack Beats to West London?
To be honest everybody we work with, management and stuff, lives in West London and my girlfriend lives there too. Guess it would make life a lot easier if I moved there.

Would you say there are a lot more studio spaces in West London?
Yea there actually is. That’s partly the reason as well. There are quite a lot of decent studio spaces and we’ll be able to get one quite easily. I’m a bit of an East London kid though, I’ve been here for 10 years; I’m 30 now and I’ve spent my 20s in East London. Feel like I’m married to the place. I live in Dalston and I’ve seen it change a lot. It’s with a bit of a heavy heart that I’m moving to be honest.

You’re also part of Scratch Perverts. Do you find it hard juggling your time?
I’m not doing live shows at this time because I’m concentrating on doing the Jack Beats stuff.

What does the production process of the album look like? Are you and Ben together most of the time?
In the beginning we were writing ideas independently and then turning them into tracks in the studio. Last year when Ben was on the road doing the gig side of things, because I was doing stuff with Scratch Perverts, I was more in the studio finishing the mix downs for the tracks. I like engineering and music so there was a bit of split roles going on. But this year we’re in the studio and on the road together. Though we are trying to figure out how to use studio time efficiently; we’ve got a lot of good opportunities coming our way so we’re trying to delegate roles to each other so we can more done. There are definitely advantages to having two people in the studio and we’re learning if we play it right we can really use those advantages.

You grew up in Scotland. Is it a place that fosters music? What was the scene like while you were growing up there?
I was really lucky actually, when I was really young I was a skater and used to hang out with a friend, who was one of the better skaters, and all his older friends. A lot of those guys were listening to hip hop and I was 13 and didn’t know a great deal about it. So these mix tapes began circulating our school and that kind of fostered this whole teenage existence of listening to music that people 10 years older than us were listening to. So it was a great place in that respect. This might sound weird but I don’t know if I’d be where I was today if I hadn’t networked through the Edinburgh club scene and stuff. I don’t know if it would be good place for everyone; I think the club scene is quite quiet up there now.

When DJing how do you source your tracks? Does Beatport play a big part in the process?
When we DJ we play a lot of our own music and then slot our friends’ music in between that. A lot of the set is made up of unreleased music and then maybe in the last 20 minutes we involve songs that are more well known. We’re not trying to be ‘underground’ but we do hope that when you come to a Jack Beats gig you’ll hear music that other people will play a couple of months later. It’s like that old school producer boys’ club where everyone trades music and keeps them getting gigs basically. It’s the old drum and bass mentality I guess. We kinda started up when the blog thing was getting big and a lot of music was actually getting released through blogs rather than anywhere else. I do check out the blogs but because a lot of our friends have now become producers for other artists we get a lot of our stuff that way. At the end of the day it should be fun so we’re not just sourcing brand new music for the sake of it.

Can you come up with a metaphor that describes how you picture your music makes a listener feel?
One of my friends had a personal Myspace page so he did our page and he came up with, I guess, his own metaphor. In his own words: it sounds like a group of angry trolls hoovering up cats. I don’t think it’s a compliment. We try to make music that is underpinned with music that people are familiar with. What’s going on on top of the music is another story.

What was the first album you bought?
Bad by Michael Jackson.

What should the crowd expect from your gigs?
It’s hopefully gonna be a taste of what the album will be.

Wow. So you’ll be previewing the album?
Yea. We’re road-testing about two thirds of the album. Some of the instrumentals are going to become vocal tracks. It’s still kind of the old school ‘playing stuff and seeing how people react to it’ and then tweaking it accordingly. So yea people are getting a sneak preview without even realising, but some of the stuff I can imagine they may never hear again. (Laughs).

Interview by: Jasmine Phull
Twitter.com/j_fool

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