Catching Up With Loadstar Ahead of the Release of Their Future Perfect Album

Ahead of the launch of their Future Perfect album - and it's launch party that we're hosting here on Friday 17th May as part of the next RAM/FABRICLIVE collaboration - we caught up with the Ram Records signed Loadstar duo to discuss their continued passion for drum & bass, the new album and their particular way of working. How did you guys feel when you first get into drum & bass? Do you still have the same sort of passion for the sounds now? It’s a time we’ll never forget, the beginning of our journey into drum & bass. It was such a special and exciting time discovering the music… listening to LTJ Bukem and Wax Doctor and those early rave tapes that pass around between your mates at school. And the first raves we went to, Rumble In Bristol, Bagleys, Blue Note etc... Being really young, scared whilst in the queue, but remembering the feeling once you were inside, it was the best vibe ever. Going to Black Market and spending all our student loans on white labels was also a regular occurrence. We’ve seen d&b change so much over the years: the sound has changed, the technology, the way it has split into so many different sub genres; but as producers and DJs we still have the same passion for it as we always did. You could argue that this is the most exciting time we’ve ever seen in d&b and dance music in general… What does it feel like having now released an album on such an influential label like RAM? I mean as young fans it must have seemed impossible to get so far… Yeah it did seem impossible. But we were always ambitious and we just worked really hard. There’s no real secret to how it worked out for us… we just started writing tunes, getting a few releases out and then it becomes all about releasing the next tune, growing and building our names. Of course there’s a bit of luck involved, all of a sudden we found ourselves signed to Ram, which is the only label we ever wanted to be on. The label has an amazing history and has always been at the forefront of d&b, we were always big fans from the start. So we consider ourselves really fortunate to be part of something so special. How do you think your individual skill sets complement each other in terms of the Loadstar project? Do you think your music benefits from you two having such differing approaches? We’ve come from different backgrounds with it, Gav started off wanting to DJ and all I (Nick) wanted to do back then was work out how to make tunes. I always was involved in the music since I was really young, then went to University to study music. Gav then got into writing himself but always had a better understanding of the technical side of it, how to make sounds, how to mixdown and use EQ etc. I think that’s ultimately why it works when we get in the studio; I have the musical ability and love the whole writing process. Gav then helps to realise the sound, by making sounds and focussing on the detail etc. I think this gives us a bit of an edge, having different skills and putting them together has always worked. We aren’t always in the studio together though, writing music is such a personal thing, so it’s important to have time to both come up with our own ideas then bring them together. The guardian described you as "rising without a trace". I mean obviously you’ve put in work in terms of RAM and D&B in general and you’re now on the precipice of crossing over thanks to radio support etc… but how does something like that sit with you? Well, it sits with us just fine to be honest. In fact, I kind of like that description - its testament to the fact that we’ve just been happy grafting away behind the scenes. We’re about the music, we always have been and that’s the only thing that matters. It’s great that we get the exposure we do from the amount of online stuff there is. We’ve got a very good platform on which to get our music heard. Some artists, especially in USA, have overnight success from YouTube views etc and focus more on their image and DJ lifestyle than their music. We are definitely not in it for that! What did you want to say with your new album, Future Perfect? Do you feel like you managed to sum it up? We had a vision with our album when we started a few years back but it took us a while to follow through with it. We never set out to write a 100% drum & bass album; we wanted to show what else we can do but we didn’t want to waiver on our sound by doing that. Our influences are there from start to finish. It sounds like us, individually and collectively, all at the same time, something we’ve been trying to achieve since we put Loadstar together. We spent a lot of time on this album and we were fortunate to be able to use that to really think about the whole process. What else is coming up for you in the near future? With the album being released we are going to be touring like mad over the summer months! We have some great festivals and events that we’re playing at and we’re trying to get as much studio time as possible in between that - aswell as our own stuff, we do production work for other artists and a lot of session work. So it’s a jam packed diary, which is exactly how we like it. Catch Loadstar performing in Room One at RAM on Friday 17th May.