In recent years, Luna-C, the founder of the ever-expanding Knite Force Empire, has been making some serious waves in the Jungle/Hardcore scene with his innovative approach to record labels and vinyl culture. Kniteforce has established itself as a cornerstone for both classic and new-skool jungle and hardcore music. The label is known for its dedication to preserving the authenticity of the genre while also embracing modern sounds. This dual focus allows Kniteforce to cater to both nostalgic fans and new listeners.
In this interview, we look into the early days and how it all began and then we delve into the motivations and goals behind his latest ventures, how they interconnect, and his thoughts on our beloved scene. We also explore the concept behind "Knite Club," a unique event that reflects Luna-C's signature blend of serious music and light-hearted fun, pushing the boundaries of what a music event can be.
So without further ado, I present the longest and most in depth interview I have ever done… Chris Howell, aka Luna-C aka Kniteforce Head Honcho…
So Chris, lets start with this... Can you give me a brief bit of background on yourself. How old are you, where were you born and grew up etc
I am 51 as I write this, and I was born in Epping in Essex. I spent the majority of my early years, and actually, up to my 30's, in the Essex area. I had a pretty normal middle-class upbringing, wandering through the local schools, doing the normal person things growing up. Mostly, my concerns were Star Wars toys and Lord Of The Rings, anything fantasy or space related. I was never into cars or action man, my imagination always ran towards the impossible and the incredible as a kid, and I haven't much changed over the years, I guess
So musically, let’s start right at the beginning… Going way back, before raving and DJing and all that Stuff… What is your very earliest musical memory?
Well, I was an 80's child, and back then, there were very few places where you heard music. The radio was the main one, and then a few TV shows. We never had a radio on in the house, so music wasn't really something I heard much of growing up, except for top of the pops, which means my earliest memories of music were things like Adam and the Ants, Madness, Duran Duran and so on. I guess the first few bits of music to really turn my head, the first to really make me go "oh, thats interesting" were things like Paul Hardcastle's "19" and M.A.R.R.S "Pump Up the Volume". I had also seen Breakdance The Movie on TV, and was very excited to hear that music, and the whole thing - the graffiti, the break dancing - although I had no idea what it was called at the time, and really no access to what I would learn later was hip hop culture. I was just "I like ALL of this - everything here is interesting and exciting to me".
When you were growing up, what music was likely to being played in your house? And how did this music effect your future?
Very little. My older sister had some records, but she heard the same things as I did, so it was all the same. My mum had a Cliff Richard cassette, I distinctly remember that, and I liked it when I was like...10 years old. I have a vague and thin memory of playing that cassette on a portable cassette player I used for loading ZX Spectrum games, but not much else. My parents were quite religious, so we did the church stuff. I heard hymns more than pop music I guess. To be clear...I did not rock out to those.
What was the first record you ever bought and how old were you?
I am not sure exactly. I suspect it was Adam and the Ants "Friend or Foe" which, incidentally, I still love very much. I love the tribal sounding drums, and I like the lyrics - "I want those who get to know me, to become admirers, or my enemies" haha! That message is not actually true for me, I am not keen on admirers or enemies especially, although I empathise with that very black and white sort of emotional response. I like the extreme view of the world, there is comfort in it, even if living life like that would be miserable. I have always enjoyed extremities in music, which explains my love for Nasenblueten, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Nine Inch Nails, Leonard Cohen, Public Enemy, Aphex Twin, and any other number of artists who, within their own scene, are the pioneers of an extreme version of their musical path. Also, going back to those tribal drums in Friend or Foe....that’s still something I absolutely love. It is very possible my love of breakbeats came from that Adam and the Ants song.
Tell us the Smart E’s story. How did three lads from Essex end up with a Number 2 in the national chart and how did that affect you at such a young age?
Thats a long story, so I will condense it as much as possible. My musical path went from 80s music to breakdancing, to electro, to hip hop. But being in the UK and being young meant for a long time it was quite watered down - you could buy Public Enemy albums, but they were edited for swearing, and the selection was slim in any local HMV or Trumps store...you might find Eric B & Rakim....you were unlikely to find NWA or Kool G Rap & Polo. That stuff you had to get on import, so you had to go to London, and I was still too young for that initially.
Even so, at the tail end of my skateboarding years, my last few years at school, I had finally started buying what I think of as "real" hip hop from Groove Records in London and had self-financed buying myself some turntables - Citronic belt drives. Not great, but at least they had pitch control - so I was trying to learn to mix and to scratch (oblivious to the fact that belt drives were not gonna facilitate that) and I was, by most definitions, a hip hop DJ. All be it one that played to an audience of one - me. By the time I left school and was working at Waitrose with Tom Orton (Mr Tom from the Smart Es), I had progressed to Technics and had been to a few raves and was buying rave as well as hip hop vinyl.
Mr. Tom was putting on a few events under the name Ultimatum and asked me to play. I was not that great at either mixing or scratching, but I played, I did a fair job I think, and Tom and I became friends.
It happened that Tom knew a guy called Nick through some friends or family, and Nick had a studio in his front room. The studio was a s950 sampler, a M1 keyboard, an Atari with Cubase, and a few other things, a tiny mix desk maybe? I have no photos from that time and I cannot remember. But I do remember being very, very impressed to see it. It's hard for younger people to envision a world where computers were so rare that you never saw one. They were not in daily life at all. Turntables were unusual, but as an extension of a hi-fi system, anyone who saw two turntables and a mixer might ask "why do you have two record pIayers?" But they would not be confused by the technology itself. They could work it out.
What Nick had, to the untrained eye, was very strange indeed. It was certainly not something you ever ran into in normal life, or saw on any TV show or anything, and it was not comparable to anything you might encounter. Imagine if you walked into a room at a friend's house and found the cockpit of the space shuttle in the middle of it. Thats what it was like. Fascinating, and intimidating, utterly foreign, and very exciting.
I am not even sure how all three of us ended up making music, because we were not the ideal group as far as personalities or interests go. Nick had never been to a rave, nor did he care for hip hop or rave music or culture at that time. He was (and is) a very talented musician who wrote pop songs for his own pleasure, and he regularly sent them off to major labels who would reject them.
Tom was a car buff, into raving but also into pubs and such, with a wide circle of friends. And I was an introverted skateboarder with a huge hip hop collection. But that collection provided samples, Tom provided organisation and inspiration, and Nick provided the only real talent between the three of us lol. So after a few false starts - Nick had no idea what we were even trying to do, and Tom had no idea how to actually do it, and I knew what I wanted to happen, but I had no way of communicating it - eventually we came up with a few tracks - Fuck The Law and Bogus Journey. We recorded them onto a cassette and took them to Boogie Times, which was one of our local record shops, along with Music Power and others in our area.
However, Boogie Times was where the Suburban Base label was, and it was the only access point to any label that we knew of, so we took it there and played it to the owner. It was signed and a few months later, it had a release on Boogie Times records. It did fine, I remember us being amazed a few months later to get a cheque for maybe £900 each, which was a pretty solid amount of money for those days, especially considering none of us felt we had really done any actual work. We just mucked about with samples in Nicks front room studio.
By the time we got that first cheque for Bogus Journey, we had already made Sesames Treat. It was another fun and daft little track, and we thought people might dig it. We did the same thing as before, gave the music to Suburban Base, who then cut the record on Boogie Times and sent it out to the various Djs. And that’s the point where it all started to get out of hand.
