Who hasn't heard of Roni Size? You'd face ridicule in most musical circles If you didn't pay homage to the man who defined an era of music and a whole new sound in drum & bass. Roni Size is passionately against the idea of pigeonholing his music into any particular time period, and is certainly not a man with a huge ego.
Tell him that his 1997 album New Forms was a groundbreaklng piece of work and he'll laugh and try and prove you wrong. To Roni, it's a work in progress - like his approach to album creation in general. The fact that New Forms bagged a Mercury Music Prize will make little difference to your argument in Roni's eyes, he feels he's still learning and, more importantly, still loving his work.
We caught up with the Bristolian to talk about the processes involved during the production of his album, Return to V, and find out just what it takes to write and produce an album worthy of his name.
HT&E: Talk us through the creative process you go through at the beginning of a new album.
RS: For me it works backwards. When I did New Forms, the first track on the album was the last track I did. I actually mastered a track called Railing from CD because I lost the DAT of it. It was the last thing I did, getting Dynamite in the studio to put a lyric on it. I started backwards, but most beginnings are never your beginnings - you always slot your beginning to the middle. On this album, tracks like Out of Breath have been floating about for a long time and they're the last tracks on the playlist, so how does that work?
HT&E: So it's more down to feel and what's right for the album at that point?
RS: Yeah, I'm lucky because I've always been able to translate what I've done on stage and bring it to the studio and vice versa. With Return to V, I wanted people to relate to the stage and the album as the same thing, so when they hear the energy on the album they feel the energy on the stage. With New Forms, it was more "lets just see what happens". Return to V was my fifth album. I'm an old dog now, man.
HT&E: At least you're still making music.
RS: Yeah, the next album is in the pipeline already. The next compilation we've got coming out, the boys are in the studio hitting out the beats and it's good; we feel quite comfortable at the moment. We've not had the opportunity of being able to bring all the four corners together to make a square, but we've managed to do it in all the elements of the last albums using all the vocals and the various techniques we use to mix and produce. It's been about multi-tasking the last few years, and we're looking forward to going into the studio with one solid goal - one solid concept where what you hear on the record is what you hear on stage.
"If you need a bit of inspiration, just keep hitting the buttons until something happens"
HT&E: How do you go about writing a track?
RS: Some days you'll just program beats, some days vocals, some days whatever's in front of you. We'll just set up the drum kit and see what happens - it's good roll kicks and snares and see what has a good groove and leave it naked. We work digitally now, so it can be good to work from scratch and make a track in a couple of days. Other times, it's about programming programming until the track builds up over the course of a year.
HT&E: Do you sometimes reach a point where you can't go on with a track and give up?
RS: No. I'm always programming. If you do need a bit of inspiration, just keep hitting the buttons until something happens. Make some deliberate mistakes - there's nothing wrong with a good old mistake. I've made some of my best tunes out of MIDI signals playing the wrong notes. You program a drum pattern and then you put it on a bass channel and it's playing something that sounds a bit weird, but then you straighten it out and you think "oh, that's alright". I have this theory where most of the time I talk to the computer, but sometimes the computer talks to me. It starts spitting things at you - things coming from the wrong channels and the wrong outputs - and you stumble on a style.
HT&E: Tell us about your studio set-up.
RS: Oh, mate. Fucking Pro Tools, bloody MPCs, bloody Emus, bloody 40 channels, Apogees, digital bloody ins and outs, Tannoys ... Loads of stuff.
HT&E: So you've got a decent balance between analog and digital then?
RS: Definitely. We have the best of both worlds. We can go totally analog or totally digital. For the bass you have to use analog because digital sounds too harsh, but there's technique - you know, like splitting bass lines and cutting frequencies and boosting frequencies. I'm not trying to make my mixes the loudest in the world, I'm not trying to make my production the best in the world - I'm just trying to make it amicable. I'm trying to give it a lifespan. One thing I don't enjoy is putting a period on my music. There's a danger of adding modern day techniques and people will say that it sounds like 1997. When time stretching first started, it was something that defined an era. I would like people to wonder whether my music was made in 1997 or 2007. I think that. once you put a vocal on the top, it doesn't matter what period of time a track comes from. A good song is a good song, ten years or twenty years later. I hope on this record there are a few good songs that will stand the test of time.
HT&E: On the topic of vocals, how was working with Beverly Knight on No More?
RS: She came to Bristol and we hung out for a couple of days. I've known Beverly for a little while now, from going to the MOBOs - she's a wonderful lady; a lady of elegance. The way she carries herself as a proud black woman to me is enormous. My mate put the track on today and, because it was half way through, I didn't realise what it was - there's something that makes it that little bit different, and that is her voice.
