SAYTEK LIVE – THE INTERVIEW

SAYTEK LIVE – THE INTERVIEW

December 22, 2017 Off By Editor

“The best original artist to have broken out in dance music in years, what a talent what a performer what a legend in the making – iconic underground magazine

Mike Mannix:  Nice one Saytek for talking to us at iconic, we have been looking forward to this. So give us the background on your career how did it start?

Saytek: Nice one Mike, I’m from a town outside London call Woking, I was always really heavily into music as a kid as my dad was a hi-fi fan. I was always obsessed with the workings of sound, I was really interested in the way sound worked. From the age of 12, a lot of my mate’s Brothers were ravers so I ended up getting a lot of tapes from Detroit and Chicago, so a lot of acid house and techno. I was really heavily into the ambient sound the KLF ambient stuff the future sound of London it was something completely fresh then I discovered Aphex Twin and I was just hooked. I used to drag my mum around car boot sales picking up old analogue synths and drum machines and got a lot of great gear that way.

MM: So that sparked your imagination and curiosity?

S: Yea man for sure, I was pretty convinced that I wanted to pursue sound engineering and music production from a very young age when I moved up to London I started to do the engineering courses and started to build my own sound system and play at illegal parties around London haha. Soon after that I got offered a job at a club call Home working there as a sound engineer I was only 20 at that time and I released my first record called ‘Console’ not long after that.

By the early 2000’s the arse end fell out of the dance scene, people stopped buying vinyl, labels were going bust and all my gigs dried, really bad timing.

Then a while later in 2003 my friends were doing a party called Second Cell an underground house party to about 300 people and they asked me to do a live set and it went down really really well.  One of my first bookings after that had Mr. C from the Super Freq label [Shamen] playing and I got a lot of praise for my live stuff.

Although I was getting recognition for my live stuff I was falling down into a really dark period in my life because of drugs. I was always the mad one in the group I was always the one that wanted to stay and party when everyone else wanted to go home because they’d had enough, but it got that bad where I only wanted to be in a room on my own getting off my face, I didn’t want to be around anybody else, I was out of control, so ironically it was a good and a bad time…

Eventually, I had to make a choice about where I was going so I dropped the drugs literally and the music essentially pulled me through.

MM: So then you got an offer from Mr. C?

S: All that happened only recently he came to me and found me and asked me to sign 2 EP’s me to be part of his Super Freq family and offered me lots more parties and live gigs in the future. Danny Rampling, Carl Cox contacted me to get involved in what they’re doing, everybody is beginning to take note now of what I’m doing so my focus is really making the live show the best I can. I’ve been really single-minded about it all as well because I’m producing music on the fly 14 years at this stage.

MM: Indeed man, you’re getting the biggest names in the industry wanting you for your originality?

S: Yea man,  I’ll continue stick to my guns and I make only my own sound,

I don’t make a sound for anybody else like a lot of other people make a particular sound to fit a label where I just make my own sound and the labels come to me!

I’m very very particular about electronic music and how it should sound, I’m not a musical snob I’m just fussy, I just want to get the hairs on the back of peoples necks to stand up to give em that Rush.

Some other electronic music makes me cringe because it’s so cheesy I can’t stand it.

MM: I hear ya haha, so logistically whats involved in setting up a live gig every time you go to a new venue?

S: Ahh haha, I’m a pro at it now, I prefer to get to the venue an hour and a half beforehand to give me a bit of breathing time to slowly and carefully setting up I hate having to rush, so an hour usually to set up. It’s the same ritual I pretty much do every weekend now it’s without thinking about it. Back in the day my mates used to carry bits of hardware for me, stuff was thrown into bags and some stuff had no bags haha.MM: Haha, tell us about whats happening now with your mixes.

S: Everything that I’m releasing now are all live jams it’s all straight out of the stereo output, so the only post-production that’s done is though Justin Drake just to make sure it’s DJ friendly with intros and outro and loops taking directly from my live mixes only, so DJ can mix it. I’ve done 21 tracks like that in a day before in Berlin, after the gig we just went straight to the studio and just bounced it all down.

Sometimes I used to worry about the crackles the missus and the errors on the live jams and then I found out Carl Cox had been playing one of the jams in his sets for 6 months solid, so if he doesn’t care then why should I, it all adds to the authenticity haha. Also, Super freq have signed the last six of my live Jams, they just signed them all on the spot!

MM: You’re really in demand these days whats coming up.. ?

S: I am man thankfully, I’ve got loads and loads of gigs I’m just sorting my visa for the US ar of the moment I’ve got a lot of promoters that want me to play over there. I’ve gigs in Montreal, Berlin, Poland, Prague, all around Europe and all around the UK. There’s some I cannot mention until contracts are signed but they will be big.

MM: Nice one Saytek, keep on jamming

https//soundcloud.com/saytek