Beats and style

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Interview : Dj Control from Beats and Style

When and how was your band created?
We're not a real band in the traditional sense. Beats and Styles is a project of two producers / DJs (DJ Alimo and DJ Control). DJ Alimo started promoting underground drum'n'bass events and clubs in Helsinki in the mid-90's. Me (DJ Control) was also playing at these parties and I hooked up with Alimo and started to work in the promotion as well.
In 2000 we started to produce music together, though both of us had been doing it since the early 90's. After releasing some underground 12'' material from UK dance labels, we wanted to get the drum'n'bass sound to the radio airwaves in Finland. So, we did the first drum'n'bass with Finnish vocals on it. We got the whole project signed to BMG Finland and we released it as Alimo&Control. The album got a really good response and a lot of airplay in the radio.

Were is the name of the band coming from?
What happened during the process of making the first Alimo&Control album, we started to include different styles to the drum'n'bass and eventually started to play around with the traditional drum'n'bass format. Eventually the album turned out to something, that you couldn't call drum'n'bass anymore - but not any other music either. A new form of breaking the boundaries was born. We started to call it beats'n'styles.
At the same time as we were doing the debute Alimo&Control album we were also doing a weekly radioshow on Groove FM, a weekly mini-tv show on ATV (Helsinki's local tv network) and a lot of big raves - we called all of these Beats and Styles.
So when we started to do our new album for the international market, we started to think that maybe it would be a good idea to call the band also Beats and Styles!

What musicians or artists did have a major influence in your life / work?
There's too many to list them all, but here's a few: Bob Marley, Afrika Bambaataa, King Tubby, Lee Perry, Marvin Gaye... and about a million others!

What are the positive and negative aspects of being a musician / singer (in Finland)?
Good thing is that it's not so difficult to get your stuff out there and distributed. It's still relatively easy to get in touch with the labels etc.
Bad thing is that because you're from Finland, it's 10 times harder to try to break through internationally than it would be if you were for example from Sweden.

How could you qualify your style of music?
It's eclectic music made to make you dance. It's combining different beats with different styles - varying from dancehall, reggae to hip hop, house and even drum'n'bass.

Have you ever considered the possibilty to change totally your style of music? If so, what style of music would you choose?
With us this question is little bit irrelevant, since we're changing our style every five minutes. We just make music out of inspiration and not thinking too much about the genre we'd have to follow - it's our own music style after all, and we can do whatever we like!

What are stories/topics you tell/treat in your songs?
Our music is quite positive in general, so it's about the beautiful things in life, taking a grip of your life, love between a man and a woman and of course just simple party energy!

What is your favorite song in your repertoire and why?
There's plenty of good stuff, at the moment there's a very good dancehall roller called "Dr. Johnny" with MC Slarta John (Basement Jaxx) and that's a track that I like to play out a lot nowadays.

Do you tour regularly? Do you actually prefer performing your music live or in a studio?
Both sides are good. We're in the studio all the time, making new music, creating new vibes. It's performing when we really get to see the interaction with the people. But I think that in 20 years time I'll still be making music in the studio, but I'm not so sure if I'll still go play out...

During the process of making an album, what is the moment that you prefer? Why?
The best part is definately the part when we get an idea for a new song and we start working it. It's like we're on fire. The best times are when we get the whole thing together really fast and all the blocks just seem to go into the right places automatically - you know, we'll get the idea, make the rhythms, the melodies and the harmonies, get the groove and get some good vocals on it.... even though the song still is going to go through a lot of production, it's still great to hear your idea taking form on the spot.

What kind of music / What artists do you currently listen?
A lot of Soca and reggae. There's actually one french-based artist called Sugar Daddy, who's track "Sweet soca music" is really good...

A stupid question but... what is among all the songs you've been listening in your life the BEST song? Why?
Too many to mention. There's just some songs that give you some emotinal vibes. Usually it's not so much about the song, but also about the memories that I get when I hear it. And I'm not talking about just ballads or anything, it can be a really hard minimalistic drum'n'bass tune as well!

Internet is something interesting for musicians because it gives them the opportunity to touch a larger audience but it is also a threat for them (regarding the copyrights). What is your opinion regarding this medium?
At this moment we're on a transition phase. The future will be that the regular ready CD format is going to suffer very much or even vanish in the future. People will buy the listening right for the music from the internet and download it to some player-applications such a keychain with a memory card etc. So after a few years (5-10) the situation will cool down and the standards should be around.
There will always be certain amount of illegal production etc., but i think that the musicians will (at least on the long run) be abled to get their living out of making music.

What are your actual and future projects?
We're running on two projects: the other is called Beats and Styles - more commercial, more melodic, more vocal stuff and Alimo&Control - more minimalistic and underground housy electro stuff. We'll always be making music...
Interview by Vincent Lefrançois / 2003