The
Disciples are indisputably key figures in
the UK ‘New School’ Roots/Dub scene
which emerged in the mid to late 80s.
Starting out building rhythms in the bedroom
they progressed to making dubplates and then
full albums for Jah Shaka. Later they went
on to put out their own releases and to run
the Boomshackalacka soundsystem &
magazine. Right now in ’05 the Disciples
are producing some of the toughest conscious
sounds anywhere--with both new and
established UK & JA singers and deejays.
Initially they were a two-person crew,
consisting of brothers Russ and Lol
Bell-Brown. Lol has since moved on to pursue
other stuff, but still retains close links
to the scene. Current main man/producer Russ
(aka Russ D/Russ Disciple) was kind enough
to speak to Pete Murder Tone recently about
the musical development of the Disciples
over the years.
Part
One: Early days, First Dub Plates, Albums
for Jah Shaka and the birth of the UK New
Roots sound.
What
made you want to start making your own
reggae tunes, to make the transition from
fan to music maker? How did you go about
writing/building rhythms at that early
stage? What gear were you using at this
time?
I
had picked up bass guitar when I was 15, but
it wasn’t for reggae, I never took it
seriously but always had the bass guitar
around, I got into reggae by the time I was
17 but it wasn’t until much later that I
got into making the music, when I was about
24 I started messing with couple of cassette
decks, transforming dubs, things like `king
tubby`s meets the rockers uptown` and
`cultures -
peace truce` some others too, then I see in
a magazine about these cheap 4 track
recorders and drum machines so I bought a
tascam 244 and a roland drumatix, to be
honest the drumatix sounded rubbish to me
but it was a starting point, almost all my
early efforts were rebuilds of favorite
rhythm tracks, a little later I got myself a
better drum machine, a hammond dpm, it had
individual outs and it sounded better, for
fx I had a roland spring reverb box and an
aria (dx1000 ?) digital delay....I started
getting a little better at building the
riddims and then my brother came in, he
could play rhythm and lead guitar, and
we’d share things like melodica and
percussion, I had two cheap (CHEAP)
keyboards, some cheezy Casio with a 1 sec
sampler, it must’ve been about 1bit in
quality, it was crap, and a Yamaha s01
synth, also crap but at the time I didn’t
have money for anything better, still we did
our best with these things, a little later
still I did get a seck 12/8/2 mixer to use
rather than the inbuilt mixer on the tascam
244...we started to hear about Shaka, we
knew of him before, had some of his records
but was never amongst the sound system
scene, at that time it was very underground
and mostly a black thing, anyways we heard
some session tapes and the power and vibe
that was on them gave us some inspiration so
I tried to emulate it in our
recordings...the roland spring had a whole
heap of inputs and outputs and I was able to
send the whole mix back through it, out of
it and into a guitar amp that was mic`d up
and sent back into the mix, heavily eq`d,
and it gave it a crashing live sound system
kinda sound, or at least that’s how we
heard it.
understand
your next step was pressing some dubplates
which you eventually took to Jah Shaka. What
happened when you
met up with Shaka and he got to hear them?
As
we started to get more into the heavy Shaka
vibes we started making some heavier tunes,
again still mostly versions of old tracks,
but stuff like freedom sounds productions,
prince allah / earl zero etc, and we tried
twisting the b-line around to give it our
own vibe...as time went on we started to get
to know a few people, guys that worked in
record shops and we played them our tracks,
they said to take them to Shaka, I had got
myself a dubplate cut with 4 different
tracks, I wanted to hear what my tracks
sounded like with all the clicks, crackles,
hiss and pops of the records I loved, so we
took that to Shaka who had an arts and craft
culture shop in new cross, we wasn’t
expecting anything, just maybe some guidance
or opinion, Shaka said he wanted 4 cuts of
each and anything else we had in similar
style, he didn’t seem to have any
prejudice about us being white and making
this music, he then said come to the next
dance the following week, after that we was
totally hooked.
