As the longest running artist on Warp records, and one of the pioneers of the downbeat sound, George Evelyn AKA Nightmares On Wax has plenty to be happy about. And while many people would be satisfied to sit back, spark up a fatty, and soak up the accolades from achievements past, George has continued to move forward along a path forged by his groundbreaking releases Smokers Delight, Carboot Soul and most recently, In A Space Outta Sound. With no sign of slowing down, Nightmares On Wax has become one of the most prolific and defining artists in a genre that he helped create.
Lifelounge caught up with George Evelyn to converse about influences, inspiration and what it’s like to be part of a laid back musical revolution.
D: Firstly, congratulations on In A Space Outta Sound, it’s a great addition to your catalogue, how happy are you with the results?GE: Very happy, yeah very happy! Thanks for the compliment. I feel pretty confident with it, I wanted to make a deeper album and I think I achieved that, so yeah I’m pretty buzzin’ about it!
D: How do you feel you have progressed as an artist over the last few years since your previous record?GE: I think there’s more maturity in there. A big part of progression is knowing that there are new avenues to explore, and if you come out of a project without being stimulated to do much more, then there’s no real progression there. I feel it more on the level of what I can do, not so much what I’ve just done.
D: There are a heap of international influences on the record; was it a conscious attempt to inject a multicultural element into the sound?GE: I think what I try to do when I record an album is make 20 fresh tracks. I then choose the best of that bunch, the ones that paint a good picture. It’s not until I do that, that I get an impression of it. I’m as intrigued as anybody else to hear what’s going to be there at the end. I produce most of my albums on vibe really. You start jamming and messing about and the next thing you know you’ve got into this Latino sort of thing, and that track kind of appears. It’s not really premeditated in such a way that I try to achieve some eastern feel on there, or some reggae feel on there, it just sort of turned out like that. So subconsciously I think its there, I’m a well travelled guy, so I pick up all kinds of influences.
D: Your sound transcends musical boundaries, how directly influenced have you been by your environment in Leeds and the musical climate there?GE: It does play a massive part, but I think I’ve learnt through time that it’s more about being self indulgent really, and working on whatever vibe you create in your own studio. I’ve got my studio in my house, and if I’m working on my own I’ll invite musicians along. I try and concentrate everything within the studio. That’s why my music doesn’t attach itself to any trends or themes or anything where the clock’s ticking. I think you know as well as I do that trends are only around for a certain amount of time, and I think that I’ve been doing music long enough to try to mature and nurture what I’ve got.
D: You also have a love of hip-hop and soul, was there a point where you decided this was the direction you wanted to head towards, and have any other genres played a part in getting you to the point you are at creatively?GE: I guess I wanted to make a deeper album, I wanted to go back to the essence of my upbringing in music, which is first and foremost reggae, soul and then hip-hop. So I think they’re going to be the foundations of what is behind my music. I was brought up around a lot of reggae sound systems when I was a kid, and then when I got into hip-hop I could feel that blowing my world, that was an explosion of my expression because obviously with that you’ve got the break dancing and the DJing and everything that went with it, like being able to experiment with other peoples records. So those are the main elements for me to create music and that kind of got me here today.
D: So do you think it’s something that brewed within you, and then when you came into contact with those genres, they gave you an avenue for expression that you didn’t have before?GE: Well hip-hop definitely did that. I mean reggae sound systems were the things that started it, experimenting with sounds through speaker boxes, people emceeing using microphones, stoking up the party or whatever, so that was a different form of expression, and something else that was special. With hip-hop, it was like it had these rebellious undertones, it broke all the rules. It didn’t matter if you could read music, you could just make music through expression alone. I think you’d find a lot of producers today, even if they were never into hip-hop, have a very hip-hop approach, whether it’s putting beats together or whatever. So I think it’s got a lot to answer for on that level.
D: Who are some of the artists and what are some of the styles of music you admire or have been influenced by over the years? GE: Well a big influence on me has been Quincy Jones as a producer, just because he’s been through so many genres of music, and his track record speaks for itself in a sense. And coming up to more modern times, my mentors as beat producers were DJ Mark The 45 King and Marley Marl. Back in the early 80s those were the ones I was studying for beats. Into the 90s it’s got to be DJ Premiere.
D: You have been signed to Warp records for years now, in fact I heard that you are one of the longest running artists on the label, is that right? GE: (Laughs) Yeah, I am the longest running artist on the label, I was actually the second signing for the label back in 1989!
