An Interview With… Alax Shields
Written by Holly Eells | Friday, December 19, 2008 |
Alax Shields isn’t you average DJ. Being one half of the phenomenon set Tapedeck remixing the likes of Kate Nash, The Klaxons and many more to date, he can’t go wrong.
But we are not here to talk about Tapedeck we are here to discuss all the other sneaky projects up his sleeve, including his new band, new label and hoping to collaborate with the one the only Lil Wayne.
I manage to catch some time with the multi tasked genesis backstage after his gig ‘A Grave With No Name‘ at Clockwork in Angel.
Hey Alax
How are you? Great gig really enjoyed it
Thank You, So did I.
Sooo, let’s begin. Don’t you think you’re sound has a MGMT vibe going on?
Cough cough , they are not like an influence as our songs were written before they came out. However you feed in everything you don’t like when you are writing music, even if its structure backing vocals of a production. I’m always listening to music so everything I hear is going to feed in to my work.
Does Grunge Punk some it up?
When Anupa (guitarist in “A grave with no Name”) and I were in school we used to listen to Nirvana, Lemon heads and things like that really. So this has obviously influenced the music we are playing now crossing with our electronic stuff too.
But how did you get into Tapedeck?
Weird story really, Seb’s friend at Uni started putting a night on In London and she was working at the NME at the time. She asked us to DJ and there was such a good line up, with many people turning up. We just grew from there really, playing all the stuff we used to listen too.
What are you hoping to achieve from Meal Deal Records?
I Think we have had the idea for a year now, actually been releasing records for 6 months now. As I said we are pushing out music to what I’m feeding out now. DJ sets, bands like Place To Bury Strangers which sound like my bloody valentine, Jesus Mary Chain. Then to A1 Bassline that is UK Garage, its great as we are putting stuff out we like and not just sticking to one thing.
That’s great; its sums up the question I was going to ask now, are you looking for anyone in particular at the moment?
Obviously if you put out a UK Garage track, you are not likely to release another one straight away. Our first realise was Lillica Libertine an electro artists then followed by a Place To Bury Strangers who are the completely opposite. They all share creativity and that’s all that matters really.
For Tapedeck, what’s your favourite venue you have played at?
Erm, we played the last CDK Festival, we fluked out. Was a very hot day on a garden terrace in front of 2,000 people as everyone wanted to be inside this open terrace. All our friends were there too, was really cool.
What was your favourite collaboration or who do you want to work with?
We are turning a lot of mixes down at the moment, because if you don’t have a connection with who you are working with the remixes are really hard. We have done some in the past, and it’s really difficult.
Can you say who?
No, I can’t, they won’t be happy.
To be honest, I would love to do a big star, like Lil Wayne or T.I. That would be F*king amazing!!
The typical boring question, why are you called ‘Tape Deck’?
Literally, I was walking down the road desperately trying to think of a name. Plus I used to have this chain with a TapeDeck on it and I lost it when I went to ATP, left it in the shale!!! Forever Gone :( So that’s where it came from!!
How about ‘A Grave With No Name’?
My friend Jen is really into Emo, and when I put my songs on to MySpace which I recorded them all on my own in my bedroom, I thought I would put a couple up and stop tinkering around with them. Jen is into all these bands like. As I Lay dying and stuff like that, and I thought I was going to come up with a equally Emo name. It has stuck since then really.
The remix of all time?
Klaxons was the first one we ever did, was about three ago. I don’t think the whole UK garage was about as much then, was a new fresh idea. It was great to work on something that is brand new at the time.
Thanks Alex for you time!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment