On Thursday 3rd July, we headed to the Desperados Verde Twisted Mission to celebrate the launch of Desperados Verde, a unique blend of tequila flavoured beer with a big twist of lime and mint.
Supporting the event was electronic music producer Sub Focus, who performed an unforgettable set on the night. We caught up with the man himself - check it out below:
Sub Focus, great to meet you! Let’s get started with a few warm-up questions to get us going...If you were stuck on a desert island, which one of your tracks would you want playing when you are rescued?Probably ‘Turn Back Time’, from my last album because it just feels like a celebratory kind of track. I’d also probably do a dance, a few cartwheels, all kinds of stuff!
If you were in an apocalypse and you needed a dream team to help you survive, which three people would you choose and why?Bear Grylls and the other guy, what’s he called? Ray Mears! Survival experts are good, so you’d just want those guys really! Oh, and my girlfriend, that would be important! So, yes those three would be good, two survival experts and my girlfriend.
Ok, now for some real questions!You were in a rock band at school, how much does rock influence your music now?Not an awful lot I don’t think. I mean, when I was growing up I listened to an awful lot of rock and when I was about eleven, twelve years old I was super into grunge music, I liked bands like Nirvana. Now, I like a lot of the sounds used in rock but there are not a lot of rock bands recently that have really inspired me. I think from being a really dominant genre in music, it's slightly on the wane at the moment compared to dance music. There are a couple of new groups that are sounding quite cool, like Royal Blood, but yeah I don’t listen to a lot of rock, I pretty much almost totally listen to electronic. I listen to a wide variety of electronic, a full breadth of it.
You used to have quite a cult following in the drum n bass scene but now as you have grown, how do you prepare for larger audiences?In the last five years, I’ve started to make a lot more multi-genre music, I’ve started playing much more varied stuff, not just drum n bass but house music and all kinds of stuff. So, I guess that’s one way it’s different, I have to prepare multi-genre sets now. It’s a lot easier now with the internet to find different music, so that’s another thing, I spend a lot of time online learning about new music and finding different music. A lot of the stuff I find myself playing on my sets, I find on SoundCloud as free downloads and things like that. So I do a lot more searching for music now.
Did you ever fear you would lose that cult drum n bass following?I definitely do worry a bit, but I think it’s good to fight it. I do sometimes think that with some artists they're afraid to lose that following and it kind of inhibits their growth. I definitely want to keep evolving in the stuff I make and I wouldn’t have wanted to make hardcore drum n bass forever, I would have felt like I’m wasting my time. You get some fans who want you to stay the same but it is important not too listen to them too much because you’re the one making the music. Inspire yourself first and hopefully if you like it, other people will too.
What kind of genres would you like to explore more?I’m about to start writing my next album and the music I’ve been enjoying are guys like Flume, so I might delve into that type of music. I’m also really feeling a lot of new drum n bass guys like Stray who are making interesting, new sounding drum n bass. It’s too early to tell really, I just kind of listen to loads of music and then eventually when I start writing the album, I decide what direction I’m going in.
You’ve been touring all of this year, what’s been your highlight so far?I think headlining Brixton Academy is a definite highlight, just because it’s a big milestone for any artist I think to sell out that venue on your own. That, and also a few festivals in America have been really good, I played this venue called Red Rocks which is amazing, like a natural amphitheatre outdoors. My favourite shows are always in kind of big outdoor spaces.
So your upcoming album, out in the autumn, how’s that going? How long does it take to perfect one track?It can take quite some time but the last one I wrote in basically one night. Often the idea comes quickly and you spend a lot of time finessing it so most tracks take 3-6 weeks to perfect. It’s hard to tell though because I never normally write and finish one song, I start writing one and go on to another, so I’ll work on multiple songs and bounce between them all.
Finally, we are here at the Desperados Verde launch, what can we expect from your set tonight?Tonight, I don’t know what to expect from the crowd yet so I’m not sure what I’m going to play, but a real mixture of music, probably some party tunes, some drum n bass and house.
Looking forward to the show!To find out more go to
Facebook.com/Desperados
