Fascinated with electronic music from an early age. And later discovering the early Hip-Hop sounds of producers like the Bomb Squad, Rick Rubin, and the Dustbrothers, my musical journey eventually led me to innovative sounds of Drum & Bass. Constantly keeping an open ear for new sounds, I discovered the groundbreaking works of Goldie, Adam F, Photek, and Boymerang back in 1997. It seemed like the perfect blend of all the different types of music I was into: techno, hip-hop and reggae. But this was something new... I'd never heard anything like it. I started driving an hour and half from Santa Barbara to LA to go to the legendary LA dnb weekly, Science. Although I hadn't gone out to clubs much before that, it was obvious that this is how Drum and Bass was meant to be heard! Loud!! Around this same time I met some of the guys from the LA's original Jungle crew, the Junglist Platoon. In late '98 I moved to LA, there was no real scene in Santa Barbara and I was excited to live in a city where there was as much energy as the music I was listening to.
I got into music production in high school. Groups like New Order, Depeche Mode and Nitzer Ebb gave me the bug to learn how to make electronic music. With my friend and production partner Bill Lewis we experimented with making a lot of different styles of electronica. From the Breaks sounding stuff to Down Tempo to Ambient we tried it all, not really ever focusing on one specific genera. So it wasn't until I moved to LA and rented a little space to put my studio gear in that I started focusing on making DnB with the Junglist Platoon. As accomplished DJ's they were also excited about learning to produce Drum & Bass. We put out a couple of our early efforts on our own label Cal-Tek Recordings, "Whirlpool" by Machete & Sense and "Spank" by Clutch & Sense. Later we put out two more singles "Dilemma," under the alias By Design (Sense and No Face) that featured vocals by Harmony. Followed by "Tikal" with "Undercover" also by By Design. More recently Clutch and I released "Dubsick" on one of Oscar Da Grouchs labels, Rid'em. Aside from the guys in the crew I've had a chance to collaborate with a number of artists including Decoder, Silver, Reid Speed, RAW, Harmony, Origin, MC MC and MC Tali.
About half a year after moving to LA, the Platoon along with our friends Justin, Lionel, and me started the Drum & Bass weekly, RESPECT. RESPECT has grown to become the longest running DnB weekly Los Angeles has ever seen, hosting the best local talent along side top DJs from around the world.