We had made the record with the same flippant irreverence that we had bought to Fuck The Law and Bogus Journey. But this time, instead of it being released and selling and disappearing, Djs started to play it out at raves. They played it a lot. And then, shockingly, it started getting played on Kiss FM. Kiss was the ONLY dance music radio station at that time, It had been a pirate station for many years - I remember listening to it as a pirate station while I worked in a skate shop directly after leaving school.
Kiss played underground house and techno music when illegal. Now it had become a legal, licensed radio station, and many of the people who loved it as a pirate station were disappointed by how bland it became as a legal station. But those were the times we were living in. There was no way a licensed radio station in 1990 would get away with playing proper hip hop or real underground music or whatever. Kiss was very basic by today’s standards, yet it was a huge pioneer when it came to legitimizing dance music. Even at their most obvious, they were still light years ahead of BBC radio with what they played and how they played it, with actual Djs mixing and a line up of dance music-based shows. So, it was a huge deal when they started to play Sesame's Treat on their morning show. They were, in effect, championing a rave sound that was at that time just starting to cause panic among the "normal" people of the UK, with the acid house party scares and so on being newspaper fodder.
After that, the whole thing snowballed at a ridiculous pace, and before we knew it it was on BBC radio, and the distributor (SRD) was asking for more to be pressed because each week the presales kept growing. By the time it was released, we were pressing 200,000, and it entered the charts at no.2.
What followed was a lot of touring, negotiations with record labels, problems, exhaustion, and a very steep learning curve as to how both the music industry, and the real world, worked. It affected me in lots of ways. I was forced to learn to talk to strangers - a good thing I suppose - but looking back with the knowledge I have now, I am aware that I am an introvert and circumstances forced me to be...not that. When you are forced outside of your nature, if it doesn't destroy you, it makes you more adaptable and stronger...but its not a pleasant experience, and it was maybe harmful at the time, as I was often desperate to be...elsewhere. I did enjoy the fame a little, but it wore off quickly for me. Everyone loved the track and that was nice, but we made it for a joke, so I spent a lot of time feeling like I had to justify its existence even though the only justification was that it was a good laugh.
That was actually all the justification it needed, but I was acutely aware of the expectations from different areas - the rave scene loved us, then despised us. The commercial music side thought we were a fun novelty, soon to be forgotten. It was all a bit weird. I came out of it quite a different person. I remained certain that I wanted to continue in the music industry, but also certain I wanted to do it...not like that. I regard myself as very fortunate to have experienced commercial fame and success really early, because I know what it is, and what it is worth - almost nothing - and it left me to work out what I actually wanted without that distraction in the way. I feel like many people, especially in this age of tik Tok and YouTube etc, strive for fame every second of the day and it’s kinda sad because they have no idea how utterly empty and pointless it is.
Anyway… On the whole, I look back at that era with a great deal of thankfulness. Some of it was awful, and hard lessons were learned, but it gave me a ton of opportunities both in my personal and my business life and taught me a lot of things early that some people never learn.
What inspired you to set up a record label in 1992 and also, why did you call it KniteForce?
There were a number of reasons I set up my own record label. Smart Es was tailing off - we still had an album and single deal signed with EMI or whoever, but it was going to end shortly, that was for sure. I think I knew it before the other two did, really. While I could never have explained it back then, I could...feel...that our time as an act was up. We had made a record that was never meant to be taken seriously, but it sold serious units, and we were surrounded by serious decisions.... The trouble was, we were not serious people yet. We thought we were, but in truth we were still young and ignorant, so we inevitably became a joke. And a joke never outstays its punchline. So musically, I knew Smart Es was over, and things at that time were just starting to go sour with Suburban Base, and I was going to have to decide what to do with myself. I would say around then was when I started thinking "huh, a record label seems like it would be easy to do" haha!
I had spent some of the money I made via Sesame's Treet on a studio like Nicks, but unlike Nick I had no idea how to use it. It sat in my bedroom, gathering dust and staring at me with contempt. I had spent the money on it, but would I spend the time to learn it? That was the question. Yet, I never questioned my motivation - I wanted to be able to do this myself, make my own music, release it myself. And I also I felt a keen debt to my friends, who had supported me through Smart Es from start to finish by driving me to gigs, being in the videos and so on, and just being proper good friends... So in my head I always thought "well, if I have a studio, my friends can make music with me and we can release it ourselves and they can be doing what I have been doing".
To me, making Sesame's Treet had seemed very easy, like something anyone could do, so why not give my friends a chance to do it? Of course, I didn't actual "make" Sesame's Treet - I sat on a sofa with Tom, saying what I wanted and supplying samples. Tom did the same. It was Nick who had all the technical and musical knowledge. I had no idea how to play music, and no idea how to use this studio I spent a lot of money on. And I also had never actually put a record out, I had just watched another label put our record out. So, while I was sure I could do it, I actually had no clue how to really do it.
Months and months went by with me thinking and saying I would do this thing, but little progress was made. I would turn the studio on, look at all the lights and buttons, play the keyboard a little (very badly, I couldn’t play anything at all), and then turn it off again no wiser about how any of it worked. Eventually, as my personal money started to run out and the prospect of getting an actual job started to poke over the horizon, I thought "well, I guess I need to learn this for real then". So started a very slow learning process with me trying to understand the Akai s1000 sampler and CuBase, phoning Austin (Phuture Assassins) and Nick Smart E's for help every few days, and trying to put together some sort of musical piece that actually had a start, a finish and a middle.
It took a while, but within a few months I had a few tracks made. I did send the tracks to some labels, Kickin and Reinforced and others, but got nowhere there - not a surprise really, the tracks were garbage haha. And my heart wasn't in it really, I have always just got on with my own thing and knew that signing to another label really wasn't the way for me. I skateboarded, I train Kung Fu...team sport, or relying on others to help me do something, is not really my thing. Its not that I don't believe they can do it, it’s just I always assume I can do it on my own, usually prefer to do it on my own, and so I might as well do it on my own. And usually, that works out best.
So, the decision to start Kniteforce was sort of like that. There was no plan, it just seemed the easiest way to get my music out, and then I wouldn't have to ask anyone or get permission from anyone. I could just...do it. And once enough parts fell into place - my running out of money, and finally learning how to use the studio, the fact I needed a job of some kind just to keep me busy.... once all of that reached a certain point, I finally pulled my finger out and got on with it. I remember having all my friends around one night - we met up most nights. I would mix and we would smoke and play the NES, talk about what parties were coming up and all that good stuff. We always met at night because other than me, everyone had day jobs. Even before Smart Es, it was standard to hang out at mine - I had a big room in the loft of my parents’ house, we would not be disturbed, we could smoke, play music as I had decks...and one day I just kinda turned to whoever was there - Poosie & Bertie (Future Primitive), Sam and Spence (The Trip) Rebecca Try (The KF visual artist) and others - and said "let’s do our own record label". It was that simple.
So, then we had to choose a name - but it was an obvious one because we were already a crew, and already only met at night. Night crew was like...roadworks. Night gang sounded shit. Night Force worked well - but I wanted the letters as part of the logo, and NF was associated with the National Front, a far-right political group...so that was out. We certainly didn't want Knight (In Shining Armour) Force...so we fucked the spelling up, and there we were. Knite Force. Or Kniteforce. To this day, I don't know which it is.
Now all I had to do was learn how to press and sell a record.
