Zed’s Dead: Hip hop was the starting point

Hip hop and its sample-gobbling style has had an effect on much of the music today, including none less than Canadian duo, Zed’s Dead. Amongst a brief debate about the best in hip hop longplayers, we talked about backward flushing toilets and their new ‘Adrenaline EP’ whilst they were out on tour in Australia.

So how’s Australia been treating you?

Pretty well. Our shows have been awesome. We played in Sydney, Canberra, Perth and Melbourne. It was all good turnouts, the crowds were crazy.

What are you guys up to tonight?

DC: We’re just watching the toilets flush backwards. It’s a show in itself. We tried it today for the first time because we had a toilet that actually flushed properly and it went backwards, so it was amazing. The rumours are true.

So how did you guys meet?

Hooks: We were both playing guitar and piano, dabbling a little bit and jamming with friends and stuff. DC started making beats a little bit before me, then I started and got a new computer, GarageBand and also started taking guitar lessons and stuff like that. We use Fruity Loops and Ableton at the moment.

DC: You’ve got to trust in Fruity Loops.

Hooks: It’s the program that started dubstep when Skream used it on his first album. The default setting when you start it up at 140BPM; it was influential.

I’ve read that you guys were into your old school hip hop?

DC: Stuff like Q Tip, Pete Rock and Preemo, east coast kind of stuff. Hip hop was the starting point and it’s just been one big musical journey where hip hop was there and then, I guess even before that was rock and stuff. Then we moved through hip hop and house, electro house and into dubstep. Now we’re even moving into other sub-genres of electronic music and then full circle back into hip hop. A lot of people know us for our dubstep stuff and I guess it’s what got us big.

Hooks: I think you can still hear the hip hop coming through in our dubstep. It adds more of an atmosphere to things, you know, throwing in samples of people saying things, the drums etc.

So what would you say is your favourite hip hop album of all time?

DC: We used to talk a lot back in the day about top fives and things like that, but it’s hard to me choose just the one. For me, it would probably be either ‘Ready to Die’ (Notorious B.I.G) or ‘Illmatic’ (Nas).

Hooks: Mine would probably be ‘Reasonable Doubt’ (Jay Z) and an Eminem album. Yeah, maybe like the ‘Slim Shady LP’ or the ‘Marshall Mathers LP’. They’re both stellar.

What was the idea behind your new set of tracks, ‘Adrenaline EP’?

DC: It was sort of like going back to the roots of dubstep. We’d spread ourselves around before this one. Our release before that was electro house and then before that we did a dancehall, drum & bass do and then a weird breakbeat tune. I think with this last EP we just had a collection of dubstep tracks and we were just like ‘lets make this a real dubstep-orientated EP’.

Hooks: I think a lot of them were directed toward the club. ‘Adrenaline’ is a track meant to be a club banger. From being on tour, those feelings come into your production sometimes, you know, something to make people dance. ‘Hit Me’ is more like garage, but still on that dance sort of thing. I’d say it’s definitely more catered to playing out.

One of my personal highlights is most definitely ‘Hit Me’ and as you say it’s pretty garage-orientated. What kind of music were you listening to around the time you were producing the tracks?

DC: We were on tour a lot and most of the stuff we were hearing was upbeat and heavy stuff.

Hooks: I think that tune in particular has a massive UK influence for sure. Like Zinc or Redlight. Those sort of people and I don’t know whether that comes across that much, but that was definitely what we were aiming for.

Outside of music, what do you guys do to chill out?

DC: Zack (Hooks) likes to surf hazardous porn websites. One fried his computer the other day.

Hooks: No, just watch movies and TV shows.

DC: We hardly ever have any free time any more because we’re always touring so the best thing, I guess, is eating and drinking in cool places and meeting cool people. My one hobby is snowboarding, but I hardly get to do that any more.

Hooks: I do graffiti as well when I get the chance, but that doesn’t really happen that much any more.

Where are you guys travelling to next?

DC: I think we want to hit up Europe. We’re going back to North America and running through the whole thing again, mainly Canada and America, but we’d like to get out to Europe. We’ve been to the UK and Belgium, but nowhere aside from that. We’ve travelled, but never really played shows in places like France, Italy etc.

Hooks: We need to do a show in Antarctica with all the penguins that are holding the eggs for the females.

What have you guys got planned for after the EP?

DC: Next up, we’ve been working a lot with Omar Linx and we just recorded a full EP and another mixtape that we’re gonna give away for free. We’re just trying to find a label to put it out with. Then, we’ve got another tour called the ‘Living Dead Tour’ with support from Araabmuzik, Memorecks, XI, Knight Riderz, Omar Linx and Mat The Alien. 80 days; it’s gonna be friggin’ hectic!

Zeds Dead – Hit Me by zedsdead

You can pick up Zed Dead’s latest EP Adrenaline is out now.

Also, be sure to follow the Touching Bass Soundcloud page for exclusive mixes, tunes and free downloads.

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