InYourBass.com

Xample first rose up through the ranks of drum&bass with sparse releases for HardLeaders, L Plates and Mix & Blen, until he sent some tunes to the Ram office and got picked up by co-a&r Red One. Andy C started playing them and soon he signed a few tracks to Frequency, Ram’s sublabel. Now, Xample is working with Lomax at a full artist album for mothership Ram and tunes like ‘Lowdown’, ‘Keep Their Heads Ringing’ and the ‘Against All Odds’ remix for Chase&Status show there is much to look forward to.

XAMPLE: I grew up in Bristol and obviously was influenced by some of the local crews, especially since it’s the stomping grounds for the entire Full Cycle crew and a lot of triphop outfits. I moved to Liverpool to study at university and the tracks I made at that time move away from that Bristol sound. I moved back after graduating and got in touch with the likes of TC and Distorted Minds and that brought me to shift to a more dancefloor orientated sound.

Is there any other music, besides drum&bass, that influences your sound?

XAMPLE: I listen to a lot of house music and hiphop and I tend to just put my iPod to shuffle and soak up what comes at me. Some close friends of mine add music to my library and this results in some nice surpises from time to time. I would never have gotten to appreciate Kings of Leon if it wasn’t for my mates adding their music to my iPod.

House music is a very broad term these days. What kind of stuff strikes your fancy particularly?

XAMPLE: It’s mainly the minimal, progressive and technoish house that gets me going. I used to go out to a lot of house and techno nights in Liverpool and it’s guys like Luke Slater and Dave Clarke that really got me into it.

Can we expect any of that stuff to pop up on your album?

XAMPLE: I’d love to add some different flavours to the album, but it’s hard to find the time to write anything else besides drum&bass. I might try to do some minimal or some house music, but I wouldn’t put it out, unless it’s really up to par with what’s banging in the clubs right now. I’ve just done my first dubstep tune and I might try some more of that. At the moment I’m not entirely happy with the way it sounds, but it’s a start. Obviously, crossing boundaries has worked wonders for Chase&Status and Sub Focus is doing some leftfield stuff for his album as well, although I haven’t heard any of it yet.

You’re working closely with Lomax these days. You don’t mind the odd collaboration, do you?

XAMPLE: I’ve worked with Crystal Clear quite a bit and the album I’m doing for Ram is going to a be a full collab with Lomax. It’s nice to hear that the tunes I make with other people are more than just the combining of two sounds. Usually, it ends up being a completely different vibe of what either me or the other guy would come up with on our own. That’s what collaborations are all about to me…

So tell us more about the album.

XAMPLE: We’ve got a few vocal projects, we’ve got some housey stuff, some liquid, some darker beats and a lot of dancefloor material. We’re covering all bases, really. It’s important to me that the album will have a very diverse sound and we’ll be able to atract some listeners who wouldn’t normally consider themselves as drum&bass lovers. Also, getting main time radioplay is a big issue and the best way to get some extra exposure and raise our profile. It’s a must that we have some tunes that are catchy and have enough vocals to keep it interesting on the radio.
The first track off the album will be out in October and is called ‘Remember’. The full album should drop sometime early next year. I’ll have plenty of new stuff in the bag when I come over.

Looking forward, mate.

http://www.myspace.com/xamplebeats

Xample is playing at Breakdown Summer Camp on August 6th, at Muziekodroom, Hasselt.