Could you share some insights into the vision behind KniteForce and how has the label's ethos evolved over time?
Funnily enough, the vision for the label hasn't changed at all I don't think. It was always set up as a label where I would get to do whatever I liked. My plan was to put out music I liked, from people I liked, in a way that I found interesting. A very selfish sort of plan, based on wanting to have a good life working with good people and good music. And it is still like that, really. My criteria for releasing music is maybe different to other labels, I don't know. For me, the attitude of the artist involved is as important to me as the actual music. I have no interest in working with someone who is a pain in the ass, or who causes difficulties with absurd demands or whatever. I passed on a number of deals back then, and still do, if I get the vibe that the person was going to be problematic in one way or another.
I feel it is paramount to enjoy life, and to enjoy life you need to have good people around you. I learned with Smart Es that money does not equal happiness. Many people say they know this, but I actually know this, because I earned a lot of money when young from Sesame's Treet, and in and of itself, it did not make me happy. The result is I run a record label that does have to make a profit, but that isn't money motivated and never has been.
And the same can be said for fame. Having experienced it, I am happy to never experience it again, and therefore, I have never been aiming for my label to be a multi-million pound business, or to have huge chart success, or to be world renowned. If any of that comes my way, that’s great, I think I am wise enough now to manage it properly, but it is not the purpose behind what I do. Pretty much all my attention for the label is focused on "is this good music? Do I like the artists? And can we do something interesting with this?" And if it ticks all three, I do it. It’s a simple and lovely way to live, and to work.
The only thing that has changed since the early days is that now that I am older, I am much more responsible financially. I got into trouble with the early KF years, because I didn't care about money at all. Until...It ran out lol. It turns out, you DO have to care about money, its essential to survival. So now I care about money to the point of "the business must be healthy" but not to the point where it would ever compromise what I need to do to be happy and ethically correct.
What challenges did you face with the label in those fledgling years?
Oh, everything. On the practical side, I had no idea what I was doing. I barely knew how to use my studio. I didn't know how to make a contract. I had no idea of how to get records cut or mastered or pressed or.... I just kinda muddled through, assuming I could do it even though I had no reason to assume that really. The arrogance of youth I guess, and it meant that I just got on with it. Incidentally, the years have taught me that often that’s the best way to do things. Decide to do a thing, then do the thing. As you do it, difficulties will arise along the way to stop or confuse you, due to your own lack of knowledge, skill or money. And then you just...work at it until you have the knowledge, skill, or money. And then carry on. Eventually, the thing will be done, and you can decide if it was worth doing or not. If it was, you can build on it. If not, drop it and move onto other things.
The toughest part in running the label for me was really learning how to manage my own inner workings, as I was not always steady in my head. I look back now and can see I suffered from anxiety and depression, and that would affect my behavior, often detrimentally. But back in those days, no one talked about that stuff. No one knew it was a thing to talk about. We didn't know what we didn't know, as the saying goes. So, I would find myself having difficulties I could not really express when it came to just maintaining a balanced outlook on my world. It’s hard to explain, but an example: I would be happily getting on with things for months, and then, for no reason at all, I would simply not care anymore. I wouldn't want to make music, cut records, or even talk to people. Now I can look back and say "oh, I was depressed in those months" but back then, I was aware that something was missing, and that I had just stopped caring, but I could not explain it even to myself. And it was harmful because as an artist, I needed the enthusiasm to create. And as a business owner, its not good if you wake up feeling like everything is pointless. It's hard to make music or run a business even if you aren't feeling great. It’s nearly impossible if you don’t feel able to get out of bed or talk to anyone.
Of course, Smart Es had forced me to carry on through those things - you don't get a pass, you don't get to just not show up or to not talk to people when you have a Radio One interview, or are filming a video, or you are on tour with your band mates and so on. You have to get up, and do the things you committed to, even if in your head you are shattered glass. So, I worked through it, with no idea why sometimes it was so very difficult to manage the most basic things, things everyone else seemed to be easy with. It was only in the last decade I have come to terms with my own mental health, learned about, understood, and applied myself to managing that stuff. But… yes, my main challenges in the early years were mostly inner fights with my own weird brain... and I did not do great with it. It often undermined my efforts or desires and caused problems that were not needed.
On the plus side, it meant that the normal business things that other people might have stumbled on - the cutting, the pressing, the distribution and such - those things. I just plowed through as if they were nothing. Because to me, they WERE nothing. I was busy either feeling great, so it was easy to do get on with it or feeling shit so I had to force myself to get on with it. But I always got on with it, and my battles with pressing records seemed tiny compared to the endless fighting within myself.
Could you discuss some of the key milestones or highlights (so far) from your time at Kniteforce Records?
Well, the first release obviously. That was a big deal. I had my own record label. I remember thinking at the time "shouldn't I have like...a certificate? Some sort of...thing...to prove that Chris Howell owns a record label?" But no. I just put a record out, it sold some, and so...I put out another. It was the start of something that quickly became my way of life. So, the first record was important.
There were a number of things I learned along the way that I feel were essential pieces of knowledge, things I absolutely needed to learn. For example, I had always believed "it’s all about the music, nothing else matters". But that's both morally correct and factually totally wrong. The music IS important, but I learned there is much more to it. The best music ever made will go nowhere without the correct things around it. I spent the first 20 Kniteforce releases putting out music I thought was great, but regardless, they never really increased in sales or in reach. The label just kinda plonked along until we did the "Remixes" series. With that series I made a lot more effort in every respect on what surrounded the music. The music was superb on those, and that is important. But I learned that everything goes into it - how the music is put out, how the packaging looks, the ethics of the artist and the label, the style of the release overall, the format of it, and the names involved - it all matters. The overall feel of it matters. When in the year you release it matters. How you promote it matters.
You can have the best piece of music in the world, but call yourself Dj Plonk, and put it out on Toilet Paper Records with a picture of some badly drawn vomit on the sleeve and you can be sure that record is going nowhere. Elvis Presley would not have been the king of Rock’n’Roll had he been called John Smith and worn old jeans and a cowboy hat. Everything matters.
With the "Remixes" series, we had Slipmatt, and Ramos & Supreme, and Dj Brisk, and we put the records in nice sleeves which no one in our scene was doing at that time, and the result was that those sold big numbers.
Obviously, the music was good, these were established big name artists, and Slipmatt in particular was at the absolute top of his game. And they were remixing releases on Kniteforce and Remix Records that had already done well and the original tunes were good releases in and of themselves. So, the remix series started from a solid foundation and they sold well because of all of that... PLUS the sleeves looked nice and it stood out in a sea of white labels and plain black sleeves when in a shop. The look of what we did made the label look more professional when most people were doing white labels and such. The artists were well known, Kniteforce as a label was more easily recognised, and the fact we released them as a set of three, as a series, made people buy all three. Would they have sold as well had we released them as white labels? Maybe. But I don't think so. Those releases changed the label from one of many to something more. It was an important lesson.
