Having earned more success in his teenaged years than most DJ/producers do in their entire careers, the inimitable Crissy Criss
While growing up as drum & bass royalty has no doubt laid a firm foundation for his success, Crissy fills us in on the hard work behind the glitz and glamour as well as the ways in which Knowledge Mag played a vital role in the early stages of his career.
As if that wasn’t enough, Crissy drops an exclusive mix on Kmag readers, if only to secure his reputation as the hardest working man in d&b.
It's been a huge year for you as you keep moving from success to success - frankly, I wonder how you keep it all together? You're producing, DJing, touring, running a 4-hour show on BBC 1Xtra, what's your secret to success and when do you sleep?
Sleep? I keep it all together? Really? Haha, as probably any DJ/Producer will know and tell you, we are all struggling to keep it together! I don’t want to say it’s a ‘hard life’ because this is my dream job and I'm blessed to be making a living out of what I do, but there are elements of my job that I would say are not enjoyable, such as traveling, the whole section between point A and point B, time travel technology needs to hurry the fuck up!
'Keeping it all together' I think consists of being in-control of yourself, being organised, loving what you do, having the hunger/vision of what a finished project can be like and probably most of all being happy like Pharrell. My week consists mostly of sitting in front of a few screens pressing buttons, working on music, doing a bit of admin, sending emails, listening to music I’ve been sent all within ’normal working hours’ although you do usually get the odd couple nights with no sleep to get a project finished.
Most of Tuesday is spent sorting out Wednesday’s 1Xtra Show; Wednesdays are spent in meetings, working on more music and obviously broadcasting the show; Thursday is more or less listening to more music and getting music ready for the weekend’s gigs and more studio work and then Friday and Saturday are spent with the missus, family (if I’m not abroad) and obviously gigging at night.
Before we get into this killer EP for Technique that you've just released let's take a step back to the beginnings. With Kenny Ken as your stepdad, I'm imagining you've had a childhood a bit different from the rest of us in terms of musical influences and when you were exposed to drum & bass, yeah? Talk a bit about coming up and what your exposure to DJing/producing/music culture was like.
Yeah I would say I was very open to a lot of music from a very young age, even before I knew about DJing, I just loved music as probably anyone would. I was force-fed Hardcore, Jungle, Techno, and Acid House by Kenny from the
I also grew up around a lot of grime when it first kicked off; my whole school was basically in to it! So I had no choice really other than to get involved, I started making it as well, I would bring new grime/hip hop tunes on a portable CD player every day I had made the previous day getting home from school for my mates to MC over at lunch time! I was the producer king in school! ha-ha.
Me and friends made a crew and used to record sets at my house on a Friday after school, I used to make them go buy the Grime records because I refused to pay £8 for a one-sided track that consisted of bass and a clap and a gunshot
Now you're not old by any means but it seems absolutely astounding to me to realize exactly how young you were when you first started out. Tell me if I've got this right - you were on the decks at 5 years old, taught yourself how to mix at age 9, and then your first gig was at 10!? Most people won't believe it so let's hear it from your mouth.
That’s more or less how it went; Kenny put me on the decks just to take a picture (as you would) when I was 5 years old. I had no clue what I was doing, it was just a pose, but I guess from that point on something in me wanted do it again. For years I would sneak in to Kenny’s studio and just press play/stop on the deck and mess about with the faders as if I was doing something right. I broke quite a few needles and nicked some records I loved, but once he noticed I was banned going in there.
The next step was for me to get my own pair of decks and while Kenny, DJ Rap, and GSquad showed me the basics of mixing, I just took that information and ran with it. Kenny and Rap used to sort me out with records they didn’t want or had doubles of and once I finally got a pair of decks for my birthday none of my friends on the outside world saw me again.
From the time I got home from school I was on them decks until my mum told me I had to go to bed. I would make mix tape after mix tape and steal Kenny’s dub plates while he was out, but again... he noticed and I was in the dog house.
As for my first gig, there was a Festival I went to in Essex along with Kenny and my mum when I was about 10. Kenny was obviously playing there along with Andy C, Mickey Finn and a load more, but there was some complications with getting paid because basically hardly any tickets were sold so everyone refused to play blah blah blah, so I stepped in and said ‘I’ll play! I’ll play!’ and Kenny was like ‘Yeah?! Go on then, here’s my records’ so they took me to the stage and I got on the decks and dropped the biggest clang and the rest is history!
Things start moving fairly quickly for you from here. How’d you link up with the Kool FM crew?
It’s about 1998 at this point I’m just making mix tape after mix tape and being a normal 10/11 year old kid. At the time my Mum was running a DJ/Artists agency called ’Ton Promotions’ handling bookings for Kenny, Nicky Blackmarket, Stevie Hyper D, Ratpack, Rap, etc. etc. Kenny’s brother Stingray (my uncle) was also working in the office at the time said to me, ‘Why don’t you send a mix to Eastman at Kool FM and see if you can get a set on there?'.