HT&E: When writing, many people try to avoid listening to other music to ensure their ideas are not altered in any way. Would you say this is true of your own writing style?
RS: Snap. I don't listen to music either. I cut myself off. You would start getting influenced and it's unintentional. If you hear something good in record, you'll always tap into that.
"What is it about New Forms? You tell me? You come to my house and sit down and we'll go through track by track and we'll analyse"
HT&E: Have you ever been disappointed by something you've written?
RS: I wouldn't say disappointed, but I think New Forms to me was a sham. I listened to it last night and I thought 'man, people are trippin". My music today is better than New Forms. People have said "oh, but New Forms is .. .' and I'm like "what is it about New Forms? You tell me? You come to my house and sit down and we'll go through track by track and we'll analyse."
My music has evolved. A couple of weeks ago I was talking to some people and I don't think they had even listened to my new stuff - they were just so hooked on the Mercury Music Prize and New Forms that they were still there. Because they're no longer a part of the influential scene or the media, they're a little bit confused. My music today is so much more complete; as a producer it's far more complete. I always learn from every record I make, whether it's arrangement, production, techniques, the amount of time I spent on the music, the musicianship ... I always learn something from each record and I take it to the next one. My song structure on this record is much better. I listen to tracks like Heroes and Digital on New Forms and I cringe, because I know they should sound as complete as Body and No More. The only tracks that I'm proud of on New Forms are New Forms itself and Brown Paper Bag.
HT&E: Do you feel they match what you're doing now?
RS: No, I've never been able to recreate those two songs because they stand alone. There's nothing out there that sounds like them. Brown Paper Bag is a record that you can still play against the top drum and bass records now and it still stands out. They're records that stand the test of time, and the rest are like" bloody hell, turn it down". To me, greatness comes in moments - it was a great moment for people to appreciate the individuality and the expression of the time, which to me is a compliment. But why try to recreate that compliment again? I'd hate to read press where they say things like 'the second coming of Brown Paper Bag', or 'Roni Size tries to recreate 1997 all over again and fails dramatically'. People try to recreate things but I'm happy to leave things on my shelf. Sometimes the art of remixing takes away the memory of the original.
"Hopefully one day I'll be like George Benson or fucking Quincy Jones"
HT&E: Are you aiming to reach a specific audience or a broad range of listeners?
RS: I'm sending mixed messages: Take what you can get from my music, and whatever it is that you get is from me to you. When I make music, I make it for myself and I have to enjoy it, but as soon as I put it on CD and give it a cover, it's no longer my music - it becomes ours. That's when you have to let things go. I'm making albums for the sake of being an artist. You should be able to go out and buy five of my albums plus two or three compilations and some remixes. Hopefully one day I'll be like George Benson or fucking Quincy Jones, where you look at the back of the record and see 'Produced and arranged by Roni Size', and you'll be like "oh wow, I didn't know that was Roni Size". That's me; I want you to be pleasantly surprised. I'm only a few albums deep, but look at Quincy Jones - he's still scoring now. I love that guy.
HT&E: From the future to the past. How did you get into the industry in the first place?
RS: Just by putting out a lot of music on some independent record labels and by having so much music on the street. I was approached by a major record company and from then on it was like having a machine behind me.
HT&E: Is that a route you would suggest to someone looking to become the next Roni Size?
RS: I think people definitely use a lot of the experiences that we've paved the way for. Back in the day, there were very few producer/DJ/label managers - we were the first people to do it, but I think now it's compulsory. That's the formula at the moment.
HT&E: Do you think the technology that people have these days, making music on a laptop and so on, is a good thing?
RS: Yeah, it's compulsory. Technology has given music a slightly shorter lifespan, but that becomes the test of an artist. Eventually you'll only make so many records that will last two to three months, and then they'll fall off the shelf. It's got to be an obvious challenge to stand the test of time.
HT&E: Do you think that the experience of getting recognized with material on the street can be shifted towards the Internet now?
RS: The Internet is a very important method of communication. There was a point in time when we used meet in a place called Music House, in Holloway road in London. It was a cornmunal area where people could, gather and exchange music and ideas, meet face to face and make a connection, and I think the Internet really does that now. Lots of people are online and on instant messengers exchanging music and ideas and communicating. It leaves out a bit of the personal touch, but then the personal touch sometimes creates friction. I've seen fights in the Music House, and I doubt there are many fights on the Internet. You're far less likely to get a bloody lip.
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As the balmy summer days come to an end (at least on this side of the world) there's no better album to have ticking over on your MP3 player. Partly prompted by an appearance on Apple's latest iPod nano advertising campaign and partly down to the fact that this is not the type of album you put aside for long, Matt Costa's Songs We Sing is doing the rounds on HT&E's pocket jukebox this week. 
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