Another key milestone for me was working with Jimmy J. He was the first person in my studio who would say "no" to me. Everyone else would assume I knew what I was doing, and that I knew best - including me. Well...Future Primitive would argue with me, but Ju and Alex from FP were my best friends, and arguing was standard between us, so it was different. But Jimmy J? I didn't really know him when he first came to my studio. We had met at Labyrinth and I can't even remember how or why I invited him to my studio - I did not usually invite anyone other than close friends. But Jimmy? He would flat out say "stop doing that, you are ruining the track" which I found VERY hard to deal with. My pride was fragile, I did not like being told that my idea for the track was wrong. But the Jimmy J & Cru-l-t music sold very well. It was, in fact, the highest selling of all the artists on my labels. I am many things, and I have my good and bad points, but I like to think one of my good points is I see what actually is, rather than what I wish to be. It was clear to me even then that Jimmy was right, and I was wrong, and even if I hated that to be the case, it was the case. Therefore, a lesson needed to be learned: Sometimes you need to do less in a track, and sometimes other people know better, in which case, you should stand aside and let them guide. It took tremendous effort for me to swallow my pride back then. I was not as confident in my own abilities and took things personally even when that was a dumb thing to do... but without that lesson, I would never be where I am now. To this day, when I produce, I will sometimes think "Would Jimmy think this is a good idea?" And if the answer is "no" I may well abandon the idea altogether.
Haha, I bet these aren’t the sort of milestones you expected? The thing is, because I learned very early in my career how pointless fame and money are, my milestones tend to be more about personal growth or getting to places I wanted to be artistically rather than events that happened to me due to the record labels success. The "business" milestones others might think important came and went but honestly made no great impression on me. Jimmy and I toured Australia, that was cool. We had Six Days go in the charts in Australia and that was cool too. I played the Love Parade in Berlin, a million people, that was amazing. I have been all over the world because of Kniteforce...But none of those things were important to me in the same way my learning was. If that sounds mad, or pretentious, it’s still the truth so I can't really say anything else. It's simply how I am built.
I am interested in progress of the self, I am interested in how the world works, and I am interested in what works and what does not. I am much less interested in that time I was on TV or whatever. I never spend time thinking about the past. It's boring to me. Even when I make a tune, I am absolutely in it, totally involved, until its finished. And then I rarely think about it again. I put it out, and if I am happy with the music I made, then I am happy regardless of if it does well or not, because I succeeded at the important bit, the creation bit. That is the pure part of what I do, unaffected by the outside world. Once you try and sell music, or any art, it is at the whims of promotion and people’s opinion, and the time its released, and pricing, and all that blah blah. The best thing can fail, the worst thing can sell, its often quite random. So, my concerns are more about evolving artistically, and that kinda means that milestones aren’t milestones at all, they are just a part of the evolution.
What led to the resurrection of Kniteforce Records as “Kniteforce Again” in later years?
Well, that was some stupid shit really...basically, due to my own mismanagement and ignorance, I messed up my finances in late 1996/1997 and ended up forced to sell my label. I sold it to Death Becomes Me, whose owner seemed to be good, but then over the years proceeded to not pay me or anyone else. Eventually, I got sick of it and asked him to sell my label back to me if he couldn’t do it right. He said no. So, I said, well, the artists don't want to work with you, but they will work with me. You don't own the samples to the KF tracks, you don't own the beats or have the studio, but I do. So, I will get the artists back, and remake tracks, call them different names and do it anyway." Which is exactly what I did.
On the first release, for example, it was Jimmy J & Cru-l-t, was on a label called KFA, and the two tracks were called Hand Of Destiny and Sicks Daze. To absolutely everyone, it was very obviously a Kniteforce release and remixes of two of the biggest Jimmy J & Cru-l-t tracks. But nowhere does it say Kniteforce. It worked well, it sold well, and so I kept doing it, using the KF roster of artists such as Future Primitive, and Alk-e-d and so on...by the time we were on the 10th release, Death Becomes Me agreed to sell the label back to me.
So, then I bought the rights back, and that was nice...except...I had done the job a bit too well. KFA was doing great, I didn't really NEED Kniteforce as a label anymore! So instead, I used the back catalogue for the rights I owned again, and I could use official names of tracks and stuff again. I blurred the lines, sometimes using the Kniteforce logo, or messing about with it. It was good to have the rights to the KF music back, and of course, time has shown that was a very good move to get them back, but still, it was just me finding a way to move forward with what I wanted to do musically. I would have done it with or without getting the official rights back, I think.
How did your experiences in the early rave and hardcore scenes influence your approach to producing music?
Hmmm....I don't really know how to answer this. I had and have a deep love for the music from those early years, and the inspiration remains. Even now, if I am in the studio, my thoughts are about Eon, Messiah, Hyper-On Experience, NRG, Shades Of Rhythm, The Hypnotist, Joey Beltram, Frank De Wulf, N-Joi, Acen...and so many more, Their music gave me goose bumps, took me places emotionally and stimulated my feelings AND my thoughts. So, when producing, I will often think about those tracks. I will be working on a riff or a sample and there’s... the feel of the bleeps on Eon's "The Spice"...or the clever editing in Hyper-On Expreiences "Monarch of The Glen"...I cannot explain it, but while I am using absolutely different riffs and sounds and tempo and etc. I am always trying to hit that sweet spot those records created in me. I doubt that will ever change. I am trying to hit a target I cannot really identify, but I know it when I hit it....
As a producer, what is your creative process, and how has it evolved over time?
For almost my entire career, the first 25 years or so, I worked the same way. And that was "theme first". The theme could be a sample I found, or a breakbeat I am playing with. I would get an idea like "what if I layered 3 amens in a certain way?" Or "Can I make a track that uses the samples from this movie" or "can I make a rave tune with a hip hop feel?" Or "what if a piano riff went on for a very long time?" haha...so most of the music I used to make started that way. I would get the theme, an idea in my head, and then build around that. I would make all the parts of the tune in a column at the start of the Cubase arrangement. I would have all the beats at the top, then the main riff and bass, then the piano and vocals, strings and bass, sound effects, rap vocals etc going down the page. Then I copied them all across the page, and built the structure by removing the bits I did not want to play. I would edit and change, but much of the creation would be making that big batch of things before the commencement of the arrangement.
As time went by, I got more and more complex, with tracks that had literally 200 sound effect samples at my disposal, 10 to 15 breakbeats, and many tracks were insanely edited - I made tracks where every bar was edited in one way or another. I pushed and pushed... always wanting to do more, to see how far I could go.
And then things changed. It was gradual, and it was caused by having children, giving up weed, getting my head together, and having both stability around me and a reason to make music other than "just because". And also, by the fact that I had sort of done everything I could do on that path. And a major change for me was time - when you have kids, you can no longer afford to spend a week editing a beat and clowning about with samples that you are unlikely to use. You gotta get that beat done and move on if you ever want to finish the track.
Another change was that I gained a small amount of wisdom from age and experience - it became clear to me that all of my most successful and loved tracks were the ones I kinda flung together. All the ones I spent forever on? No one cared. And interestingly, when I listened back to my older work, I also preferred the ones I flung together without thought over the ones I laboured over.
So then, without any conscious decision on my part, I found my approach to making music changed. It became about capturing the instant when its good, and hunting down that moment. So instead of spending 2 days rewriting a riff again and again, I use the first one that comes to hand. And if the first one isn't good, the second one. I might even try 3 or 4. But I do NOT spend a long-time labouring over it, because I think in doing so, something is lost. Early rave was very spontaneous, we thought at the time it was throwaway music and the equipment didn’t allow you to mess about endlessly. There was neither the sample space nor the ability to save eq nor the stability - things crashed, a lot. You have BETTER get that track recorded in, cos you could literally lose it forever. That happened more often than you might imagine.