Your
first album for Shaka’s label,
“Deliverance”, came out a little while
later, in’87. It features mostly drumbox,
bass and guitar with some keys and melodica
on a couple of tracks and was recorded to
4-track. What changes in your
production/writing had taken place by this
stage?
Well
that first album featured 3 of the tracks
that was on that first dubplate we gave
Shaka and it was all recorded in the manner
I mentioned before, we didn’t have any
midi setup so other than programming the
drum machine everything else was played all
way thru...at that time it was still a hobby
for us, it was amazing that Shaka put them
out but we never really thought much else
about it... I’m not really sure how it was
received as a release but many of the tracks
were mashing up in shaka dances! .... One
other thing though, after seeing Shaka in
session for the first time it was THE most
inspirational and pivotal thing for me as
far as
making my music, from that point I totally
understood what reggae was all about, and
after that point I had no problem with
coming up with original b-lines, the session
had given me the vision, if that’s the
right word, to hear how my rhythms would
sound on a sound system at x-amount of
watts, I could hear it in my head so that
even when I’m laying the b-line down at
low volumes in my bedroom I could imagine it
at Shaka.
The
next Disciples album, “The Disciples Pt
1” (Jah Shaka), comes out in ’89: here
the playing, production, and drum
programming certainly sound a good deal more
accomplished than the last LP.
While retaining a raw feel the
arrangements are noticeably more
sophisticated and the whole record has a
very ethereal/spiritual feel to it.
There’s a very interesting contrast here
between more classic roots styles and the
more relentless and hard-hitting tracks like
“Jah Man”. That track especially,
seemed to have had a big impact in the
dance…
Well,
when Shaka had said he wanted to release our
first album I felt insecure with the
production quality, so at the time I went to
a local semi-pro studio, I ended up wasting
my time and money because they new nothing
about reggae and I was still in infancy
where more professional recording equipment
was concerned so I couldn’t handle the
studio’s gear myself, after that
experience I knew my only way forward was
with my own studio, so after the first album
I started upgrading the studio again, I
bought a fostex m80 1/4" 8 track, and
the newly released alesis hr16 drum machine,
that drum machine had a far superior sound
than the hammond dpm, and to me it also
suited a more `live` drum programming
approach, so I made more effort with the
programming, the rest of the instruments
remained the same, but I guess we got better
at playing and of course we were learning
all the time...some of the tracks we
originally did on the 4 track but I felt to
rebuild them and make them sound better, I
also borrowed a friend of a friends keyboard
one afternoon to put some piano chops in
rather than always guitar chops...its also
possible I had got myself a digital reverb
as well, I’ve never been bogged down in
this thing of having to have springs and
tape echo’s to emulate old school JA dub,
things can be done with digital gear and we
were / are in a different era, so I always
figured do things in our own way....
I
don’t think we had any specific vision or
inspiration of what we was doing with the
music other than it was being made to be
played on shaka`s sound so it had to be made
suitably so, and we was attending enough of
his dances at that time getting vibes and
seeing the reaction to tunes. I don’t read
music and had no formal musical tuition, so
everything is made up as we go along, I
might have a vibe that ill want to do a
steppers this time, or a one drop the next,
and maybe ill hear some other tune and get
an inspiration from that, sometimes after I
build a tune ill wonder where I got the idea
for such a melody or whatever, I don’t
know... jah works maybe!
