*Featured Image Credit: brxvn
This past weekend, I had the amazing opportunity to attend Paradiso 2017 and work with Respect My Region to cover the festival. On Friday, Joey and I got to interview the kingpins of dubstep, Doctor P and Flux Pavilion, who headlined that night at The Wreckage Stage.
RMR Interviews Flux Pavilion and Doctor P
RMR: What made you want to pursue music? Who inspired you?
FP: Definitely Doctor P. I wasn’t really inspired to follow a career in music. I was inspired to write music by hanging out with Shaun. We played in a band, I was like 13 and he was 16. I would go over to his house, and he’d be producing electronic music. I was always like “what is this stuff?” So I was vaguely into music, I then started writing, hanging out with Shaun more. Then I just became more serious about it.
DP: For me, my inspiration was just music that was out there at the time. I was a young teenager in the late 90’s/2000’s. Everything that was going on then was the tail end of the rave scene. Electronic music was getting into the charts for the first time ever. That’s what got me started.
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RMR: Alright, so on top of that, what was the vision you guys wanted initially with Circus records?
DP: I think the thing we wanted to do originally was to just do something a bit different from everyone else. It seemed like the other labels just had the same things. Always predictable. We wanted to make something that felt fresh and different.
FP: I didn’t want to have to answer to anyone. That was always a general vibe for me. I didn’t want to always have to sway someone this way or that way about what I’m doing.
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RMR: So you wanted to be your own boss.
FP: Essentially, yes. Circus Records is kind of like that as an ideal place where artists can have that opportunity, because labels have certainly changed since we’ve started. Labels are about being used as a marketing platform more than anything else now. At the time though, it was the classic “labels stifling creativity”. We were frustrated with that. It gave US an opportunity to give ourselves a platform where we’re not being stifled. That way we can extend it to as far as we want to extend it, to as many people as possible.
Doctor P and Soup (Me)
RMR: You two have worked with an array of artists from different genres and styles of music. Which artists have you had the most fun with while producing?
DP: Dillon Francis was really fun to work with, simply because he is Dillon Francis. He’s just such a positive guy. Everything I send him, he just loves it instantly. The tune just came out organically, it was such an enjoyable time with him.
FP: I’d say, again, working together. Working together is the most fun to me.
DP: I feel like when we work together, we don’t even make music we just talk. *laugh* We spend 10 minutes making music.
FP: There’s this whole mystery of producers, where they go into their “caves”, and they come out with all these amazing sounds. People don’t see everything else. There’s loads of trash in there. Really crappy and weird ideas, off-kilter stuff when you’re sitting down there. If I’m sitting down with Childish Gambino, and we’re making music, I don’t want to just go through the motions with him. A lot of times you connect, and it doesn’t really matter all that much, but you do get nervous, and think to yourself, saying “I don’t want to make a mistake in front of him. I don’t want to make this sound terrible while experimenting” so I play it a bit more safe in that aspect. But when Shaun and I are together I could care less about that. We can be completely creatively free, because we’re friends above just people working together.
I watched this interview with Ninja from Die Antwoord, where he was talking about Kanye West. I liked at the end where he was talking about how he doesn’t like strangers. He doesn’t like people coming in and trying to take from what he’s got. He’d rather just sit with his crew in their little cave. He likes to do his own thing. He doesn’t care about reaching out to other people, because he can be whoever he wants to be. He can make his music however he wants to make it. That’s what music is for us. Our own little world where we don’t have to really be concerned about pleasing everyone. There’s no pressure.
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RMR: Backing up, what is the ratio of music you put out to music you keep in limbo?
DP: It’s hard to put a ratio on it. Sometimes I’ll revisit something from 5 years ago and I’ll end up using like three parts of it. And then other times I’ll release everything I make for a year. Then another year will go by, and I won’t release any of the stuff I make. It just totally depends on what I’m making, and how I feel about everything.
FP: That reminds me of a song we wrote together when we were in a studio in Miami, and it was kind of a weird song. I made this sort of Irish flute jig melody and we both kind of sat there, and were both just like “mm.. no. This doesn’t work. This is too weird.” then like three years later I was like, I’m gonna play this out in my set. That old Idea, I haven’t even touched it. Shaun had the project. It actually went down pretty well, and it kind of gave me a buzz. I don’t believe in “Binning” music. There’s a time and a place for it. It was strange when I wrote it, and it still is strange. We ended up finishing it and releasing it, named it “F*ckers”. We put it out last year but we wrote it in 2012.
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RMR: Doctor P, lets talk about your two most recent songs you’ve put out, “Serious Sound” and “Pizza!” What were your inspirations for those songs?
DP: The last few songs I’ve put out, including the two or three releases before that, I’ve just been trying to put out fun, banging, dubstep tracks with no real deep meaning or cleverness to them. I just went into the studio and had fun with it, and tried finding stuff that actually works. I’ve been working on music that I want to put into my set, basically. I feel like nowadays, people are trying to just make music to put on the radio so they can listen to it at home or in the car. I’m trying to be more of a dancefloor artist. It’s fun to me.
RMR: How has your Around the World in 80 Raves tour been?
FP: I’m on it now, and I believe we’re over halfway through. Including Australia, this, is probably show 50 or 55. We’ve got more shows in Europe, and I believe when I’m finished, we’ll have quite a bit more than 80 shows. You can’t really go anywhere anymore in 80 shows. Especially in America. About 45-46 shows took place in the United States. But overall it’s been great.
You can see where Flux and Doctor P will be playing next by clicking on their names.
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