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High'r Ites was found by the reggae dj's Oneness and Mr. Jones, also known for causing doors trembling at bar Giraf with their dub-nights. With a big bunch of enthusiasm they threw themselves on UK-dub, which caused a lot of animo and positive vibrations in Leuven and surroundings. The selectors grew up as soundmen with their own soundsystem, in which they could count on some steady supporters. 

It'll be a happy conversation at the home of Oneness with a lot of common memories, but it's only when Wannes and Jonas start to play their favorite tracks that I can feel what the real motivation of High'r Ites means: beautiful records full of consciousness and upliftment, with a full heavy bass. Selector Oneness admits: "I broke a lot of systems while playing. Look at this beautiful amplifier, it belongs to my father. A beautiful powerful machine, but unfortunately I already had to get it fixed two times, just because of pushing it too hard.”

HISTORY

What is your history as selectors? How did you get in touch with reggae music?
Oneness: I started listening to reggae in high school, artists like Lee Perry, or the old tapes of Dread Pressure. I started playing out cd's, but got interested quickly in knowing more than those famous reggaetunes. In those years I formed the Cave Crew with two other dj's,  we also played hiphop and drum and bass. It was all modest and on a very small scale, we mostly played in the youth house of Oud-Heverlee. "Het Kot", a smal non-profit organisation established by friends, organized parties on a farm, where I played a couple of times for a bigger crowd. That's already years ago. I wasn't even playing records. I started to look on the internet for reggae and came in contact with other styles, because of Vinnie of Soul Remedy and my English connection with Rich Brown. A local hero from Leuven, DJ Wikke, got me in touch with the Rootstock-festival, and that’s how things kept on growing for me. Later on, I started to do monthly sessions in café Giraf at the Old Market of Leuven, but I can’t remember if I ever played there without Jonas.

Jonas: I also started with buying regular reggae-cd's, things like Black Uhuru or Junior Kelly. I got to know Wannes trough a common school buddy. We were both in our last year of high school. I was about 18 or 19 years old. One day Wannes started to talk about a song I accidently knew, which surprised him. We started to play together in café Giraf, and those nights had a lot of success. A good time for us, because we didn't need to take decibel limits into account yet.
O: After a while of playing together, I stepped out of the Cave Crew, which doesn't exist anymore now.

How did you come to such an English oriented dub selection? At that time, these styles weren’t quite known here.
O: Mainly because of the people we got to know. I for example, never had a lot of contact with dancehall-dj's: I was listening to new roots like Sizzla, but I never really liked hard ragga. After a while it seemed that Vinnie of Soul Remedy and me got along well. The first soundsystem expercience was together with Vinnie and Killah Tactics at a session of King Shiloh in Amsterdam: that is where I experienced reggae for the first time on a real sound system. The connection with Soul Remedy yielded a lot for us: actually we started out as carriers of their soundboxes. In all those years I never missed a single one of their sessions.
Rich Brown invited me later to go see Jah Shaka in the London venue The Rocket. I was about 17 years old, and it was the first time I crossed the Channel, I took a lot of records home with me. From then on my interest in soundsystems kept on growing, Jah Shaka made the scene really big. I returned a couple of times when Shaka played and later for University of Dub, an enormous soundclash in Brixton.

Who never experienced a session like that must have a total different idea of reggae; there I experienced how much impact this music can have.

Did playing together affect your selection?
J: We are actually complementing each other. With two people you have the advantage that you can discover more music: we went to search together for music that we heard on sessions.
O: We are the internet generation: for us it was quite easy to get to know new stuff and find connections. The first tapes that were important for me were, of course, the tapes of Dread Pressure. I was able to find all of the tunes on those tapes. We were listening to recordings and sound sessions and we used our connections to find the records we wanted. That always took a while, but it was so much fun to look for records.