So I sent a tape in and a couple weeks later I got a call from Kenny on a Sunday morning while I was at a friend’s house. I thought I was in trouble but instead it Kenny told me, ‘Eastman wants you to come and play a set tonight on Kool FM are you ready?’ Hell yes! Straight away the excitement and nerves kicked in! So, I went straight home sorted out all my records, even got cheeky and nicked a few of Kenny’s dub plates.
My Mum took me to meet Eastman somewhere in Hackney for him to take me to the studio somewhere in Dalston, this was also the first time I had met Dan (Logan D) who I was going to do a back2back with on the set and also the first time I met IC3 and Riddla who were MCing. After the first set on Kool FM, I was hassling Eastman nonstop every couple of days to see when I could come back on and play again (he must of really got pissed off with me calling haha!). I then got given a weekly show with Logan D and started to build my name from there.
It’s hard to believe you were still only 11 years old! Within the same year you were playing your first proper club session at The End in London, yeah? How’d that come about?
DJ Hype was a regular face at home, he used to pop round from time to time with the infamous Snoop! So I always bugged him for some promos when I could and even asked him to teach me how to scratch (he never did). So I think I phoned up or my mum phoned up Playaz to see if they had any promos in the office they could give me.
Eventually we went round to Zinc’s house for Kenny to pick up some DATs to cut at Music House and Zinc hooked me up with some promos and I gave him a mix tape I’d done. Couple months down the line, Zinc requested me to warm up at The End alongside himself, Bad Company, Andy C, Mampi Swift and more. My mum took me down to the club and after the bouncers finally let me in I played from 9-10 pm and it was the best feeling ever.
From what I understand you were also experimenting with production around this time as well. Tell us about your early experiences in the studio. What kind of hardware/software were you using?
I started out on the PlayStation with a game called ‘Music’ which I’m sure a lot of people heard of. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing but that platform made it very easy to understand and use at the time. I used that until ‘Music 2000’ came out and from then it was over! You couldn’t get me off it! I finally got the PC version which is when I started to learn a lot more about production.
At this point I was just OBSESSED with the 'Amen Break' – I didn’t know what breaks even were so I remember trying everything in my power to recreate it but I couldn’t do it until I asked Kenny, ‘How do you make this beat?’ and he told me it was a sample called the ‘Amen Break’. Within an hour I had every version of the ‘Amen’ I could find – haha!
I would go and sit in the studio with Kenny and just watch what he was doing and ask question after question: how/what/where/why… I started to get in the studio and use it when he wasn’t in there, teaching myself new things on Cubase and rest was just trial and error really. I later moved on to Reason as it had everything needed from a studio to make music and I’ve basically never used anything else since!
When does BBC 1Xtra enter the picture? I imagine a lot of readers have no idea how you end up as a radio/producer of a show like that so give us a sense of what kind of bureaucracy and application process you have to go through to get linked in to something like that. I imagine it's a bit of a different set-up than Kool FM.
Once upon a time I had an interview in this amazing magazine called Knowledge Mag somewhere around the mid-2000’s if I can remember correctly. It was a section called ‘The Leaders of Nu Skool’ and it featured myself, Sub Focus, Chase & Status, Crystal Clear and a few more all on the rise. Charlotte Coker (a producer at Kiss FM) who was working at ‘Somethin’ Else + Radio 1’ at the time, noticed the feature on myself and got in contact about a brand new show that they were working on for BBC Radio 1.
The first time she called me I put the phone down as I thought someone was pranking me and talking shit. She rang once again, I ignored it then thankfully she rang again and I finally answered and listened to what she had to say and realised that this was no joke haha!
I never thought of myself as a professional radio broadcaster as I had been on Kool FM every weekend playing music and prank-calling Currys and Pizza Hut live on air for fun. I finally hooked up with Charlotte; we had a meeting and recorded a few pilot shows to see how I would cope with doing a broadcastable show. It wasn’t a guaranteed job but from a young age, being a Radio 1 DJ was like the biggest thing and something I dreamt of being so as you could probably tell it was unreal to me, and still to this day I’m pinching myself.
Charlotte finally got back to me and gave me the news that Radio 1 would be taking me on and putting me on their new show ’The Residency' championed by Pete Tong and broadcasted after the world famous ‘Essential Mix.’ I did one show a month on rotation with some of the biggest DJs out there such as Nic Fanciulli, Eddie Halliwell, and Kutski.
Myself and Kutski managed to survive the longest on show roster that was originally to be refreshed every 6 months with new DJs. The show then changed its name to ‘In New DJs We Trust’ bringing on people like Professor Green, Plastician, Tayo and more. I did the Radio 1 shows for about 3 years or so when 1Xtra came along offered me my own weekly drum & bass show, the show I’ve been doing ever since...
You've quickly made a name for yourself with the show and are recognized not only for your impeccable taste in music but your willingness and desire to keep moving the scene forward and exposing the masses to quality bass music of all flavors. Part of this can be seen not only in your own productions under your Crissy Criss and DeadExit projects, but also for your 2012 radio documentary, 'The Story of the Amen Break.' Talk a bit about how you see all of these coming together for you and how you envision your role in the scene. I can't imagine it's just another job for you.