The
next year saw the release of
your
third LP “Disciples Pt 2: Addis Ababa”
(Jah Shaka). It marks a big shift from the
more trad roots styles of the first and
second. What production/ compositional
changes had u made by this point? You have
said elsewhere that the more explicitly
digital/machine-like direction taken by
Shaka--following Dread and Fred--was a big
influence. Why was that? Its been said that
the impetus for a lot of the new UK roots
productions at this point was the drying up
of roots releases from JA (with the steady
rise of digital dancehall/ragga). Given
that, it might seem a bit strange that you
turned to production methods that had a lot
in common with the then current JA tunes,
even though the UK digital roots ultimately
sounded very different…
I
was always looking to try to make better
quality sounding music, in between the first
and 2nd albums I had started looking into
the midi thing, that, as said, was inspired
by seeing shaka in a studio in brixton that
had a programming room with about 7 Yamaha
dx7`s linked to a sequencer and two seck
mixers, I
thought the sound was tuff and the style of
the riddim he was building was different,
very similar to dread and fred, their tune
warrior stance was very influential but
I’d never seen their setup so it was that
time with shaka, that day I came straight
home and started programming my hr16 to
sound like a machine rather than like a live
drummer, and there was something different
about the style of the b-line, hard to
define in words, maybe just more simple /
strict, and of course making it with a
keyboard bass gives it a next tone as
well... I was inspired by the JA productions
at the time, even though dancehall was the
most prevalent style there was still nuff
roots vibes as well, but earlier on I
couldn’t build that style because I
didn’t have the equipment, later I got a
couple of sound modules, Casio vz8m and a
roland u220, and I got myself a roland mc50
hardware sequencer and that’s when I
changed over to working strictly with midi.
The scene was also moving fast and in
different directions, so I just moved with
it, JA music never remained static it always
moved on either in style or production, like
how Scientist redefined the sound of dub
away from Tubby`s.... for me it was mixing
the old school roots vibes with the JA/UK
digi vibe, but we was still making just
instrumental / dubs, and the JA digi style
of riddim was made more for vocals, so we
had to come with a slightly different style
that could work on its own.
That
record, “Addis Ababa”, along with the
late 80s productions of Shaka, Manasseh and
Dread and Fred and co. seems to define the
UK roots sound that was to take off in a
much bigger way soon after with folks alike
Alpha and Omega and the like.
Did
you expect anything like that to happen? And
how do you feel about that period now,
looking back?
Well,
A&O was there from that early time as
well, but they were based way outside of
London so maybe it seemed like they were
later..i don’t think any of us foresaw how
the scene would go, Manasseh was on the
radio, along with Joey Jay on kiss fm
(pirate at those times) so it was good for
the promotion of the music and scene, and
the crowds really started to pick up in the
dances, there were a lot of other artists /
producers doing there thing on the scene as
well, the music was fresh and it was
exciting to many of the newer crowd,
and it had to move on from being
entrenched in only the original roots music,
and that’s what we all did, maybe not even
by desire but by the techniques and
equipment we used...we all had a hard time
from some of the longer term reggae
cognoscenti, but we remained strong in what
we was doing... for me I would have loved to
have been making the music I’m making now
back then, especially from the quality point
of view, because the vibes back then was
wicked, I’m not totally sure what to make
of things now, really I just do what I
please to do, everything in its time I
suppose
Disciples
Interview Pt Two…Early 90s thru to the
Present
Ok
so now we are up to the early 90s, you've
done four LPs for Shaka. At this time you
engage in a rush of activity: launching the
BSL sound, u keep putting the BSL magazine
out, and also releasing new tunes on your
own label. The history of the BSL sound and
magazine are pretty well documented, so tell
us a bit about that period - focusing on the
joys and trials of putting out records and
running a label. You started off with what
has become a bit of a signature tune:
"Prowling Lion"?