Your collection grew a lot in a short period of time, and after one year of playing together you were quickly improving.
O: In the beginning we only bought what was available. We only knew the regular record shops like Vinyl and Bambam in Antwerp, Bilbo in Ghent, Harlequin in Brussels, or the record shop JJ Records in Leuven. I regularly crossed the Channel to go look for records in London. After a while I started to look on the internet: I was buying on Ebay because there was no other good alternative, but rare, obscure records were already costing a lot for a young guy like me that didn't make money yet. It wasn't untill after I started working that I could afford records like that. My collection grew a lot because I always wanted to change my selection: I easily got tired of playing the same stuff. I was looking towards new things, and that is how you get to know a whole different spectrum of reggae. We still were really lucky with our connections like David, the biggest distributor of reggae in the UK. Through Rich Brown we got to know Neal Wood from Southend London, he sold us a lot of old killers.
J: Our motive was the hunger and the persisting interest in new tunes, that's how we learned to know those classic cuts.

SOUND BUSINESS

How did you decide to build a soundsytem together?
J: That went quite easy, because of a range of lucky coincidences. Once we played in 'het Kot' together with Ionyouth Soundsystem: their system was totally new, the first time they used it. A friend of us had a colleague that was working with PA, and that night he could rent us a couple of scoops. Those same scoops we took later for a small price, because the rent man didn't use them anymore.
O: First we only had a couple of scoops and tops. We only used our horns and woofers as mids. But before we knew we had the right amount of sound boxes to build a soundsystem.

We started to build more sound boxes and learned how the equipment was working. From then on it went really fast: we found out about amplifiers, pre-amps, sirens....

O: We are finally renewing our scoops: you have to keep up, a new generation of sounds is coming and they are way bigger. In the beginning we saw those scoops as a temporary agreement, but they never let us down: we had a lot of fun with them.

A sound system like that is a big investment for a selector, apart from buying records. How were you able to afford this as young guys?
O: It must have been about four years ago that we bought that sound, I was already working for a while. Once we did a trip to Germany, because of their lower prices, with the intention to buy a whole list of equipment. We paid all of that with our own money. We putted everything that we gained with playing, in the sound system jar. Later on we started to organize a bunch of parties at the local squad that had a lot of success. That profit we used for our sound.
Were there other people involved in building High'r Ites, except you?
J: Jarromatics and Sticksman, friends of 'het Kot', are two important members of High'r Ites. Hannes helped us a lot with the building of our sound system, and the technical side of it. Once he tried to build a sound, as a dissertation at the Waldorf school. Wannes could arrange a small truck for us, otherwise we would never have been able to go out and play with it. Those two were always a part of it, they always helped with the unloading of the sound... Apart from them we could always count on a big crew of friends that helped us when we needed it, and formed a loyal crowd base.

From the beginning on you always played really loud, and Oneness, for example, broke already a lot of amplifiers and speakers.
J: Myeah, he always wants to break everything...
O: Lets say I get a bit too excited sometimes (laughs). It's not that I want to break those speakers.

But dub is made to play loud: the melody is in the bassline. If you can’t hear or feel the bass, the music looses its effect.

We stopped playing at Giraf because there was a limit on decibels as well. It’s a matter of principles.
What is the added value of playing reggae on a sound system?
O: It is about the sound, every soundsystem sounds different.
J: Every selector knows very well how to threat his sound. There are so many different bass speakers, and they all sound different. Scoops also have a very specific bass sound you hear nowhere else, truely made for reggae. If you hear a tune on the scoops, then you know that it’s supposed to sound like that. It’s totally different from a normal PA. You can tweak your bass with the pre-amp, use delay....there are so many possibilities to manipulate a record and to change the sound. You need to use your amplifiers different every time, to make your record sound perfect. Wannes and me are trying to do it a bit different every time, but it's also important to know your records.
O: We most often let us lead by the reaction of the crowd. Of course there are always tunes that always score, and those who are first in line in your record bag. There’s always a balance between the tunes we want to play, and the songs our crowd wants to hear. We are playing first of all for the crowd: we've always been into entertainment rather than spreading the 'message'.
J: We want to generate vibes, we never play a full night for our own pleasure. The hardcore crowd that wants to hear dubplates only is small anyway.
O: Sometimes we let ourselves go and play some hard dubs for a while, but you can feel very quickly that you need to build it down and put on a recognizable song. Rootstock for example has a difficult crowd, you can find a lot of diehard fans on the festival, but also next to them a big crowd that prefer to listen hits.