Of course we cared about the music we were making back then as we do now, but we were never thinking of making perfect music, to be enjoyed by all, with a perfect eq, ideal for clubs and for radio one and at concerts and at live performances. No. We were trying to make wicked tunes that we wanted to hear at on a big system in a dingy club or warehouse, something that would thrill with its audacity and energy.
So yeah, my production methods and reasoning changed, and it became both easier and much, much harder. Now, I try to capture that reckless, don’t give a shit, inspirational and chaotic energy. I try not to over think. To do it, I have to forget many of the things I learned about how to make music properly - a good example is, we all know now you cannot have a bassline AND a kick drum. But... we used to. All of the big Jimmy J & Cru-l-t stuff did. The reason we "can’t" do that now is because since the early 90s we all learned about how to produce music, and we all know now that both a kick drum and a bassline hit the same frequencies, so they interfere with each other. OH NO! But wait...why do we care about that? Thats all studio talk. It is true that maybe doing that will result in a track with a muddier low end. But...so what? Does the track excite you? Does it thrill? Does it make you want to bounce off the walls? And is that combination part of that? If so, fuck it, it stays.
The trick is not to stop doing those things that are "wrong" - the trick is to then spend time on the production to keep that incorrect element, but make it work all the same. In the end, it comes down to this: A boring piece of music with brilliant and perfect production...is still a boring piece of music. A brilliant piece of music with shit production...is still a brilliant piece of music. Obviously, and ideally, you want brilliant music with brilliant production...but even then, define "brilliant"? That doesn’t mean it has to have every frequency in exactly the right place. In fact, I would argue that mode of thinking is what has made so much modern music so utterly lifeless and dead. Well done, your latest track has been put through all the analyzers and is now exactly the same as everyone else’s. Yawn.
Anyway, so, that changed. And at the same time, HOW I work changed in that now I start with whatever excites me. Quite often, I make the middle of a track, and then I add the beginning, and then I add the end, and then I like the end bit more than the middle, so I move the end bit to the start lol...
In a nutshell, I have worked hard to abandon all the rules and structure and methods and formula that I used to rely on, and to instead treat the actual creation aspect with the reverence it deserves. And at the same time, to cope with that, I have got all my samples and studio is the sharpest order it has ever been, so that I can work fast, everything is at my fingertips. When inspiration strikes, I can sit down and find what I want to find in seconds. I started out on all hardware in the early 90's, I changed to software and VSTs in the 2000's. I hated it, it sucked the joy out of making music for me. So I went back to hardware, and that’s where I am happy. Nowadays, if I have something I want to do, I have a studio that I have designed to work for me the way I like to work.
One last thing to add on this subject, and it is important. There is NO one correct way to make any art, just as there is no one correct way to live. My method? I made it for me, to please me, to get the results I like for me. If you read all of the above and say "I would never work like that" then that is absolutely fine, and that is also as it should be. Do it all on a laptop. Do it all on hardware. Use an amiga, or the latest apple computer. Play riffs on a midi guitar. Draw each note one at a time. Use VSTs, or don't. Spend all your time analyzing everything or ignore all of that and trust your ears. In the end, if it makes you happy, and you get the results you love? Then no matter what anyone else says, you are doing it right.
Can you remember the first time you heard one of your tunes played at a rave by a big established DJ? Who was the DJ and how did it make you feel seeing all those people dancing to your music?
Nope lol.... This is one of those milestones that I imagine other people keep as fond memories, but me? Nothing. Do you know, I don't even remember the first time I heard Sesame's Treet played at a rave. I remember hearing it on Radio one in the kitchen with my mum...I also remember hearing Jimmy J play "Infect me" by Future Primitive at Labrynth...but these are vague, polaroid type memories. The kitchen at my mum’s house, coming up the stairs at Labrynth...
Reflecting on your extensive discography, are there any tracks or releases that hold particular significance to you, and why?
There are tracks I am proud of, but surprisingly few. As I said before, I finish a track and then I am sort of over it. I rarely look back. But there are a few I look back on and think "that’s a good one, I did well with that". Piano Obsession, from KF40. That remix of Piano Progression is my favourite, it was very ambitious and filled with samples, and took a lot of work, but it works well. I am also proud of Echos Of Old, from KFA, and Echos of Echoes, the remix. Both of those took the extremes of breakbeat hardcore to probably as extreme as can be done before it would collapse on itself. Fuck Me Egyptian Style I am very pleased with, because that literally took months to do, and is likely the most technical thing I have ever done. Never heard of it?
And so, my point earlier is proven lol - that track IS incredible (if I say so myself, which I do on this one occasion) but it is incredible in a cerebral way. This means it is a great achievement, very self-satisfying, but...most people just don't care! When played at events, which I have done a few times, I have waited eagerly for people to be blown away, but instead they just looked sort of confused. All my cleverness totally wasted lol. But...I love it all the same. Wot For, Not Sure, a track I made with Tony TC, is another that no one cares about but I am very fond of. Other tracks I spent much less effort on, music that I made in a day, are much more loved. The only one of those that I really like is Take Me Away - but thats cos that sample is gorgeous and, well, it IS a sample, so...am I liking my track? Or the sample? ha.
My current most significant track is a sort of mash up / remix I am doing for Messiah. And that’s because it is what I am working on today. Once it is done, I will be thinking about whatever I am doing next. It’s just the way I am built.
How do you balance innovation with staying true to the roots of hardcore/jungle music in your productions?
Well, I restrict myself on purpose - using hardware instead of VSTs helps with that. I use a hardware mix desk, which means once I reset the eq, that track? It will never sound the same again, as I would never get the eq the same. I rarely save patches. I never take samples from the internet - I have no downloaded sample packs. Oh, that’s not quite true - I do have the amen break sampled from an s950 that someone very kindly put up on wav share. And I will sample a movie from an online source. But I don't download any sample packs of vocals or breakbeats or anything like that. I make as many of the sounds as I can on hardware and play what I can. I feel like... if its available online for everyone, then everyone has it, so I don't want it lol.
I also try to always put my mental state back to the years when I was raving, so I can feel what I am doing without being affected too much by the years that have passed.
I think staying true to the roots of the genre is important, but pretty easy if you can be honest with yourself and what you experienced, and if you were there during the best times, which I was lucky enough to be.
I think being innovative is much more important, and much, much more difficult. How can we move the music forward without either compromising the roots of it, or doing what has been done before? Now that’s a challenge. I do not know the answer. I would say, though, that at this point, our music has been around for over 40 years. It has not been "new" for a very long time. What many of us old skool heads are doing now is the equivalent of bands playing classic rock. What I mean by that is: the music doesn't HAVE to innovate to be what it is. It can be wonderful music even if it treads the same ground - just like new rock music can be wonderful even if it’s a well walked path. I simply don't believe we have to somehow reinvent the wheel with what we are doing now. Nevertheless...I would like to! I am, and will always be a very curious person, fascinated and wondering about what could be... So, I think about this, and I apply it as I can.
How do you approach collaborations with other artists, and are there any collaborations that stand out to you as particularly memorable?
I rarely collaborate. I do so with Jimmy J and... That’s about it. Jimmy and I are like perfect partners, we work fluidly, a well-oiled machine and everything clicks. But frankly, I am not a good person to work with, I am far too opinionated. I was a rubbish studio engineer for that reason. A good studio engineer should act like a translator, with no care for what is being said, just making sure they interpret it correctly. I can’t do that; I think it should be done a certain way. And because I recognise the way I am, I almost always work alone. I know what I want to do, and I get on with doing it haha. Anyone else would just want to do different things to me, and, well, I don't want to! So yeah. Mostly I work alone, and that’s my preference.