Ah..the
joys of putting out records !...well of
course we had the 4 albums out thru shaka
but really we had no idea of the process of
putting records out, the costs and such...at
first `prowling lion` was going to be
released by a friend of ours, Colin `fencebeater`
Moore, that was in about `91,
he'd been in the business for a long time
having had things to do with blacka dread`s
scom label, but just thru things and time it
never happened, I felt we couldn't keep
relying on shaka to release our music, he
had plenty of other projects to deal with
and I figured if we wanted to get somewhere
in the business then we'd have to do it
ourselves, so I spoke with Keith at Jah
Tubby's cutting house, they offered all in
manufacturing (cut / stamper / pressing and
label) and it was at a price I thought I
could handle, so I went forward with
it...the hard part came when trying to
figure out how to distribute and sell the
record, I went to dub vendor with it and
felt very intimidated because they were
mainly dealing with JA productions and I
thought they'd think our tune a piece of
junk, so I quickly sorted out the receipt
and left before they'd check it on their
deck...embarrassment time !... anyways, we
just went around a number of shops leaving
copies, my brother and Colin Moore dropped
copies at a few distributors, Jetstar,
Fatshadow and so on, then one time he took
me up to SRD (southern record dist.) the guy
there didn't know anything about us, he took
one copy and we never heard back, but over a
few months I did over a 1000 copies just
trodding around the shops and a few dealers
in other parts of the country who were into
our music.... then I went and released our
2nd tune (return to Addis Ababa / Africa
Macka) Colin took me back to srd and said to
the guy that I did 1000 of prowling lion
myself and the guy at SRD took on our tunes,
they did about 500 copies or so and also
took about 300 prowling lion at that
time...when I first pressed it was 500
copies at a time but things started going
good and I could press up 1500 straight away
and even afford to go with 3 color labels...
we did have problems with some of the reggae
shops, trying to get money out of them but
over a little time we sussed the ones to
deal with and those not worth the
effort...the scene was going good, sounds
like abashanti and iration steppa were
mashing up the dances with my tunes, we were
doing the same in our own dances, there was
a good number of other producers going
strong and the media was interested,
everything was positive.
Here's
a quote from you: "In the sound system
background I come from we don't use
compressors to tame the sound or keep it
safe. When we played we used ALL of our
sound we used to drive it hard" That
must have been expensive at times? And can u
clear up a bit of confusion:
I have seen people say that because
‘the Disciples or Aba Shanti and so on say
they don't use compression’ u shouldn't
compress your b-lines for sound system play.
Is that really the case?
Ahmm,
well there’s two things to understand
here, for sound system no one of us used
compressors or limiters like most club / pa
systems use to tame or protect their
equipment....but for studio its a different
thing, with my early studio I never had any
compressors to use so it never came into the
scheme of things, when I went digital really
because you can make all notes play at the
same volume its not totally necessary to
compress, but of course higher notes don’t
always come out as strong as the lower
notes, so later when I did get compressors (TLA
5052) I used to compress the bass very
heavy, these days for me its all software
compressors, I use UAD1 and TC Powercore and
they have good compressors in them, although
at the moment I put my bassline thru
`Amplitude` amp simulator with no
compressor, I like what its doing to the
sound...getting back to the sound system /
pa side of it, I’ve played on many club
systems over the years, sometimes they’ve
been very good if the system has been set up
right and the club engineer knows what
he’s doing and what the club system is
capable of, but some times you get club
systems where the comp / limiter has been
set so high that anytime a dynamic noise
appears, which in the case of dj'ing as we
do, can be set off by either the micman or
some sound effect (siren) and the whole
sound just closes up, no bottom end and no
tops, it sounds awful and it has no dynamic
or impact for the crowd.
Now,
as a bit of an aside, have you been able to
make a living from your many reggae related
labours? If not what other stuff do you do
to survive/provide?
well,
I just about make a living, I also sell
sound system equipment for jts, but yes
between releasing tunes on my own label,
producing tunes for a few other labels,
selling dubs to sounds and dj's and dj'ing
myself I make my living.... with releasing
records you have to be a bit wise on your
budget for each release, at the moment we
have very poor distribution in the uk so our
sales are a lot less than those times during
the early / mid 90`s, so its no good
spending a whole heap of money on artists,
musicians and fancy labels and sleeves if
your sales aren’t gonna bring in enough
money to cover it, so I’m wise and with
how I budget my costs I make money on every
release, its not always big money but you
have to keep releasing tunes, keep busy,
that’s the only way in this business.
