Party politics with Artwork

Image: Luke Dyson Photography 

Arthur Smith, otherwise known as DJ Artwork, is a man of many musical talents. Most notably recognised for his pioneering work in creating the dubstep sound and making up one third of the UK chart regulars Magnetic Man alongside Skream and Benga.

These days he can be found doing what he does best, making people dance to anything he deems suitable. From intimate warehouse spaces to festivals abroad, and often back to back with his musical buds (check out his session with Skream below), his sound is so insanely versatile and his experience so profound that he is able to adapt to any event environment. 

His-well rounded taste and knowledge of sounds across the musical spectrum make him one of the scene's most exciting and unpredictable DJs. We spoke to him about traversing genres, the vinyl trend and his political policies ahead of his appearance at this year's Hijacked Festival.  

Arthur, festival season is upon us. What can we expect from an Artwork set at a field near us? 

It does change loads place to place depending on where I am, and it depends on the weather. If it's a nice sunny day and the set is in the day time I'm probably going to play disco or whatever. If it's dark and it's gloomy then it's more than likely going to be techno. 

You've already kicked off your season with Annie Mac's Lost & Found and Snowbombing, did you catch any standout sets while you were there? 

I saw TEED at Lost & Found and it was brilliant, it blew me away. I think every time I see him he does, but he'll occasionally catch me out with a couple of tunes where I'm just like, aw I've gotta go and ask him. 

You did a back to back with Eats Everything at Snowbombing as well didn't you?

Yeah, in a butchers! 

What was it like and how did it even come about?

It was really weird, we've been going there for years so we really know the guy in the butchers. Everyone eats from that one place so we said to him, "we wanna do a party in your butchers" half as a joke, but he agreed. So we put all the stuff behind the counter, and there was about 200 people in the shop, with a massive sound system, but yeah it was good. 

You said before about playing disco sets and I notice you play like that occasionally, do you enjoy a good throwback set then? 

Yeah I mean the thing is, I'm quite old [laughs] so I've been around music for a very long time. I've been collecting records since I was like 16/17 years old so I can just sort of dip into what I've bought in the past.

It's great because if I get something coming up where I know I can play that way, I think yeah I can go and look through the records and see what I've got. You always find a couple of bits and it's a good excuse to go back through the collection.

I'm only 20 and it's still probably my favourite stuff to hear when I'm out, the vibe is always good. 

It's great music and has so much energy and what you say is right, it's a vibe, it's happy and it's put smiles on people's faces which is just good in a club I reckon. 

A lot of artists don't seem to limit themselves in the same way anymore and play all sorts of stuff (listen to Artwork's eclectic set above). Do you feel any pressure to stick to a certain genre?  

I started out making techno music like 20 years ago but I've made house and I've made loads of different types of music. I think it's ok to do that, it's whatever you like. Whatever you're feeling you can go and try and make it so I don't think you have to stick to one genre, it'd be pretty boring. 

Why do you think there has been a change that way, do you think it's down to crowds? 

When I was growing up it was a lot more like that because you and your mates just used to go to one type of club, if you were into drum and bass you'd just go to drum and bass clubs you wouldn't just think oh let's go and check out this.

I think that the rise of the festival and also the accessibility of different music  has helped thus. The ability to just go and check out a mix; you couldn't do that before, it was a pain in the arse and you'd have to know someone that knew the good stuff and things like that. But now you can go and check it out yourself.

Festivals have had a lot to do with that because you're just wondering round and you think,"oh i'll just go and have a look at this". 

Is dubstep something you want to disassociate yourself with now? 

No, not at all. I think that it was a great time for music. I think it turned into something completely not what it was at the start and at the start it was great, it was like techno, it was synth sounds and it was fresh and it was very stripped back and it did go at the very end, "what the fuck is this?"

But I think all music does that, it sort of branches off, but there is still good stuff going on. Not at all is it something I want to disassociate with, I think it was a really good time. 

So do you think that house music runs the risk of ever going the same way?

It's been going for 30 years, there's always going to be people that come along and make a shitter version of it. Everyone's got a computer now but that's gonna happen with everything. You're always gonna have great stuff though and as long as there's people that will dance, in a room, in the dark, to some really good house music then it's always gonna be there. 

The record shop in Croyden Big Apple played a huge part in shaping your career. Vinyl sales have increased massively as of late, do you think it is just a trend?

I don't know where it's come from, I loved it when we used to sell records it was a really great time for us and when it crashed it really did change everything, the shop shut and even now I buy my music digitally because I play it digitally.

I've still got my record collection and I love records but I can't stand here and say I buy records because I rarely do, if I need something I'll buy it on record if I can't get it downloaded but you've then gotta go buy it and then rip it.

I play off a stick, I've done my days of dragging two bags of records around the world.

Give yourself a break in your old age!

Exactly! [laughs]

You're quite vocal politically on Twitter. If I could make the Artwork Party a reality, what would your policies be?

Aw man, it's going to be too long.

Go on, just give me the top three. 

Ok, I don't understand you know when somebody is minister for sports is next weeks minister for farms, you know what I mean? I don't get that. So, number one, everybody in every job will have had to have worked in that area. So minister for farms, he's gotta be a farmer for ten years at least! That would go across the board. That's number one. 

Number two, I'm gonna legalize all drugs. If you ask yourself a question, are we gonna win the war on drugs, in ten years time is there gonna be no drugs in England? The answer is no, they're still gonna be there. So then you ask yourself who do you want to be selling you those drugs, you know, criminals, drugs dealers, or regulated with tax and information and education. That's number two. 

I'll think about number 3. 

You can catch Artwork at this year's Hijacked Festival in Exeter. Head here for the full line up and tickets. 

Tickets are no longer available for this event