What advice would you give to aspiring producers looking to make their mark in the hardcore and jungle scenes?
Don’t bother trying to make your mark. It’s a fools game, like chasing the wind. Just do what you like doing. Almost certainly, you will get nowhere - but where are you trying to get to? Thats the question. Answer that question and you can work out the rest. If you are really just wanting to make art - music, MC, Dj, whatever - then focus on that, and the rest doesn't matter. If you end up world famous, hooray! If not, hooray! Because either way, you were doing the thing you set out to do, and to quote a Chinese proverb: "When you are what you want to be, that’s happiness"...and I would say to also consider another proverb: "What you practice, you become".
If you want fame and glory, that’s fine, but then you likely need to focus on followers and social media and so on. I don't know that side of the world bores me to tears lol... If you just want money, that’s fine too - I make no judgements - but I would say perhaps the music industry is not for you. Because earning a living this way is not easy and the money is always, always unreliable. If you love what you are doing, that’s fine, the unreliable income is fine. But if you wanna get rich? I would choose something more stable where input = output, rather than the music industry where input = unknown! My point is, you won't get anywhere until you know where you want to go. And if you don't know where you want to go, follow the thing that excites you. Whatever that is. You are better off finding out you actually love making 250bpm gabber for 3 people and doing it, than you are slaving away making jungle when you don’t like making it. In both cases, you will make no money. But in one case, you will be happy.
Can you share your insights into the evolution of the hardcore and jungle genres over the years?
Hmm...err....no? Lol, I mean, it got faster? I guess...I don’t like that it became two music’s when to me, the original rave sound was both and all styles, taking from everything and everywhere. I still want to hear all the sounds. I get bored listening to just old skool, just jungle, just d'n'b...I can’t be bothered with 8 hours of the exact same vibe. So, I think it’s a shame the styles split.
And then I think it’s a shame that when it did split, d'n'b kept its integrity, while hardcore...didn't. Jungle and d'n'b spent the next two decades exploring its own sound and identity. Hardcore's downfall was latching on to the 4x4 kick drum that the Dutch were already doing so well, and then flailing about trying to be like all these different styles. If hardcore could have just maintained its breakbeat roots, things would have been different, I think. Instead, it changed and morphed into another scene. But the problem was...the other scene didn't need it, it already existed and was doing just fine. I don't blame any of the producers who changed styles - it was an exciting time, and it did seem like the way to go. I was there, and I remember. So it’s easy to look back and go "that’s where it went wrong" while it’s nearly impossible to look forward and go "better not do that!". But in retrospect, once hardcore lost its breakbeats, it lost its identity. And since then, it has really only got smaller and smaller.
Over the years, d'n'b grew and strengthened, becoming a worldwide phenomenon....and hardcore withered away to a few small pockets of producers scattered around the world. There are still some very good producers making modern hardcore, but the market is virtually nonexistent, and that’s a shame, but that’s what it is.
Meanwhile, old school rave, slower and with breakbeats, is thriving and growing. So, it’s sort of proof I suppose? Not that proof matters, the world is how it is. Incidentally, I look at how there is a growing section of D'n'B that panders to EDM now, that tries to use the elements of dubstep and house and so on, and I think "that’s what hardcore did decades ago - it tried to be what it was not, and it lost itself" so I sort of feel d'n'b will go the same way, absorbed by the sounds of whatever else is playing at the big festivals, instead of keeping to its roots. I hope I am wrong though.
The sound of the early 90’s hardcore and jungle has come full circle with lots of young people, who were not even born first time round, adopting this sound, buying records and even producing music in this style… It’s amazing… what’s your thoughts on this and how is it going to effect the future of the scene?
I think its great, but I have no idea how it will effect the scene. I wish I did - this is what I meant earlier about no one is really able to say "this will be good for the future" - all we can do is try our best. In the end though, good music always continues, it waxes and wanes with popularity, and no one can really predict it. All I know is that I will be here, doing whatever I find interesting, for as long as I can.
How do you see our music evolving over the next decade?
Again, I have no idea. I don't really think of the future, the same way I don't really think of the past. Back in the day, I tried to make things move in one direction or another - like I was one of the labels that tried to rebrand happy hardcore as "4 Beat" lol - but in retrospect it was a stupid and pointless thing to do. Scenes and movements are organic, and have to be organic, and they will move how they move. So, all you can do is be open to things as they come, decide what is right for you, and then either do it, or don't.
What motivates you to continue pushing the boundaries of hardcore/jungle music, even after decades in the industry?
I have unfinished business with my own soul. Haha, pretentious. But I don't actually know what motivates me to keep on keeping on. Really, haven't I done enough? The thing is though, I like what I do, I love it. And I love exploring new things that I haven't done before. I am having the best time of my life in this industry right now, so it goes to show that even after 30 plus years, sometimes it only gets better. But what makes me do it? The best I can say is something in me is not at rest. I don't know why. Maybe it never will be. But until it is, I am not at rest either and I will just keep going because it’s who I am.
What’s your views on all this AI music production stuff? Soon you will just tell Chat GBP what you want and it will make the tune for you…..
Eh, I don't worry about it. Either it will, or it won’t. Im not interested in it, I won’t use it. Not out of any big love or hate, just because the joy is in the making, not in having it made for me.
In addition to your music career, you've also authored a book, which you later updated with a VIP version… “How To Squander Your Potential - The Smart Es & Kniteforce Story”. What inspired you to write this and how was it? (writing a book I mean… )😊
I thought it might be an interesting read for people. And I had never written a book, that was enough in itself to make me go "huh, I wonder if I can?". I love to read anyway, and I enjoy writing (as you can tell from this long ass interview lol) so the idea of writing a book was very exciting. It took me a few months to write.
In many ways, it’s like writing a piece of music. You have the intro, the main body of the track, and the outro. The key difference is with a track, you can easily play it from start to finish and see if one bit is too long or one bit doesn’t fit. With a book, that means rereading the whole damn thing. I found I would write something, realise it was in the wrong place, and need to move it either forward or backward in the narrative. But that’s a problem, you can’t just plonk it in anywhere. Or I would do a reread and realise the bit I was wanting to move was actually me repeating myself. So then you take a chunk out, and now chapter 7 is only 4 pages long and the whole thing is unbalanced. Once you fix it, though, you now have to reread the whole thing again, to make sure it’s right. And each reread you find other little bits you might need to tweak or change... So, the technical side of writing is tricky to navigate. Not to mention, even with spell check, and friends checking it, and an editor helping you out, you still make so many mistakes in the text.
The content... that was easier in some ways, because I could just tell my story. But I found things hard to remember as far as the order of events went - I had to look up when Sesames Treet was actually released, for example. I had no idea what month it came out, or what year we went on tour, and so on. I found it quite annoying to have to stop in the middle of a passage I was writing to go and hunt down the name of someone, or a particular tracks release date, and so on. So that side was both fun and frustrating.
Lastly, there is the tricky element of what is true, and what is remembered, and what is forgotten, and what you should or should not say. I am aware my memory is...not always reliable, let’s put it like that. Also, we all like to paint ourselves in the best possible light. I really wanted to write as honestly as possible, and I think I did. But I certainly missed out things because they might have hurt someone’s feelings or because I wasn’t sure I was correct, or because I simply couldn’t be sure what I remembered was true. Also, like anyone, I do hold grudges and can be an ass, so some of what I wrote...I dunno. I wouldn't write it that way now. As I get older, I get more aware of my own biases and so on...I am a work in progress and a book is a still object, so my view of it changes as I grow further away from it, if you see what I mean?
