James Zabiela ~ Shaggy Toyboy Who Loves Boy’s Toys
Who wants a cool enough dad, splitting your eardrums with rave music from the age of 12?
Who wants to be the posterboy behind Pioneer’s latest boy-gadget, CDJ 2000s (that have created considerable controversy but let’s save that for another time)? Who wants to be a bedroom DJ fiddling with knobs for bleeps & loops, then skyrocketing into DJ superstardom? Well, guest writer, Zul Andra from Kiss My Culture, tries to contain his awe with this one.
You were born and raised in Southampton and your father used to work in a local record shop and would do takeaways on early house and techno tunes.
That was how I was introduced to House music, yeah. I used to work in his record shop & that was the main reason really, otherwise I would have gone onto a completely different path because when I was in school I was more into Rock and Grunge; you know, more indie stuff.
Not really into dance music, in fact I didn’t like it at all, until I worked in the shop. My dad would come home and he will be like playing this rave music really loud and I was only 12. He will be playing this noisy, loud stuff, making my wrestling toy figurines fall off the shelves and I didn’t like it for that reason (laughs). But it all started to make sense as I grew older and worked in the shop.
In 2001, you won Muzik Magazine’s “Best Bedroom Bedlam DJ”. Looking back, could that be considered as one of the definitive moment of your DJing career and why?
Yeah that and also the fact that the same tape got into the hands of Sasha. Lee Burridge gave Sasha the tape and it was like a double boost at the same time. So I went from nowhere to somewhere pretty fast.
Did you invite friends and families into your bedroom when you first started out? Did you charge cover? What was the crowd capacity of your room? And have your neighbors threatened you with a brick to the window for the noise?
Yeah, I do invite my friends over. Well sometimes the neighbor complains when I lived with my mom and dad and then sometimes my mom and dad complain (laughs). It’s funny actually because I used to complain about my dad and his loud music and when I got back, it was the other way around.
You, the mad EastEnder fanboy.
(Laughs) I missed one tonight! (Laughs) You know what, one of the things about it is that it’s not necessarily an amazing program or anything like that. It is a bit of home when I’m travelling. So when I’m in the hotel and got my laptop in front of me, I can pretend that I am at home. It helps conquer the homesickness.
Your style of DJing has always been unique, incorporating Breakbeat and Tech House with deconstructive elements of effects to create a whole new live soundscape.
I think it was from playing in bedroom and also being lucky to play out so much. I started to take risks in the DJ booth and made mental notes of what works and what doesn’t. I guess because I play quite a different selection of genres and types of music and put them all in one set; it is really useful to know tricks on how to get from one place to another without it sounding too unnatural. So having a good knowledge of the equipments really helps.
Talking about equipments, you are sort of a spokesman for the Pioneer CDJ2000 aren’t you? How will this version of the CDJ revolutionize the industry?
I don’t know if it will revolutionize anything but it certainly means that DJs in booths have more options now. You can plug your laptop straight into it; you can put CDs in it as you would for a CDJ1000 but with this one…this is what I got for my record box for tonight; though I’ve got Ableton with me which I use as an additional tool. [Takes out a SD card from his pocket] Here you go, that’s it, 32 GB and that’s like 10 boxes of records.
It’s pretty; you can put in so much music in a drive that size. You can instantly find the track you want; search by genres or by artists on the player and then you got your quantize looping as well. So you cue in the middle of the mix and you can just loop one and it stays in time. I like them because it is one foot in the old and one foot in the new. There’s an element of Traktor but without that whole, push the button and all four tracks plays perfectly, I mean anyone can do that. So for me it is still about beat-matching but also been given the option to do the cool shit.
“Life” was released on 19 April this year on Renaissance: The Master Series. Your new album is one singular mix rather than two separate mixes.
Yes because I knew it will go on the DVD in one file and it’s also on two separate CDs. I did it as one whole mix because I wasn’t restricted to two discs so it was nice to try something new. But also I always felt in the past that every time I released a CD I always end up liking one and hating the other. So I was just going to make one this time and before “Life” I kinda felt that the second disc didn’t compliment the first. I spent so much time on the first disc and the second one got really rushed. So with this I wanted it to make it a smooth mix.
Lastly, anything to add for you fans in Singapore?
Well thanks for coming to see me time and again. Really appreciate it!
