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Studio B interview: I See G...enerationNext

Author: Shell Heaven Lee
Thursday, August 17, 2006
A tight dance act, a loose collective or simply a force of nature- However you want to classify them, few will disagree that Studio B are sizzlingly hot at present.

While comprising of Lewis Coleman, Si Hulbert and Harry Brooks, Coleman is the DJ and public face of Studio B, a name which originates from the famous EMI recording studio in London where their best known track was finalised. Of anthemic proportions, I See Girls was remixed by Tom Novy and The Freemasons, paving the R&B cross-over trend that has taken the clubworld by storm.

Studio B's momentum continues with their involvement in the Cairns-conceived, double disc mix compilation titled 'GenerationNext Hard2House Vol. 1'. The concept behind GenerationNext shows a blatant disregard, if not distain towards, "musical purism and close-minded genre wars". Instead at a GenerationNext event you'll typically hear everything from breaks, to house, electro, techno, trance and hard dance. Captured well on the compilation, it builds from Studio B's funked up electro-house and break-beat on CD One to a driving blend of tech house, progressive, techno and trance delivered by Dr Willis and Scott Alert on CD Two. For the man (or woman) who LIKES everything, this package ensures you never have to rifle through your collection again to satisfy a varied dance music fix. Currently all three are completing a mammoth Australian tour in support of the compilation which includes a return to GenerationNext's birthplace, Cairns, this weekend.

The Generationext concept is an interesting one. Do you know the story of how it originated in Cairns-
Some of the guys who where behind the idea come from Cairns and I believe they were organising 'Saturday in the Park' at the time. It seemed a great idea and place to help promote the CD.

Being a UK based artist, how did you get involved in the project-
We did a tour of Oz and New Zealand in June/July 2005 and made loads of new contacts and met great people along the way who wanted to do some projects with us. When we got home we were contacted by Shaun Barker [the man behind the Generationext concept], so we sat down and had a chat about the idea, which it turned out we all liked. After putting a few ideas forward it all fell into place!

How did the Studio B collective (Lewis Coleman, Simon Hulbert and Harry Brooks) get together-
We all live close together and knew each other from all different sources. We were asked to come up with a track for a big deodorant company over here which we did. As soon as it was done, we knew it was going to be big and then it got remixed up and blew up from there really. Since then we haven't had time to look back, it's been great!

To have Freemasons and Tom Novy remixing Studio B tracks must be a real buzz. Do you collaborate with them or just hand your tracks over and let them run loose-
We just hand our tracks over to them and let them do their stuff! They're talented guys and I love what their work.

Did you have any particular idea or party vibe in mind when you went about selecting which tracks to use for the Generationext CD-
I wanted to create a different type of sound to what had already been created. So I tried to pick tracks which were a bit different; some funky and vocal ones and others, which were harder and more electro-based, which helped create a real energetic sound!

'I see Girls" was a phenomenal success with 15 weeks in the UK top 40, how did the song re-emerge from an original R&B track into an Ibiza anthem-
Basically, the deodorant company wanted a R&B sound for their advert. Our background has always been with dance music, but we were up for the challenge. We had always planned to get the track remixed up into a dance tune and obviously loved the outcome!

'I see Girls' was one of the first hybrids of R&B and electro house to emerge on the scene. How does it feel to be setting the trend in what's<
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