Clubbing Magazine


The new version of Hyper consists of DJ Hyper, his producer partner Ronnie and the two ex-Prodigy members Leroy and Jim. They played at the Roskilde Festival 2006. Clubbing Magazine met them over a semi warm beer in the backstage area on a warm afternoon. DJ Hyper himself had a big weekend ahead of him going to Creamfields in Poland the next day to play a DJ set, whilst Jim and Leroy were heading back to the UK.
Poland you say…- We don't even have Creamfields in Denmark and they have it in Poland. So the Polish are better at dance music than we are? Hyper cracks up laughing -Thanks for giving me all this confidence before our gig
	How did it feel getting so good reviews on your album? - We're really happy, because I'm known as a break beat DJ, and we wanted to do something a bit more personal and do some shorter tunes instead of seven minutes dance tracks. We also wanted to bring in more guitars and get a more in-your-face feeling to the album. It was a bit of a risk for my part, because people knew me for one thing and this is something different. So obviously it was nice to see the great reception and the live thing has been going very well too, so it makes you feel good. Specially because me and my partner Ronnie put two years into the album.
	There's a lot of vocals on the album. Do you generally miss vocals in dance music? - I think vocals are a shady area unless you get it right. DJ's are often like this: "I really like the track, but I don't like the vocals." But that's a DJ thing. We wanted to put more vocals into the tracks and reflect what we're into more personally instead of the dance music we're bombarded with week in week out.”
	You call it a shady area. Is it hard to find the limit for the vocals? - Not really, no, because you can only put it as you like them. When the vocals come in, we chop them and edit them and we wouldn't put them in unless we liked them. At the end of the day you can only do what you want to do.
	How has it been going from DJ'ing to playing live?” - t's been really good. I'm DJ'ing less, because we're doing a lot of live shows. It's great because there's four or five of us and then it's more of a laugh. It's a different dynamic with the crowd as well. When you DJ it's just you. But the live show is much more an interaction with the audience and that's something I feel is missing from dance music. You get more of a vibe rather than when you're on your own. I still love DJ'ing but its much more fun off stage with the band. I'm a real boring twat when I'm on my own, - Hyper says and starts laughing again. It must be those early afternoon beers.
Your single sleeve is showing riot police? It's kinda old school and brings back memories from when police was raiding raves. Why is that? - It's a vibe that goes a long with the music, because it's very in your face. That was the feeling about the music and a couple of the tracks. I'm not one to make huge political statements, because as far as I'm concerned it's not up to me to ram my opinions down peoples’ throats. It's up to people themselves to make up their own minds. But it fitted the front. I was thinking about the old days when police raided the British raves. - Yeah, and I obviously didn't like that. I've always had a problem with authorities on a grander scale, but I'm not throwing bricks through windows at MacDonalds or anything. A couple of the lads in the band are wearing T-shirts with the names of various punk bands. Do you listen to much punk music? - I don't really like it, hahaha. Off course we do. It has an influence on our music and when I was young I bought a lot of American and UK punk and hardcore stuff. Do you get some inspiration from it? - Energy wise we really do. I love it and we're trying to get it into our live sets. Instead of trying to be very clever with the music we're trying to be a bit more up front and fun. How did you hook up with Leroy and Jim (both ex-Prodigy members) - I met Leroy in Singapore Airport and we got on really well. And Jim was obviously a friend of Leroy from The Prodigy. Happy coincidences really. Ronnie and I were working on the album and we were looking for vocalists, and then I met him in an airport. Have you guys hooking up changed your style of music? - Yeah, I think so. Our live shows are a big inspiration to us for our next album which we're writing now. Any other future plans? - Gardening, haha. (again with the beer…) No not really. Hopefully watch this grow and try to sit back and enjoy my life a bit more. The last few years have been really full on.

Is it the ambition to get as big as The Prodigy? Leroy breaks in and answers. - We have ambitions - if you don't, you get left out. The idea is to do it as long as you can and enjoy it. At the end of day I think that if something's is good it's just a matter of people hearing it and I think we're good. I don't think you get anywhere if you set yourself too many ambitions, because the minute things don't start happening, you get disillusioned by it. And the fact we're playing Roskilde is fucking amazing, because it's one of the best festivals in the world. And I'm sure all of us are pretty nervous looking out at the tent. I don't think you can dictate how big you're going to be. A lot of it comes down to if you're at the right place at the right time. I think right now the world is ready for another sort of electronic rock band - especially one that does it live. People are a bit bored of seeing guys behind computers. And we can play a festival or a dance club. It gives people more action on stage? - Yeah I think so. I think it's nice to have the foundation of a real band up there. People will know that the guitar sound is coming from that guitar and the drum sound from the drums... DJ Hyper himself takes over again: - Rather than from a couple of keybords. One of the things we set out to do was to better dance music live. It's often done badly live. How is it for you old Prodigy guys to play in front of smaller crowds. I've seen you here at Roskilde some years ago in front of around 50.000 people? Jim answers: - If we play shows with just ten people, it doesn't matter. It's still a great buzz. It was the same with The Prodigy. If you walk out there and you're dissapointed with the amount of people that are there then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Because the ten people that are there, are there because of you, so you perform as if there were ten thousand people there. To be honest with you sometimes small gigs are more intimate and you get more of a buzz out it. Hyper takes over again to round up the interview. -They both have their elements. It's the same with DJ'ing. Small club or a big festival. You don't dislike either. They're both brilliant but for different reasons. This is our first real proper festival, because we've only been doing it for a year now, so that's really exciting. This is seen as mainly a rock festival so being accepted at that level is really good for us.
Interview: Tom Carstensen