Hazard: The essential new album! The mindblowing new live show! The next level website! The new ‘Social Hazard’ app! The brave new sound!
Actually none of that happened… Those who know DJ Hazard know he plays things with more subtlety than that. One of drum & bass’s most diligent, hardworking DJs and producers, he doesn’t rely on big hype, he just gets on with it and delivers some serious goods.
Case in point: Time Tripping/Digital Bumble Bees, due via Playaz on June 24. Damian B caught up in Birmingham and got down to Bees-nizz…
Hazard: “There was supposed to be an EP centred around Time Tripping but we decided to release it as two tracks. In fact when I made Digital Bumble Bees I sat on it for two months before I sent it to Hype. I thought it wasn’t good enough. In fact I thought it was actually really annoying! It started to annoy me. But he liked it and we got a good response off it. It’s always the way with the tunes you don’t think are that good!”
Well let’s face it: overall it’s the sound of Hazard. People always say ‘there’s loads of good music about’ but there’s never anything in the great pool of music like your sound. And people just like it!
Hazard: “With me, it’s just randomness! It’s never planned out. You know how bands jam in their studio all together? I do the same thing… and if it sounds good then I say ‘yeah, I’ll record that.’ But I couldn’t tell you how I did it, I couldn’t remember.”
Does this imply you’re spending a lot of time in the studio?
Hazard: “No, I don’t get enough. I’m still trying to get my agent to calm down. I’m booked up every single week till New Year’s Eve. So with all that I still have to find time to get into the studio. Sometimes you don’t want to! I don’t like planning or a recording routine: if it works it works.”
If it’s a brutal routine what’s a night off for you entail?
Hazard: Just sitting in watching TV.
And when do you catch up on music?
Hazard: “Usually in the car on the way to a gig, will listen to the radio. Old 70s music inspires me. Then when I’m nearer to the club I listen to some D&B to get in the right frame of mind.”
OK. So you get in there and prepare for the set: do you have a set idea of what to play or…
Hazard: “Well I will know certain mixes of tunes from the past and you know they will work. Some people plan their sets out, I’m sure it works great for them. It could work great for me. With certain tunes… if you know what the tune is made of it changes the way you mix and you can have a lot of fun, keep yourself busy with the controls. 45 minutes in I can get bored of myself! I’d rather be out there raving!”
You say that but it must be killer when you’re up there and you have the sound through the monitors just right. There’s probably people new to it looking at you thinking ‘That must be amazing’…
Hazard: “Yeah there’s no feeling like it. But I’d rather be out there listening to someone else do it. Plus I don’t get time: I have to be out and at another gig straight after. Then you get to the next gig and I might be the last DJ. So you never get the chance to get out and have a little rave. There’s some good DJs out there.”
It’s a hectic life… where are the dates mainly?
Hazard: “It’s mainly the UK. I turn down a lot of work abroad because I get travel sick. But I do a lot of Europe because it’s not too far to travel, so I don’t get as sick.”
You’ve just answered a question I was going to ask… what are the hazards of your work. So we’ve established one: Sickness.
Hazard: “… and boredom! That’s another. I mean some gigs aren’t going to be fun but I do like to enjoy myself! I mean I don’t drink, don’t do drugs so it’s not fun when everyone else is drunk. Especially when I may look at it on some occasions and thing ‘Are you actually enjoying this?’
The 4-5am point of a night can be hit and miss: can be locked, can be just sweaty, staggering people with phones.
Hazard: “You also have to watch baggage. I try not to have a bag to check in. If you have hand luggage with CDs, headphones and clothes you’re alright. Otherwise you have to wait for your baggage when you get off the plane or, God forbid, it gets lost. That’s a nightmare!”
How about equipment in clubs that are new to you? Late in the night it must be a bit of a mystery sometimes, especially after other DJs.
Hazard: “I am generally OK. Some people may complain if there’s nowhere to stick a memory stick. Which, if you’re playing off a memory stick will be a problem. I play off CDs. Even if it’s bad equipment, you can’t say ‘I’m not playing’ as that’s just bad sportsmanship.”
With this talk of travel and trips abroad I have to come back to the ‘Time Tripping’. Is it a relatively new tune?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWuQR2PaEJo
Hazard: “No. I made it about a year and a half ago. I never finish anything. I thought ‘I’ll get around to finishing that one’. I played it and it didn’t work live. But after playing it and playing it, it started to work in the clubs: people attached themselves to it, they knew what it was. I mean it’s just a simple tune. But we started sending it out and more people started recognising it. So I didn’t have to finish it after all. Nobody notices!”
I do have to ask: do you think in ‘album’ terms? Is there a Hazard album that NEEDS to be made? Many in D&B – DJs and fans alike – would say YES.
Hazard: “It’s always been in my head for the past five to seven years. If I do an album it’s got to be the best album I can do. It may just fall together, but I don’t want to force an album.”
Another album take: you released The Radius compilation which went down very well, and every track was brilliant. That seemed to have the serendipity, the falling into place aspect?
Hazard: “Every artist on that project gave me an exclusive, and because they were all good tunes from good artists, it worked: it added up to a good album. It gave the artists, the label and me a boost. I just stood back, I felt like I hardly did anything as it all came together so well.”
You always play down your role, and I find it’s the opposite of ’empty vessels’ in your case: that you are very modest about your skills and in the case of the Radius album, your A&R awareness to an extreme level. These are the sort of things shouted about loudly by many with pompous job titles in the industry who know nothing. I mean you were really celebrated at the D&B Awards, so it can’t be the causal affair you make it out to be…
Hazard: “I wasn’t expected them. I got surprised with one award. Then there was another. And another. I’d just gotten off the stage when someone said ‘You’re going back up!’ After the third time I was really embarrassed as I’m stage shy. It was a surprise each time.”
It sounds incredible.
Hazard: “I don’t like surprises.”
Pre-order Time Tripping / Digital Bumble Bees…
Digital: http://bit.ly/14aI8EY
Vinyl: http://bit.ly/15SFOFJ