D: Warp is a label that has become synonymous with experimental electronica thanks to the likes of Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and others, have you ever been tempted to delve into that area musically?GE: No not really, I’ve kind of done what I’ve done really. The label gets a lot of attention through different artists, and I had to go through a stage of people asking ‘what’s it like being on a techno label?’ For this press tour I’ve had a lot of people going ‘Oh well Warp have put out a lot of guitar bands over the last year, what do you feel about that?’ I think Warp have tried to break the chain of just being this kind of label or that kind of label, and just put out good music. I respect them for that because they don’t want to be shackled to any genre. They want to get the label to an international level putting out all types of music.
D: You have been hailed as a pioneer of the downbeat and trip-hop sound with your releases Smokers Delight and Carboot Soul, was it a surreal experience to watch the movement explode in the way it did, especially after the releases that you put out?GE: Yeah, I find that pretty interesting, because when there’s something that’s a little bit different, there’s always somebody that wants to categorise it, and I find that really amusing. I copped it straight away, and I was like ‘You know what, I’m not going to get involved in any of this’, because I could see where it was going. That’s when you start seeing all these compilation albums coming out going ‘This is trip-hop, this is that’. So I began to think, well I’m just going to retreat from this and just do my thing, and that’s all that I’ve ever done. I’m not looking for compliments or anything, but I’ve just seen it happen in music so many times. People want to put things in their place, and they get ripped to bits and diluted by these compilation albums.
D: Do you know of any artists that have openly named you as an influence?GE: I was given a great compliment by James Lavelle of Mo Wax. He reckons the reason why he started the Mo Wax label was because of Nightmares On Wax. When he first heard the ‘Nights Interlude’ on the A Word Of Science album, he saw scope for that kind of music you know.
D: So have you ever done collaborations with any Mo Wax artists or James Lavelle himself?GE: We did produce an exclusive track on the Headz album and I did a remix for him on the Le Funk Mob EP that came out, there’s a track called ‘Ravers Suck Our Sound’.
D: Has there ever been an offer made to you to jump ship from Warp to the Mo Wax stable?GE: Not really. There have been offers from other labels and stuff, but to me it’s all about going with people who believe in what you’re doing instead of packaging you as this or that, which is what most major labels do. I’m pretty happy where I am.
D: What do you think prompted Warp founders Steve Beckett and the late Rob Mitchell to sign you to their label? GE: Well we were part of an underground movement, because in North England an artist A Guy Called Gerald had a track out called ‘Voodoo Ray’, and then we came about. We had an underground EP out at the time on our own label and we were also DJs organising our own underground warehouse parties. There was a lot of talk about our tunes at these illegal parties, so it was an uprising out of that. I was travelling around distributing records to record shops, and bumped into Steve Beckett. He told me that they were just about to put a track out and were thinking about setting up a label, and asked if I would be interested in remixing a track. He rang me about three months later, and the rest is history. It was like we were all moving in the same direction at the same time.
D: Could you have predicted that things would have become as massive as they have today?GE: Not at all. Our first priority was to get our tracks played in a club not selling records. Getting them played at the club was the most important thing. Being asked to make an album was another thing that wasn’t ever something I strived for. Obviously after that your avenues open up and your visions open up. I mean I’ve always wanted to make music, it’s probably been there since I was nine years old, so I guess it was like the paths were laid out and it was just whether or not I followed them.
D: Outside of music, where else do take influences from? GE: For me it’s definitely my family and my close friends. I like to hang out with them. I really like to travel a lot as well. Going to places like Cuba, Thailand and India, that shit just inspires me. Those sorts of places just give me a different thought process, so I like to be cultured in any way I can.
D: When do you think you’ll tour Australia next? Is it on the cards?GE: It’ll probably be on the back end of the year, there’s talk of us coming out and doing Tokyo, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, definitely towards the end of the year. I’m looking forward to seeing some sunshine!
D: Finally, this is the Tough edition of Lifelounge magazine, what is the toughest thing you have ever done or encountered?GE: Hmmm … I think the toughest thing I ever encountered was when I caught pneumonia in India; I was in hospital for five days. I think I’d have to put that down as the toughest thing I ever experienced, because it was life or death material. That was definitely one of my toughest challenges but it also changed my life at the same time.
D: Thanks George.GE: Cheers Mate.
In A Space Outta Sound is out now through Inertia.