Passing The Torch: Roska Chats to Billon

A few weeks ago the lovely Alice Moxom aka Moxie kicked off our ‘Passing The Torch’ series by linking up with Boys Noize’s superlative protégé, SCNTST for a quick chat. This time around, in a busy little bar in Brick Lane, we link one of Rinse FM’s chief cohorts, Roska, with the fast emerging duo, Billon. Although both part of Rinse’s powerhouse, it’s fair to say that the aforementioned artists are currently at different cornerstones of their musical careers. For Billon, having only just sunk their teeth into the circuit, the marvels that lie ahead are of course, immensely new and exciting. Yet for Roska, his booming back catalogue of contemporary club cuts, his self-conducted Roska Kicks & Snares label and his pioneering party outfit ‘Roska Presents’ instead make him more of an influential exemplar. So with each setting their sights on our Charterhouse street venue when both hit up Room One on March 21^st, we thought it might be a good idea for Roska to get know the Billon boys a little better before they both touch down on our Farringdon turf. Here’s what they had to say…. Roska: As Billon, where did your musical journey start? Robbie: We each had a studio in this complex in North London where we were both working on different artists but after being introduced, we thought it would be a good idea to collaborate on a few projects rather than work by ourselves. I think one session we actually worked together to write music for pop artists but we ended up just making some house! I think from that point we really began developing our sound. Ed: Yeah, we started collecting different equipment – the Juno was a big part of us developing our sound and then a friend of ours lent us the 909. I guess it was kind of inevitable that we’d end up making house music when we were surrounded by all of that. Roska: When did you first realise that you were breaking through, when did you first notice that buzz? E: I think it was the initial interest from our peers and the feedback we got when we sent our music out. There were these two tracks that we produced in about the space of a week. Initially, we didn’t have any plans with them ourselves but we sent them over to people like Skream and, you know, he was really keen and thought it was wicked – he even played it on his show. Roska: How was 2013 for you? E: Yeah 2013 was really good. I think it was the year where we really cemented our sound. We released our first EP, which, to be honest, we weren’t expecting to do so that was pretty exciting. R: We had our first few gigs and wrote and finished our second EP. We also got our agent and signed to Echo Location and that was also totally unexpected. Plus we got booked to play room one at fabric! So yeah, 2013 was a bit of a whirlwind but it’s been great. The future definitely looks bright. Roska: Other than house music, what other musical genres do you delve into? E: I think we’ve both covered almost every genre just through music production work. R: Yeah I started producing hip hop, producing tracks for artists like Devlin. I’ve always been into dance music but hip hop was the route I found myself following just though circumstance I guess. E: I used to produce d&b for quite a few years then got into producing music for other artists, I have produced all kinds of down tempo music, r&b etc. I just finished producing (with Robbie) a 4 track EP for Sasha Keable that is quite 80s influenced while combining elements of r&b and hip-hop. Between us I think we have covered everything apart from maybe gabba techno and death metal. Roska: Yeah sometimes, when I do go out to a gig or club with something completely different, I try to always take something from it and use it in my production one way or another. R: I think listening to other genres is essential to be able to grow your own sound! Otherwise it gets a bit tunnel vision. Roska: Yeah definitely. I think I felt that was almost happening for me back in 2010, I felt that I had to keep refreshing and change everything. E: It’s sometimes easier to deal with that when there’s two of you because you can give each other feedback and pin point what might be wrong with a certain track or what needs to change. R: Second guessing yourself when you’re working independently is one of the worst things to experience as a producer. It makes the whole process a lot slower. Roksa: Exactly and with me, because I work on my own, a lot of the time I have to leave a track for a while, maybe even as long as two weeks, and come back to it and straight away you can hear what’s wrong with the track and what you need to change.  So this next question is a bit random but if you could only take three things with you to a desert island, what would they be?  Billon: My computer, some sort of transport to get out of the island and maybe a rifle, you know, if one of us gets desperate and hungry… Roska: I think for me, fabric is a staple. I’ve played at a lot of other venues but fabric raises the bar in terms of quality of music to the way it’s managed. I guess you could say it’s on levels above any of the clubs around the world. What does playing at fabric mean to you? R: I grew up in London so fabric has been a pivotal part of my youth and my introduction to dance music. I remember, people would come from all over to go to fabric so it seemed like the place to go to on a night out but I think it was always more than just ‘going out’. If you and your friends plan to go to fabric, it was definitely a big event. E: Yeah I’ve been going there since I was seventeen or eighteen, and it’s always been the best place to be in dance music. They’ve always maintained everything to the highest standard and kept it fresh, and kept their ear to the ground in terms of good, quality music. R: You can definitely tell what’s ‘in’ at the moment by just looking at the lineups so, it’s great to be a part of that. Roska: And finally, what do you have in store for 2014? Billon: Our new EP is about to be released, since we finished that we’ve been working on singles, songwriters and vocalists and build up our gigging more and spreading ourselves around as much as possible.