Just minutes before DJ Hyper took his act to the Bang Music Festival stage in Miami, Garrett Ian Shatzer got some privileged, insider information.
Interview by: Garrett Ian Shatzer
UK based DJ Hyper, aka Guy Hatfield, has become one of the most influential breaks artists in the game so far, but it all started back in 2000 with his seminal Y3K Distinct’ive sound. A year later, he landed some tracks on John Digweed’s Bedrock Breaks imprint, which saw a full release in 2002. At the time, 4/4 beats ruled club land, yet Hyper’s take on the nu-skool sound was a force to contend with, steering the club sound in a bold new direction. Even though he’d been known throughout the scene for years, Hyper was catapulted to the international dance scene with his highly successful Fractured mix for Bedrock in 2003. Hyper became a poster child of sorts, particularly with Fractured cover art depicting a young-ish looking guy – the new face - holding “broken” DJ gear. Ever since, Hyper has steadily broadened his fan base with the wildly successful Wired disc and his new live band album We Control. His sound borders on Adam Freeland or Plump DJs styled breaks, but has recently gone a more punk rock and hip-hop route with the live show. A steady barrage of gigs keeps Hyper traveling to the US, Japan, China, most of Europe and the UK, while a few of his tracks have appeared on television’s CSI Miami and the Borat movie trailor. In other words, we have the makings of a star here.
Onbeat: How do you approach these sets differently when you’re at a festival where you have an hour and a half compared to when you’re at a club and you have more time?
Hyper: Well, this is what I did today: I pulled out the big tracks - because you haven’t really got an hour or two to build it and be clever, so you have to get on with it and play some biggies…play a couple bootlegs that I might not play in a club just to see what’s going on, really.
So it’s pretty much nonstop the entire time?
I’ll bring it down a couple of times, but mostly it’s going to be full-on. Well full-on to me, but we’ll see what the crowd thinks [laughs].
Do you have any tracks that you’re preparing to use at the climax tonight, or are you just going to feed off of the crowd?
I have a couple of tracks, a couple of bootlegs. I have one by Vandal and a “Song 2” bootleg by Blur as well, so I’m going to see how it goes. I only got that one yesterday, so I’ll see how I’m feeling and see what’s going on.
What have been your favorite shows of 2006?
I really love playing in Eastern Europe at the moment. I played in Moscow. With my band [Hyper], I’ve been playing a lot of the festivals over the summer. I played the Fuji Rock Festival (that was amazing in Japan) and the Roskilde Festival with the band in Denmark. Romania is just fantastic; I love playing there. There’s a club over there that I play quite regularly, and that’s one of my favorite club shows. I also played at Avalon [NYC], so I’ve had some good shows this year.
What inspired you to form the band?
Well we wrote the album We Control and used a lot of guitars and live instrumentation, so when we got to the end of the album we said, “Look, what better way can we promote this than taking it out on the road and doing it?” Because we had lots of different musicians involved, we pulled everyone together and did some rehearsals to see if it was going to work. Well it worked fine, so we did that and it’s been working out really well. The problem with dance-music live is that a lot of it is done really, really badly. We wanted to get in there and make sure that it was going to work and be the real deal rather than two guys behind a synth. That’s not real.
In 2004, you said, “I’m not interested in becoming Fatboy Slim…I might be interested in the money he makes, but that’s because I just got married. Mine is a wonderful job and I do it because I love it.” Has this changed or do you still feel this way?
I think that’s pretty fair, isn’t it? [Laughs] Yeah, I think exactly that, really. I wouldn’t mind doing a few parties on the beach…that would be quite nice [laughs].
You’re well-known for your remixes. Are there times when you hear a track on the radio and think, “Man, I have to remix that!”?
Yeah, but more and more it’s old tracks now. I’d love to do the Arctic Monkeys, a band like that. I’m enjoying doing the rock stuff. I just remixed a band from China and a band from Germany. Doing the proper rock remixes is really fun and that’s really where I’m at.
I’m a producer, and I’m sure many of our readers are as well. What’s your studio setup?
It’s pretty straight-forward really. We use a Mac G5 and a [Dave Smith Instruments] Poly Evolver, which is a new analog synth - but it’s great. Pretty much that’s it; it’s all softsynths. We use Logic, and I use Ableton Live in the live show. We use a lot of Reaktor plugins and VST plugins. Then we bring in live musicians to play guitars, basses, and stuff like that. It’s a basic setup, really.
What’s in store for next year?
A new album. We’ve had a massive response to the first album. We Control and the lead track off of it has been used in the new Borat movie trailer. It’s also on a big TV campaign over here [in England]. We’ve barely finished the album and four tracks have been used for CSI: Miami for the new series. We’ve also been asked to have a go at the theme for the new Transformers movie, so we’ll give it a go and see what they think. Hopefully they’ll use it!
You’ve been in breaks quite a while. Where do you think breaks is going for 2007?
I think that it’s getting - I don’t want to say dying off, but I think the music is getting a bit played-out from here. I mean I still love it and there are good tracks out there, but…
This tangent I’ve gone off of on my own is what’s exciting me at the minute, and I’m putting different angles into it. I think there are too many “house-y” breaks out there; very unmemorable, very three o’clock in the morning “drug me” music. This is fine, but I like music with a bit of punch, and that’s what my tangent has been on. [Breaks] still has a lot to offer, it’s just that it has to go back to its roots a little bit. Also, the big electro-house thing…a lot of attention has gone on to that now. Breaks is going to fight back though - I’m sure of it.
Please visit www.djhyper.com for more info.