On the whole though, I enjoyed writing it very much. I am writing another; I have been for a few years. It’s a much harder book to write. How To Squander Your Potential was written long before the huge revival in my business and personal life. I was writing that book when I was basically forgotten and I had, in fact, squandered my potential.
My new book is called "How To Salvage Your Potential" and it is harder to write, because I want to write about how you get back on your feet, how you recover when you lose a whole lot. And to do that, I have to write about mental illness, and personal issues, and the things I did that I am not proud of, my mistakes. And I have to write about people...people who I care about and who I would never wish to offend or upset. Tough to do. But it also feels like it might be important to do. It’s easy to write about a fall, it’s hard to tell people "but you can get better" in a way that would be actually useful. If I can do it right, I think it will be a good book. I hope so, anyway.
You have released some pretty epic stuff over the last few years. And so many of them. Double packs, triple packs, box-sets… It really is quite amazing dude…. Seriously though, how do you manage to keep on top of all these projects at the same time…. ? Are you a robot?
I don't really know how to reply to this without sounding full of myself or something. But the truth is, this is what I am good at. I am an okay writer, I can make music, I can do all sorts of things...but I really, really love putting projects together. And it does seem that I have a knack for it to some degree. I love choosing the tracks, choosing the format, deciding the look, feel, the how, when, and why. I have a horrible memory for most things, it's very bad. I cannot remember dates, times, what happened yesterday. But I have a sort of instant recall for all music related projects. I might sometimes forget a catalogue number or a track name, but generally, I have no difficulty in juggling multiple projects.
It’s also worth remembering I didn’t just start at this pace! It was also a slow build up to where I am now. When we started pressing vinyl again in 2018 or 2019, it was one record every 6-8 weeks, all on Kniteforce only. And then two records, and then we added slipmats and stickers, and then added other releases on Knitebreed Records and so on. But as time went on, each time a label or opportunity came up, or an artist sent me something great - and if I thought it was worth doing - I would just...do it. There's a quote, supposedly from Bruce Lee that says "There are no limits, only plateau, but you must not stay there” or something like that. So more than once I have reached what I am sure is my limit, and then I just can't help myself. If there’s not enough occupying my mind, I find more to do. I start doing events, or I start a distribution company or a shop.
All I know for sure is that each time I have reached my limit, I have found I can actually do a little more. I am careful with it - having had difficulties with depression and anxiety, I am very aware of my mental health and the dangers and pressures in that regard - I am aware enough to know that I am a person who has to have a certain amount of pressure, or I fall to bits. But I also can't have too much, or I get overwhelmed. It’s a balancing act. But when it comes to releasing music, it's a balancing act that I absolutely love to do, and so...I do it.
Another point is - I do not do this alone. While I am concentrating on getting new releases together, I have Paul Bradley doing all our artwork and videos, Glyn Lowercase managing our radio and social media, John Zero handling our merchandise and websites, and Cindy handling the distribution accounts and contracts. We also recently added Adam to our warehouse staff to help pack orders and man the shop. All of us work on all the various aspects at any given time, so it’s certainly not just me doing all these things - that would be impossible. If there is a record fair or when we do a Knite Club event, we all work on that and do what we can.
So, it’s a bigger machine now, but one that is run by a group of people who work really hard, and who are really dedicated and awesome. I am very lucky to have these people around me.
How does it feel to be working alongside absolute legends like Ray Keith, Nookie and Shades of Rhythm (to name just a few)… People who you looked up to back in the day…. ??
I talk about this sometimes with people. It’s such a strange thing. Let me use Acen as an example. Obviously, I was raving and listening to Acen's music before Smart Es or Kniteforce. For me, Acen is an almost mythical figure, in the same way Messiah or Hyper-On Experience or NRG or any of those people are. They all fall into that category of "making famous music that I lost my mind to at raves, long before I owend an Atari" haha. Now, I have been working with Acen for years, we talk online, he is a lovely, humble, and awesome person, and I think I can safely say that we are friends.
Nevertheless, there is part of me that is always starstuck and awestruck by him. I don't think that will ever change. His music had such an impact on me. And it's just the way it is. There will be times when I am talking to Nookie or Floyd from the House Crew about one of his releases, and we are arranging a project and getting into the details of it...but in my head, I recall dancing to their music at Labrynth, or mixing it in my room at 18 years old - their music has all this powerful resonance for me. I remember making early Luna-C EPs and studying how Hyper-On Experience used samples, and seeking out sources for things NRG did. I remember where I bought the records, the sleeves, the place they were in the shelves in my room. I have samples on my hard drives named after these people... And all of that will always be a part of my life, and part of my journey in this music. The fact I am working with these people doesn't change any of that at all. But I do have to keep it in a small pocket of my mind for the most part! Nothing good would come of me squealing like a fan boy each time I spoke to Messiah or whatever lol.
The last 12 months have been pretty huge for you having launched a distribution company and more recently a record shop. Tell us about these 2 projects… Why you started them, your visions and goals and how they relate to each other.
Well, I mostly work in an organic sort of way rather than planning anything. If I see something I feel like I could do better, or a need that I have that isnt being fulfilled, then I go and do it myself. Its just the way I am, I guess. For example, I never planned to be managing 30 or so labels, but labels came to me, and asked me to do things, so I did.
The music industry is an old industry. Record pressing and technology is well over 100 years old, and while much has changed, some things have not. And some things need to. Distribution is a case in point. Vinyl music distribution for most of those 100 years consisted of: A record label makes a new record, the distributor puts it in th shops, the shops sell it. The shop pays the distributor, the distributor pays the label, the label pays the artist. It’s the original sales model, and many distributors follow this model still, and have not really updated. They haven’t needed to, because when it comes to the major labels, selling Abba etc. That model is just fine.
But that’s not how labels within our scene function at all. Instead, we press a record and sell it directly to the general public online. We have cut down on the need for the distribution part of our business, and some labels do not use a distributor at all. If we do use a distributor, it’s mainly for selling stock we couldn't sell ourselves, or because we like our records to be in other shops to get a longer reach and to get to more people. But for the vast majority of the labels in our scene, distribution is the icing on the cake - it is NOT the cake. We like the icing; the icing is good... but we don't need it.
This means the roles of a distributor has changed - we should be facilitating what the labels do, helping where we can, and helping them expand. I have set up Kniteforce Distribution differently because a different sort of... model... is needed for what our scene does. Also, it’s been a very long time since our scene had a distributor that catered to our scene as a priority. For a long time, our music was just one of many, sitting next to house and garage and hip hop and so on in any distributor’s warehouse. Again, I am not criticising that, but...it’s also not ideal for our music to be thrown in with those others, because we are not those others. So, for me, distribution is a way to promote our music and focus on our music - and by "our" I mean, our scene, not just Kniteforce's output.
