Music:
Member Since: 10/17/2006
Band Website: www.bobbyandsteve.net"bobbyandsteve.net
Band Members: Defected Interview 2006
Q. So how did you two meet then? Bobby: I met Steve actually in a maternity room when my Mum gave birth to us to be honest with you because we are actually twins, this is going back to around 1963 the room was painted all white and I came out and turned round and my brother came out 5 minutes later.
Steve: Bobby was the first person I saw on this planet they call earth.
Bobby: That’s how we met baby, 18th November 1963 at Hackney Hospital East London
Q. So what’s the difference between your personalities then? Steve: I’m more laid back, the cooler, sophisticated one. Bobby: I’m more of a rough streetwise, don’t get in my face attitude you know, no its all good, were basically parallel to what is going on with us you know, we are the divinity of twins you know everything about us is identical.
Q. Can you describe abit about the musical landscape that you grew up and tell me what your parents were listening to? Bobby: Our Father was into Jim Reeves, Johnny Nash all that sort of thing and also Elvis, to be honest the first album I ever got was a double Elvis Presley collection which I still have today and this was like 1972 and so its pretty crazy, but we didn’t really adopt any of our parents musical knowledge back then or adapt to it or take it on board, its more about our older sisters, we have older sisters and one introduced us to reggae, to disco, so basically that’s where it’s all come from
Q. Is anyone else in your family musical? Steve: Everyone really loves music, no-one really plays, bobby's daughter plays a few instruments, and I’m sure he will elaborate on that question in a minute, but all the boys and all the sisters, 8 kids in our family, we all love music but were the only ones doing it professionally.
Q. Do you want to tell us about your daughter? Bobby: Yeah basically our brothers and sisters were never musically taught or anything but my daughter is 13 years old and on grade 4 piano now and she can do everything there is to do, she’s my little keyboard session player now.
Q. So what did you two really want to be when you grew up? Steve: Footballers to be honest, yeah we were signed to orient when we were about 11 years old, this is when the F.A first started up the professional youth teams, and we were 10 when they signed us and that was 1975 we were signed to Orient until we were 15 years old, we had this dream of getting an apprenticeship but we were pretty short back then and we haven’t really grown very much since then, and the reason why Orient never signed us is because they took us in the office in 1978 and said you haven’t grown, so that was that, so we were destined to be, or should I say wanted to be, footballers but that didn’t happen, we left school in 1980, I’m a qualified gas service engineer by trade (Bobby) - and I was always in sales (Steve).
Q. Do your parents still want you to get a proper job? Steve: No my missus does! No our parents have always been very supportive and very proud of us since our downfall in our football career happened, they just sort of let us loose to do what we want to do basically and it was good, we had a great upbringing by our parents.
Bobby: I would say no to that basically, my wife wants me to get a proper job, she cant take me being away all the weekends and being travelling and everything else but its all good. But our parents have been very supportive over the years especially when our football career didn’t take off in the mid 70’s, I would say they really understand us now making money by playing music but in the beginning it was hard.
Q. Where did you play your first gigs and where did you learn your craft? Bobby: We actually started in a bar, in Simpson’s, in Forest Gate East London, we used to drink in there when we left school in 1980 and all the gang used to be up there on a Friday night. We got to know the manager called Jim from Leeds, he took over the venue and we approached him one night and said “I think you need a dj in hereâ€, (late 1983/1984). Two weeks later he came up to us and said you know what guys you got the job, we said what do you mean? He said your djing, so we thought ok cool we had records at home we hired a citronic mixer, we had 1200’s back in the day then, we got some photocopied black and white promotional flyers done and we rammed it. We became djs and promoters on the same night.
Q. Can you tell us about what it was like at that time with the vibes in the bars and the clubs and what was happening? Bobby: The vibe back in 84/85 was very exciting because it was mainly house party’s, the clubs were good but you would do this thing called Blues where you would go into derelict houses and that’s where the whole party vibe would be. It was exciting not knowing whether or not the police were going to come and shut you down, you know. The whole illegal concept was normal and getting away with it was even more of a buzz. Everyone who came knew it was an illegal party.