ONE HUGE PARTY

What do you remember to be your best experience with your own soundsystem?
J: Though question. It works on different levels of course, and that makes it hard to pick one best moment. In the barn ' het Kot' we had some good nights, in a very spontaneous atmosphere. In terms of sound, the parties at AC Noodzaak (Ghent) were the best ones, while the vibes in the Leuven Squad are the best, even though we weren't there with our own soundsystem. Soul Remedy delivered the power over there.
O: We also have good memories about the Rootstock Festival. It's hard to take one that stands out of the rest, but If I had to pick one, it would definitely be the first Reggae Link Up. We were there together with Ionyouth, and our soundsystem had a very good day: it sounded perfect. Mc's Makke (Beatstreet) and Saim-I (Unlisted Fanatic, Giraffe...) were participating as well, and it was just one huge party. Everything sounded like it should, we just came back from the UK and we scored a series of dubplates....A perfect night, except that Jonas was sitting in a wheelchair (laughs).

How steady is the growth of the soundsystem scene? Even though different sounds seem to pop up, the crowd remains status quo.
O: Sure. It went really fast in Leuven. In my neighborhood a lot of things happened: in a short time a lot of young people got to know a lot of new dub. Public Steppas originated quickly. Later that crew evolved into Kinsgstep Soundsystem. We already had a decent and steady crowd, and because of Kingstep the crew got a lot of bigger too. It speaks to a lot of young people: take for example Dub Fi Youth, whom are working hard. Or look at Haile I Dub in Brussels: when there are bigger names, the shack is packed with people from all over Belgium. Of course you always see the same faces, and it still remains a small scene.
J: Sometimes it’s hard: there can be no one at the best parties, and a much bigger crowd on a lesser one. A city crowd has a lot more interest in reggae, but doesn't want to take a car for 50km. Take Minus One in Ghent for example, there you can see 700 people who party on dub, while on a similar night in Brussels with a bigger name, the crowd is a lot smaller. Leuven and Ghent seem to be the best cities to organize sessions like that, because next to the hardcore massive, there will also be a crowd that comes spontaneous.
O: It's very important to promote in a good way. If your entry fee is too high because you are asking bigger names, than no one will show up. The parties we were organizing in the squad were priced really low, but because of that we could attract a bigger crowd.

The paradox seems to be that there are more and more soundsystems, but that it gets harder and harder to find a club where you can play loud. How do you see this evolving? Big clubs don't easily promote reggae, but go and try to find a cheap place where you can play full power.
O: I'm afraid that that's going to get worse and worse. At Minus One they also want a limiter, even at Au Relais TIR they don't even want own soundsystems anymore, even though you can make as much noise there as you want.
J: This policy of decibel limits will be everywhere. You can only hope for a club with a good owner. And apart from that, looking and looking more, and if that doesn't work, go further to another venue.
O: The owners have more and more problems because of sound trouble, it seems logic that they say no to us. King Shilo is playing now in Amsterdam in a really small bunker, where the sand practically falls in your neck from the vibrations. They used to play in Paradisio, but that club was too expensive and they couldn't get enough people, that's why they had to look for a smaller solution. But even in a big city like Amsterdam looking for a home club seems to be difficult. We could have tried to talk to the Brabanthal, but  you'll never get if full of people. What you need is smaller and cheaper clubs, that are easy reachable and where you can play loud...The best option seems to be a squad.
J: In Leuven we tried every single club, except for the more expensive locations that we'll never get filled up.
Too bad that since the nineties the whole reggae scene seems to be fragmented: dancehall and roots turned in to two different scenes with a whole different crowd.
J: It's all reggae, but dancehall and dub are two very different genres.
O: Above all that the real dub scene just started to grow: it's a very young concept. Soul Remedy are the longest in the business and all together they are only playing for seven years on their sound. A lot of reggae fans don't even have a clue of what the dub scene is, and a couple of years ago the sounds used to play more of a crossover style.

The scene grew quickly because of Forward Fever, Ionyouth and Soul Remedy. Especially Forward Fever did a lot concerning parties, and they never gave up.

