Jack Beats - Jacking Off
British hard as nails electro/house/hip hop duo Jack Beats have been making a name for themselves pumping juice into tracks by the likes of White Williams and Does It Offend You, Yeah- 3D’s Tristan Burke catches up with the two ahead of their Australian dates.
Individually you have hugely impressive credentials – why did you decide to combine forces, and what do you each bring to the table-
It wasn’t really a conscious decision to do stuff together, we’ve both been really good friends from a long time ago, before the whole DJ championship stuff, and we just started messing about with making tunes together because we knew we’d have fun doing it. I guess we started making music both around the same time, and musically we were on the same page so when we got together it was pretty natural. We both knew how to make tunes and so it was just fun and creative. The first thing we did together was a remix for Deekline and Wizard, which was in 2005, that came out as a Beni G & Plus One remix, which was, I guess, the beginnings of what we are up to now. What do we bring to the table- Well one of us brings the milk, and the other brings the tea – we drink far too much of that in the studio, and possibly too much beer out of the studio.
There are some hugely impressive acts on Herve’s Cheap Thrills label, on which your debut EP will be released; how does it feel being on such a great roster, and what can we expect from the release-
It’s amazing really – we are so pleased to have a label like Cheap Thrills to be part of; we respect everyone on the label so much and couldn’t think of a better place for our music to be getting released. The first thing to come out is gonna be on the download label (Cheaper Thrills), which is a track with us and Dynamite MC, and is kinda our style meets Bmore, with a Boy 8-Bit remix. Then in the first part of 2009 we’ll drop our EP on Cheap Thrills, which is gonna be a real example of what sound we rep, and as it’s our first original material we’re gonna make sure it’s the best we’ve done yet! So far we’ve only written one track for it, called K Hole, which is pretty hard to describe really – we did it super quickly and both were like, ‘Damn, is anyone gonna get what we’re doing here-’ and when Herve heard it and loved it, I guess we knew we’d done something hot. We’re just really excited about getting the EP wrapped up and released now.
You’re gone on record saying Jack Beats is a sideline gig for you both – if the demand continues to rise as it has, do you ever see it overtaking your current priorities-
Well, we do both have other commitments outside of what we do with Jack Beats, but it’s definitely taking off more so this year. The good thing with us is that we have such a high work ethic that we’ll always be able to continue doing everything we currently do, as well as pushing what we do with Jack Beats as far as we want to.
What can we expect from your Chinese Laundry set – will you both be playing, and how do your styles on the decks differ-
It will just be one of us (Beni G) doing the Australia tour, but I guess we’re both from the same school of DJing so we love pushing the boundaries as much as possible. There will be lots of our tunes, all our new unreleased stuff, lots of things we are really feeling, as well as the new hot tunes from over here. I guess everything from Bmore, house, dubstep to figit and everything in between.
WHO: Jack Beats
WHAT: Play Yum Cha at Chinese Laundry
WHEN: Friday 31 October
MORE: jammusic.com.au