Thank you for your kind words! Yeah the whole thing has just evolved from one thing to another and is all a reflection of me and what’s in my head. I’ve been given some great opportunities and platforms to play the music I deeply love – it’s an absolute dream. With the younger generation coming through, not a lot of people know where the music comes from or even know about the 'Amen Break’ which obviously influenced me a lot, so it’s only right I do things like these project/documentaries that educate the next Crissy Criss or Andy C or Chase & Status. But yeah, at the end of it all I’d like to be known as ’that guy’ who helped artists and the scene.
Speaking of which, let's get into this Trinity EP for Technique. It's pure dirty dancefloor vibes from top to bottom - talk a bit about linking up with the Technique crew and how this EP came together. Also give us a sense of how long it took to get these together since you're busy on so many fronts.
I’ve been putting out tracks with Technique for a good couple of years now; they put out the ‘Give You The World’ album plus a bunch of EPs. Drumsound & Bassline Smith have been good friends for a long time and they are in a great place in the scene and so I know when I release something with them it’s not half-hearted. 'Rinsin Selection’ sat on my hard drive for nearly 2 years I’m guessing. I started to play out it recently and saw it got a good reaction so I thought, ‘Hmm, maybe I should make some more tunes!’ I also re-did a track called ‘SuperStar’ featuring Youngman that I updated and called ’Superstars.’
DeadExit makes an appearance on the EP with the rework of 'Let Go.' Fill us in on this alter ego side of your work and how you see dubstep, trap, and d&b influences all coming together in your overall sound and vibe that this EP seems to capture so well.
From the very beginning, when I first started to make music, I’ve always experimented with making different genres other than drum & bass. So producing/remixing under a different name in another genre is quite refreshing sometimes when your life consists of constantly working with same BPM day in day out (that’s not a complaint).
These days anything really electronic will work on the dance floor and it’s good to see people have more tastes in other genres than ever before. It’s definitely opened other avenues for producers to explore in the studio, like what TC is doing with drum & bass and trap.
Looking ahead, what other sort of projects do you have lined up that we should be looking out for?
The first thing is to look out for more production. Under the ‘DeadExit’ moniker we just had a track released on Circus Records called ‘Love Me’ and also just signed another track to Circus called ’Soundboy Killer’ which will be coming out soon. We’ve also got a track called ’Snake’ that has been causing a storm so hopefully that will be dropping soon along with a truckload of remixes and a couple DeadExit EPs.
Other than that I’ve got Trinity Vol. 2 + Vol. 3 lined up and nearly ready! Also I’ve got a folder of things I’ve put together for a project but who knows when and what will happen with that ‘folder’ haha! I’ve also got another folder of hip-hop tracks I did years ago and a few recently that I plan to get round to finishing. Eventually I would like to put out a free album featuring some great lyricists, so watch this space.
I’ve also got some great music coming on my label TheZoooo from Callide & Intraspekt, Locuzzed, and a few more. On the documentary side of things I’ve got a few ideas but getting the time to do them at the moment is hard as quite a lot work is required to making them but obviously for now check out the show every Wednesday night from 10pm for the freshest drum & bass on the planet on BBC Radio 1Xtra.
Speaking of which, I better finish this bloody interview and get to work to back all up all this talk... enjoy the mix!
Words: Chris Muniz
Download Crissy Criss’ exclusive guest mix here
Tracklisting
Pendulum - Another Planet
Sub Focus - Turn Back Time (Metrik Remix)
Original Sin - Stronger
Knife Party - LRAD (The Prototypes Remix)
Loadstar - Under Pressure
Mampi Swift - Untitled
Fourward - Countdown
TC - Where’s My Money
Original Sin - Screamers
Bad Company - Pulse
Dimension - Crowd Reaction VIP
Cyantific - Hard Times
D Bridge - True Romance VIP
Technimatic - Not Far To Go
Legion & Logam - Warehouse
Loadstar - Stepped Outside
Original Sin - Promise Me
Cyantific - Infinity Plus 1
Logistics - Warehouse
Chase & Status - Count on Me (Andy C Remix)
Sub Focus - Airplane
Chase & Status - Blind Faith (Loadstar Remix)
MC Fats & A-Sides - Dreaming (Serum & Bladerunner Remix)
Fred V & Grafix - Maverick Souls
Original Sin - Running Man
Wilkinson - Too Close VIP
The Prototypes - Lights
Delta Heavy - Apollo
Original Sin - Borg
Spor - Kingdom
Callide & Intraspekt - Stone Cold
Fourward - Phase Align
Capone - Ill Be Your
Bladerunner - I Need You
Kove - Searching
Cause4Concern - Hammerhouse (InsideInfo Remix)
J Majik vs Hatiras - Spaced Invader
Kasra & Enei - Breath
A.I. - War Horse
Mampi Swift - Gangster
L Plus - Everyone
Cyantific - Ice Cream (Vanilla Mix)
Delta Heavy - The World Is Yours
Break & DLR - New Design
Hive - Neo (Audio Remix)
Rene LaVice - I Want More
Mefjus - Dissuade
InsideInfo - Being
Ram Trilogy - Screamer VIP
Dayni - Extinction
Rene LaVice - Absolute Monster
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