Interview: Friction

Pete Tong once called him the “big dog” of drum n bass, and rightly so considering the man I was about to chat to has not only had year on year success as a DJ/producer since the tender age of 15, but has built from scratch and ran for the past four years the drum n bass empire that is the Shogun Audio Label.

After a couple of tries I finally got through to the busy man himself. It was no wonder then that DJ Friction could only stop to chat while on his frantic commute to the studio, but to my surprise the softly spoken Brighton accent on the line did not express a trace of the arrogance or pomposity that I was beginning to anticipate. Instead, Friction articulated his love for his profession, his son and the Manchester crowd, recalled with nostalgia the days of old-skool raves in Brighton and spoke with amazement of the years when he nearly gave it all up.

Before he was “Friction” he was “Kinnetix,” and before he was “Kinnetix” he was Ed Keeley. Keeley was a 15-year-old Brighton born and raised, self-confessed wheeler and dealer who was so baby-faced as a teen that his passion had to be based upon tape-packs of old-skool and jungle rather than actual club nights, because he was often turned away. Regardless, Friction passed mixtapes around at school, organized raves and set up a south-coast rave fanzine that was admittedly “nothing spectacular”, but did facilitate him meeting heavy names such as Stakka, K-TEE and Status from the huge Renegade Hardware Label.

Little did Friction know at the time that these DJs would go on to be his mentors. “Stakka especially, he showed me the ropes in the studio. He showed me how to make tunes, which helped me as an up and coming DJ. And obviously I had a release on his Label, “Under Fire” and I had releases on TOV and Renegade Hardware which at the time were massive, massive labels.”

Like a lot of boys aged 15, Friction was passionate about music, but to be still “doing the dream” with relentless success nearly a decade later takes a persistence some others never achieve. “I’ve always had a drive, always been like I’ve got to keep going, keep going, and just try and do as well as possible in whatever I do basically.” It would be easy to buy the story that Friction had a natural ascent to success, built upon teenage dreams and good connections, but it wasn’t that simple.

With a different tone in his voice he spoke of the years when he “nearly gave it all up.” In 1997, to support his girlfriend and new born son he traded his love for DJing with car sales. After two years of monotony for the sake of a wage, Friction returned to his first love and decided “to have a proper go at it again.” After his debut “Photon” in ’99, other classic releases followed on infamous labels such as Valve, True Playaz and Renegade Hardware. It soon became apparent that Frictions return to the DnB scene was for the best and in 2002 he won “Best World Newcomer” at Drum n Bass Arena Awards.

So fifteen years on from where it all began, and nearly a decade into his official career, the scene has definitely changed. At the birth of jungle, old-skool and drum n bass in the ‘90s, other urban sub-genres such as breakbeat, garage and dubstep inevitably stemmed from its success. Although a drum n bass night is never too hard to find, these sub-genres are hastily increasing in popularity, and I was eager to know what a respected voice on the DnB scene had to say about it. “These things come in cycles, other new genres pop-up, and it’s all good, but drum n bass has always been here to stay. There have been times when there wasn’t any good music around, which has happened even with DnB as well. But you have to take these kinds of things as a positive. I listen to everything, I mean I like electro, dubstep, RnB. But the thing with drum n bass is that it’s got so many kinds of different elements to it. I think people can get inspired and get into it who come from lots of different sorts of backgrounds. People who like hiphop like it, and even people who like techno like it. People from all kinds of different scenes can get into it, so I think what ever happens it’s here to stay.”

Frictions’ roots of musical inspiration began in Manchester. Even though it was all about the tapepacks in the early days, his first vinyl purchased was by the Manchester Old-skool act N-JOY. “I love Manchester! Manchester’s always a gig I look forward to, definitely. I always feel a lot of love when I come up.” Ironic really, that at the time of purchase in 1993 Ed Keeley would have been oblivious to what the future would hold and that fifteen years later he would be a name with weight playing to a steaming crowd in the “Metropolis” night at Manchesters’ new cult venue, Paradise Factory.

“I always play to Metropolis shows. I’ve done some amazing things through them like at the Warehouse Project.” Even with such a prosperous track record in urban music, the end is most definitely not in sight. Friction hopes to write an album this year with old friend and former mentor K-TEE, in addition to experimenting with new genres. And evidently, even with time the will and drive remains unstoppable, “I want my label to be at the top, I want myself to be at the top. I never want to give up, just always keep going.”