J: Since 2000 everything seems to be in its own corner, it is getting harder to get a big crowd. I would not think it's a problem to make DJ's play other styles on our sound, if that could make more people listen to dub.

On a long term, do you have any ambition to get international?
O: If we would have the possibility, but at the moment it’s no main ambition. We don't need that straight, and we are not specifically looking for it.

MEN ON A MISSION

In Belgium reggae always stayed a bit of a side happening, while in other countries it seems to attract a bigger crowd.
J: I would not underestimate our own festivals: on a European level Reggae Geel is a special festival. Irie Vibes in Kortemark grew a lot on short notice.
O: You can hear more and more reggae on the radio, even on Studio Brussels. Of course Belgium stays a small country. Soul Remedy never really broke through: they never found a club to organize monthly events. In Amsterdam, London, Leeds and Paris there are a couple of monthly dub clubs with big names and bigger sound systems. In Belgium we just don't have the opportunity to organize this, except for Haile I Dub in Brussels. Those nights helped a lot, and the concept shouldn't stop neither. Soul Remedy, Ionyouth and Forward Fever did the best they could to push things forward, but they never had the right venues and that is why their parties didn't grow.

You are talking about entertainment versus message. It seems double that a sound system can create a big vibe, but that the lyrics of those songs are religiously inspired. How do you place that religious element in your own life, in other words, how serious are you involved in rastafari?
J: Because of reggae I got to know the whole concept of Ras Tafari and the message of Haile Selassie. I would not call myself a rasta, but I was always attracted by the positive message behind the music. For me, that "positive message" formed the basis: bring upliftment to the the people! You don't need to be a rasta to play reggae, but the message about black oppression can speak to a lot of people. There are not a lot of black genres that accuse the oppression so radically and explicitly: in contrary to for example soul singers, rastas had more freedom to sing about what they wanted. I myself started to understand what those religious texts mean: psalms of the Old Testament, Marcus Garvey who is considered a black prophet. That's how I discovered step by step the knowledge on black culture in general and rasta more specifically. All those texts contain a whole library of clues to religious symbols that are not only important in rastafarism.

Is there anything in rasta that you take in account in your own life?
O: Not really the religious element.
J: But we do share the positivism and the peaceful message behind it.
O: It’s hard to explain: I myself am not a rasta of course, but for me it is all about the music. I can find myself in the message, but I'm not living according to those principles.
J: Reggae was never a strong message or a good riddim only: one supports the other.

I'm especially thinking about all those people that I got to know in this small world: each and every one of them are marvelous personalities with whom I can feel good. They are always people with good intentions who left a good impression on me.

O: That consensus in the scene is fantastic: it is difficult to make this given any bigger, but everybody is working hard together. When parties are being organized in Brugge, which isn't close to home, then we'll do everything to support this initiative. Look to the pioneers in England: we met some producers who arranged their studio in a room of two by two. They don't own a lot, and sometimes they have to struggle to keep their head above the water. But that’s what they do for the scene. Plus the fact that I don’t know a lot of scenes where so many old veterans stubbornly persist in doing their thing: look at Shaka, Keety Roots, Ras Muffet, Gussie P, Mad Professor…they have all remained active in making music ever since they were youths in the seventies, the golden age of roots.
J: The appreciation you receive for the efforts you are putting in is really big. And here in Belgium a lot more people start to make a lot of good music on their own initiative: think about Crucial Alphonso, Unlisted Fanatic, or liveband Pura Vida, MC Saimn-I...there is a lot of things to look forward to.
O: Kingstep are building a studio, Soul Remedy is making some strong songs....I'm expecting a lot from that, hopefully they'll come to a point to release their own music. Vintage was a tight ass live band, and they are back busy rehearsing. Actually I'm expecting a lot of the Belgian scene: there are a lot of people like Kingstep, Crucial A, Unlisted...that got the potential to become big. Apart from that, there are always going to be people that produce music that might never be released, but that will push the scene forward though.
Thanks for the conversation!
O: Aha, then we can finally play some music....
J: Fat!

The following hour I got a small private session with piece by piece some great songs...Oneness started with "What a Day" by Carlton and the Shoes.

Andreas

More about High'r Ites Soundsystem : http://www.myspace.com/highr_ites