Stainage 4: interview Quest + Kromestar

Quest (Antisocial Entertainment) and Kromestar AKA Ironsoul AKA Droid (Terraphonix).

Explain Antisocial Entertainment and Terraphonix
Kromestar: I'm in a crew called Terraphonix, together with Mc Cessman. He should have normaly been here this evening, but couldn't make it.
Quest: Silkie started Anti Social, Heny G played on Lush FM (station started by DJ Luck and Mc Neat) and I was on after him. We all met eachother trough music. Later we moved to React.
I always heard about Silkie, and once he came to the radiostudio, he heard my beats, and told me he was looking for producers for his new project Antisocial, and then I joined. All the dj's have the same mindset, but if you take us apart we are still strong. For instance Kromestar still works on seperate projects, but he stays part of the Antisocial camp, everyone has got his own freedom.

Are you both used to play together?
Quest: We met eachother at FWD, Kromestar just joined Antisocial, I know him for a while now. We did a radioshow 2 weeks ago and we are definitely going to do that more frequently. We don't see eachother that often, but we're on the same level.
Kromestar: We liked eachother sounds, mutual liking of eachothers beats.
Dj's in antisocial all come from different parts of London, but we all got the same vision.

How are things working out in England?
Quest: It's going really well but we don't really work on our carreer, things are formed more naturally, people approach us. The scene is growing naturally, we wait for things to go on its natural cause.

And internationaly?
Kromestar: first time I played international.
Quest: for me it's my second time, I played in Paris together with Purple. We got a real good reception, people there knew the tunes and the lyrics. It was a good night.

Do all the aka's of Kromestar stand for different kinds of production?
Kromestar: Yeah definitely, I produce grime under Ironsoul. There are still other aliases but I want them to stay secret for a while.
(reacts surprised that people know he works under Droid)

Whats your opinion on the grime scene?
Quest: Grime has a lot of potential, but a lot of people don't have the right attitude, which detracts people from booking grime artists. Dubstep hasnt really taken over, but people can relate more to dubstep because its more about the music, grime is big with the younger kids, dubstep i feel is more mature.
Grime is staying at the level as where it is, they need a more mature crowd for the scene to grow, a lot of kids download and pass around tunes, so the sales go down.

What about upcoming production?
Quest: We want to big up Deapoh, because he's spreading the sound internationally, and Bare Dubs, my tune (Moodswings) is the first one, Ramadanman on the other side. We just want to big up that label, because its releasing artist that you would not normally hear.
Kromestar: Zulu Dance, Coruption Dub, with my sister Libra (producer) is also coming out on that label.

Quest, how would you define your production style?
Quest: Progressive, i'm not standing at one point, I'm not satisfied, always want to be better. There is always another level, it's very rarely i'm satisfied with a beat.

How about your radioshows?
Quest: Heny G, Jay5, Razor all play on Rinse, I've been offered guest shows, but i'm playing on React FM, we all started at that station, its my home, I feel I have to push Antisocial there.
Kromestar: I played with N-Type and Jay Five on Rinse and now I play on react with quest, last tuesday I was on Kiss with Hatcha, which was really good.
The good thing about the radioshows is even though they are at night, people still listen to them, and even sacrifice their work for the music. Same thing when we were younger, we used to listen to Delight when we had to go to school the day after.

You are both playing with Oris Jay tonight, has he been a big influence on you both?
Q + K: El-B, Oris Jay, Slaughter Mob, J Da Flex, they all got us into dubstep. It was at the point when garage was breaking into grime and dubstep. Back then it was called FWD music, when it was still in Velvet Rooms. For a lot of the dj's in the sound now he was a big influence. We used to buy a lot of his music.
Quest: I used to play garage, I started out as a dj in 98/97 but the levels of the tunes kinda dropped when garage progregressed into grime, so I decided to make my own tunes, thats what brought me into production.
We both have a classical musical background, me playing guitar, Kromestar piano.
We don't produce yet with live music, but we are trying to get to that. Software atm is the easiest and the most comfortable way.

You played at FWD yet?
Q + KNo not yet, but Antisocial is representing there, Heny G and Jay5 already played.
We're doing a b2b with Silkie and Heny G at the next DMZ.

You see a difference between the 2 nights (Dmz/Fwd)?
Quest: DMZ and FWD are both home but 2 totaly different vibes, FWD is cosier, comfortable, other producers feel like FWD is their home, people are outside mingeling, catching up with eachother.
Kromestar: FWD promotes grime and dubstep, DMZ has the roots of it all
Quest: Mala sees it all as music though, he tries to book various people. DMZ vibe is more pacier, and more international orientated. But they are both doing good things in the scene in a very different way.

Are you busy organising nights?
Quest: We may, we don't want to mention to much about that. There is a lot of things going on, I never had more faith in dubstep, there are a lot of good things coming up.

What are you both playing tonight?
Q+K: Really dancy tunes, music you can dance too. We're going to play a lot of unreleasd material, to see the reactions, testing the waters.

http://myspace.com/conquestrecordings
http://myspace.com/ironsouldub