And the record shop is simply an extension of that and for the same reasons. Record shops don’t open in 2024, they have been closing everywhere. And there are some great record shops that sell our music that are still fighting the good fight. But...I saw an opportunity to do a record store about and for our music specifically, and when we moved to our warehouse and saw we could have a shop front? Yes. It was a no brainer. It would be wrong to say I had always wanted my own record shop, because I had never really thought about it. Having said that though...as soon as it became possible, I was like "hell yes!" Because I remember so many times spent in Music Power and Boogie Times and Black Market and Groove and so on...so it’s not so much a dream come true, and a previously unknown desire suddenly fulfilled!
Your event Knite Club is going from strength to strength and the next one is just round the corner… Please tell us a bit about the event and what you have in store for us.
Well, I always put on events with artists who I like, and who I would like to see, and then I hope other people will also enjoy them. It’s kind of awesome though, because at this point, I have worked with so many incredible people, so each time I put on a Knite Club, I get to call up various friends and be like "wanna play?". Like most of what I do, I tend to just approach it from a "will this be fun?" Perspective, and then it usually works out. So, this time, I get to have my old friend The Panacea come from Germany, and he is an amazing person full stop, but that aside he is incredibly talented and its going to be really cool to see him play some of his KFA era music. And then of course we have Dj Force & The Evolution - one of, if not THE first act I signed outside of my close friends, and their musical legacy speaks for itself really.
We have The Criminal Minds playing some of their new material and it is jaw droppingly good. I think it’s really hitting that place where it is both old skool and pushing forward in the same way Acen and Hyper-On Experience are able to. I am excited for that. I mean, its always so much fun - Nookie and Ray are coming down. The House Crew is doing a Production House set, and you know that will be fire. It’s a great time, and I get to mess about with the format of events - I get bored you see. So, this time, we are doing an idiotic thing where ANYONE can bring a USB or some vinyl and at midnight, we will pull a name out of a hat and they get to play a set! I think that will be fun. Or awful haha, but even then, still fun! We have the KF stall, some exclusive new music available, we are doing some Kniteforce fans for the Kniteforce fans... basically the usual combination of seriously good music and the rest is ridiculous!
I known you like to keep your cards close to your chest Chris. But can you tell us about any forthcoming projects that you are really excited about?
Well, I do not do much in the way of planning - I really don't. 6 months ago, I had no idea I was going to do a shop, for example. I tend to just roll along and then if something strikes me as interesting, I just go ahead and do it and then see what happens. It might not be the best business plan, no bank is going to want to back me (I know, I asked lol) but it makes for an interesting life. So, it’s not really keeping my cards close to my chest so much as not having any cards at all, unless I find some all of a sudden lol.
The biggest things on the horizon right now are three projects...I have a new Dune album from Ray Keith. Its a 5 vinyl 10" box set of epic nw material, and then we have the oroginal Dune releases - Too Much and Mordeeb, and the remixes including a remix from our very own Sunny & Deck Hussy... so that’s pretty exciting.
We have a triple pack and USB set coming from Minky Finn and Vital Elements, which is simply superb. A fascinating dive into Micky's history and a set of brilliant tracks that range all over the eras, all executed with the expected high class production values.
And for Xmas, we have a Messiah double box set, featuring represses and new remixes, and that is very exciting for me personally, as I am a huge fan - I love that proper hard style hardcore from back in the day that Messiah were so good at. A few artists could do it, Automation, 4 Hero, Nebula 2, The Sorcerer, Eon - hardcore that was sort of relentless and ruff without being gloomy or miserable to listen to. So that’s a very thrilling thing to be planning at this time.
Looking back on your journey, what are you most proud of achieving, both personally and professionally?
I guess... I am not proud but... I am pleased I was able to sort myself out. I was always a mess to some degree and most of my prior business and personal life was a mess because of that. With help and support and a sort of constant belief in me from my wife Cindy, and then the added joy I have experienced from having children, I somehow found a center and a reason to get myself in order. So now, both professionally and personally, I have this amazing life where I am free to explore all my artistic and business desires, yet I want for very little. I am surrounded by incredible people in my life and its just a wonderful time. The last 6 or 7 years have been, by far, the best years of my life, and what more can anyone ask for really? As an artist I will never be content, and I do not wish to be content - I think that way leads to stagnation. But...in all the areas that truly matter, there is a balance and that is something I am very pleased to have found.
What legacy do you hope to leave behind through your contributions to the hardcore and jungle music scene?
Oh, I don't care lol. It genuinely doesn't matter to me. We will all die one day, and I always think on a cosmic scale, nothing we do is of any significance at all, and I find that reassuring! I think all that matters is what you do in life for the people that matter in your life. I care absolutely about the music I make, and my business and all that good stuff - that’s my life and I love it. But at the same time, I know it doesn’t matter at all, legacy and all that, its stuff for people to talk about. In 200 years time no one will know about Dj Luna-C most likely, and if they do, I won’t be here to care about what they say... so I just don't think about it!
Tell us your funniest story about your adventures out on the road DJing over the years…
Oh, there have been so many, most of them funny in retrospect but that were horrible at the time. I mean, one time I was doing a show with the Rush Hour Squad, which was Mc Mc and a few other MCs, and we had worked on the music for months, cut dubplates, practiced in my studio and all that good stuff. We thought it would be cool if I did the Dj with a scary mask on...but I never actually practiced that bit. So we go to do the show, and I can’t see a thing I am doing cos I have a mask on, and I am sweating bullets, and I can’t see what the MCs are doing, nor can I hear the music well - I am just lost. That was terrible lol....Or another time I played a gig in Germany where the promoter specifically wanted me to play like downtempo, Mo Wax and Skint were big and he wanted a sort of Trip Hop set...but everyone who came to the party to see me wanted and expected old skool, so I played a set that everyone hated haha....People were coming up to me all night saying "why are you playing this? I want to hear rave music?". It was awful!
I think every Dj has a list of gigs like those, they come up between the good parties and the average parties. A list of gigs where all you really wanted to do is leave and go home as fast as possible, cos you can see it is all going wrong, but you cannot really do anything to stop it, so you are part of a slow car crash. Its only an hour, but that hour is so long!
They are funny to look back on, the disasters and that, but yeah. I barely Dj now. I prefer to be at home of an evening. I spend all week with this industry, and I love it, but on Saturday night? I would rather hang with the wife and kids, eat some popcorn, flop about the house doing nothing, you know...old person stuff!
Any final words or shouts??
I want to thank my wife Cindy for her endless loving support, and her actual business support - both things have contributed to how much Kniteforce has grown. Also, my kids, who can’t read this but might do one day - I can’t imagine loving anything more than them. A massive thank you to the KF crew, large and small, artists and friends, but especially Paul Bradley, Glyn Lowercase, John Zero, Lee Idealz, Nigel in the USA, Adam the New Guy lol, all the industry people that are integral to the business, Curved Pressing, and Packages Sounds, and Cram, and Alpha Duplication, and Beau and Ten Seven and so on....there’s so many people that make this work. Big love to all of you!
One last quote cos it sums it all up: "It’s never too late to be what you might have been"
Links / Contact Info ?
You can come to the website if you like? www.kniteforcerevolution.com or come to the knite club site www.kniteclub.com or if you are interested in distribution, we are here www.kniteforcedistribution.com
And thats about it really!
Nice one, Chris...
SO... A massive thank you and a big shout to you mate. Really enjoyed the interview, I found it really inspirational And hopefully all the readers will too.
Luna-C did an exclusive guest mix for the Vinyl Junkie UK show on Eruption Radio, showcasing lots of forthcoming Kniteforce material... If you missed it or want to listen back...
You can listen back to the podcast here...