Q. So how do you think it’s all changed now with clubbing and djing being much different today? Bobby: Now the whole scene as far as we are concerned is more business orientated, we still love what we do, its our jobs. We’ve been doing it full time since 1990, everything now is business orientated, which isn’t a bad thing, as things do have to evolve, to get better back in the day then people had there 9 to 5 jobs doing it as a part time thing, its gone on it’s a business now and if you don’t treat it like a business you better go get yourself a 9 to 5 job basically………
Q. Do you think it less fun now? Steve: Not for us, it’s so much fun it untrue, I mean one of the good things about it is that we are twins and we are always flying away together doing our thing, the other advantage for us as well is that we are promoters as well so we have our hardcore crowd especially in the uk our regular crowd throughout the years and know what there going to get when they come to our parties so we know what were going to get when we open the doors to our customers as well for our parties so we still have that fun element there like the first night that we started.
Q. What it like the first night that you started at Garage City? Bobby: Wow, it was a new time then for the whole of London I would say because Kiss FM just launched then as well back in 1990 and we started Garage City 8 months later and at that time it was a whole new thing for London club land. It was very important to us and we still are holding the longest running soulful club night.
Q. How long has Garage City being going for? Bobby: Garage City has been going for 15 years.
Q. Would you agree that nobody could touch you party wise with Garage City being the longest running soulful house night? Steve: We could definitely say that as that’s one thing we are very proud of with us starting a weekly night back in '91. It is the number one party to be at.
Q. How would you describe the music policy of Garage City as it’s not just soulful is it? Steve: No it’s not just soulful, with the way the music is now there are more producers making a deeper sound and a groove which is all good as long as you have got that vibe and it’s soulful we will play it.
Q. Who were your main guest dj’s when Garage City first started? Bobby: Tony Humphreys, Roger Sanchez, generally who’s who of house, even Derrick Carter who plays a very different style of House now, used to play for us back in the day.
Q. Can you tell me about any specific amazing moments that you can remember at Garage City? Steve: 15 years is a long time, we have had so many great memories that it’s hard to highlight one particular moment. Back in 92 we had Ten City come down to the Podium (where we used to hold Garage City) and these guys came down and blew the roof off at the time and I will always remember that moment.
Q. Do you think that there is a stereotype view of Funky House music in the UK at the moment? Bobby: Yeah I mean what is Funky House music?! The media keep changing the names all the time to suit whats going on. The crowd are being misled by what is Funky House some people think it’s 132 bpm, people play Soulful House and it’s still Funky House so I don’t know what Funky House music is to be honest!
Q.How would you describe the sound of the Connected 15th Anniversary compilation? Steve: You cant capture the whole 15 years on one compilation but we tried to take some of the tracks throughout the years that we thought have been great hits at our party’s and we believe that something for everyone on there, its 70 percent old and then we’ve come right up to current up to date tracks. There is an special Earl Young drum mix plus Ten City – “Where do we go from here†There is a Kym Mazelle 1988 track from Marshall Jefferson called ‘Im a lover†few re-edits on there Linda Clifford there’s a bit for everyone on there.
Q. What’s the difference between the two mixes? Steve: Well C.D. one starts off in that true 1991 Steve Silk Hurley party sort of vibe where Garage City sort of started then it moves along to disco in the middle and towards the end of cd one were playing with the mass order - lift every voice, the original demo mix which was massive back in the day for garage city and then CD 2 starts off in that same vibe but then after track 3 it just goes bang into whats happening and whats current now and we sort of take it down towards the end of CD 2.
Q. Do you think you have reached a peak in your career? And where will you be in ten years time? Bobby: Personally I think we have just started, with all the knowledge we have learned over the past 24 years doing this in the industry now we are going to take that to go to the next 20 years, so we’ve just started, it’s still very exciting and very new for us and we have a long way to go yet.
Record Label: Zoo Groove Stereo
Type of Label: Indie