The
records that came out next, from about 93 to
96 or so -- Resonations, Infinite Density of
Dub and For Those Who Understand -- are
mostly very heavy, lots of steppers rhythms
and the sound is very big. Where were you at
writing and production wise? What was your
studio looking like at this point?
well,
the studio was always changing, I couldn’t
spend as much money on studio gear because I
was also paying for my sound system, so for
a time I had 2 mixers (the Seck and a cheap
12/2 that I can’t remember the make of
now) linked together to give me more
channels, I had some other fx, some
art reverbs and I was using a small Boss
rdd10 delay... the studio in early times was
in my bedroom but by this time now I had
built a small studio in the back garden so
everything was done there, which was better
because I could really thump it out, I had
these big home made speakers, 12" bass
and piezo`s for the tops, it was like a
shaka dance in there sometimes ! ...and they
were my main monitors for a time too....
from the production and influence point of
view we had taken in vibes from house and
techno, for my part I always wanted to try
keep a roots feel rather than go too techno,
I’m not sure what others heard in our
music but for me the roots thing was
important, my benchmark was if it could be
played by shaka, too techno and it
wouldn’t, I felt I kept the roots there
mostly, but I was also aware to take the
music in to these other areas and so I
became inventive with our use of sounds....
at the same time I think I also just
produced straight ahead sound system dubs,
well my tunes were being played by all the
sounds, still are, so I must have got things
right....by the time of `resonations` and
`infinite density...` I had got myself a new
mixer, Soundcraft studio 24 and some better
modules, Roland jv1080 amongst them and a
sampler, Akai s950, which I used mostly for
drums and by the time of `Infinite
Density...` I think I had got some Alesis
monitor ones as my main speakers and I had
just got soundscape hard disc recording
system, that whole album (infinite density)
was the first project I worked on when I got
soundscape and I had to do the whole album
in just 2 weeks, the year it came out there
was supposed to be a joint album between me
and Rootsman (Third eye music) but he had
another project he wanted to deal with, so I
phoned dubhead and asked if they’d be
interested in releasing my album, because at
that time I didn’t have the funds for an
album myself, they said yes but because of
the time of year (mid June) they’d need it
within two weeks to get things going on it
for September release, so I had an idea
I’d use a lot of samples and loops as the
foundation of the rhythms, that album is
full bits off old obscure tracks, it was a
lot of work, and I’d say it was a little
rushed, but there were some good ideas, I
managed to finish it in the two weeks and it
sold fairly well on its release, sometimes
you just gotta go with the flow!
1997
seems to be a bit of turning point: you
cease operating your sound and start putting
out what have been termed more orthodox
reggae tunes on a new imprint "Backyard
Movements" Certainly the focus now is
on more vocal material. Why the change? When
did you start voicing tunes with singers and
deejays? Was this a technical challenge?
the
turning point had come from about `96, maybe
even in my mind a little earlier, my
background was reggae, I had listened to it
since `78, when we first started the sound
system things were much rootsier, we had our
vision that if things took off for us we’d
maybe be checking JA producers for tunes and
dubs, but the whole uk dub scene came up big
and took over the vibe, we ran with it, it
was good times, but I felt it started to get
taken over with all the techno biz, we had
labels like Zipdog, Megadog, Cup of tea etc
coming to us for tunes but they always
wanted something more leftfield, well I went
with it for a while but when some started
saying `can you put house hihat on` or `can
you put a break beat in there` I started to
feel it was going to far away from the
roots, it built up over a period and I
started getting a bit vex with it all, also
even in our own scene the whole `dub
steppers` thing had taken over and to me
that was never what it was all about, so I
rebelled, for I time even, and this may
sound odd, I just experimented in my studio,
started building world influenced stuff,
drum and bass, I think I actually learnt a
lot doing this, but it wasn’t what was in
my heart, I like doing it but I never `felt`
it, so I figured I’d just try make
orthodox reggae, the music I loved... I made
some good money on `for those who
understand` and it was with that that I
invested in the soundscape system, so things
was much better for recording vocals, I also
got a halfway decent mic (AKG 3000)...
through circumstance I linked with the
singer `High Priest`, he was actually an old
time `Coxsone` (Lloydie) micman by the name
of Pebbles, we did the tune `Judgement Seat`
and I released it, there was something else
I had in my mind too, there was a writer for
Black Echoes who used to really diss our dub
stuff and our scene, so I thought I’d try
and prove something, that we could make
tunes capable of being acceptable to the
reggae scene, I sent him a white label test
press with just title and name of artist, he
gave it a good review, so this also gave me
the strength to carry on... it too was also
a challenge to produce this kind of music,
to find the right sounds and structure the
tunes to fit that style, its different than
our dub stuff but I felt more strength doing
it... it took me a long while to get over my
dissatisfaction with the whole dub steppers
thing, now after so many years I got no
problem with it, its just another facet of
the music and has its place, but I don’t
have a big vibe for building it now.
You
also linked up with Bertram Brown and
company in this period. How did that come
about? You talked earlier about your love
for the Freedom Sounds records of the 70s
and their influence as you started to build
tracks. That must have been exiting?
the
Bertram Brown link was thru high priest
around `98 / `99, he brought him down to the
studio, Bertram wanted to distribute `Judgement
Seat` but the stampers were mashed when the
pressing plant I used went bust, this has
happened with a lot of my stampers! so
Bertram asked if he could re-issue it on his
label for JA and USA so I agreed and I did
an updated version and we had our youth
singer Danny Vibes voice it as well, to be
honest there’s runnin's that happen with
Bertram, no disrespect, I knew how it would
go but neither myself or Danny received
anything from that release, at the time I
figured it would maybe help with the profile
so we just went with it... Bertram did ask
me for other material, but I wasn’t gonna
keep giving away tracks for nothing so
nothing went on, I did see him a couple
years back in New York, I was staying in a
flat with Congo Shanti Roy, Bertram was
trying to get something going between us
all...well...hmm...it nah `appen !...with me
I’m not into this `star struck` biz, its
of course good to meet these guys who are
our heroes with this music, but they’re
just guys same way, some turn out to be
personality rejects (no reference to Bertram
btw) so its best just to leave it to the
music to do the talking, although we also
did an album with Prince Allah, another
Freedom Sounds artist, and he’s one of the
most uplifting people I’ve ever met, full
of good vibes!
Previously
you argued the case for UK producers to step
up and compete technically with the quality
of JA releases and other "street
sounds" like garage and drum and bass
which compete for the same group of
potential new fans. Where does that leave
producers just starting out? Is there still
a place for rough and ready bedroom
productions now?
well,
I suppose if someone looks at my career and
the way it started then it should be good enough
for anyone, to an extent yes that’s fine,
but in those early times I didn’t really
have the control, shaka released our music
and we where happy in his hands, after that
it didn’t really matter for us, we just
had to go do our thing, but with shaka that
was also at a time where the scene was very
underground, later when it all took off I
felt and noticed that our music had to stand
up to other musical genre’s otherwise it
was going to fall back again... our scene
was very strong in Germany for instance,
people there where buying every uk dub
production and at first everything was great
because they were learning about it, but
after a while it started to be that they
could hear that much of the uk dub stuff was
either very poor tunes, with no real vibe,
or very poorly produced and it affected the
business, Germany went off the uk dub scene
and into dancehall....so my statement was
given because of this, still, everyone has
to start somewhere, maybe I still feel
though that new producers should be wary of
releasing early productions if they are
unsure of their quality.... still, I
remember Steve Vibronics getting in touch
with me when he first started, he sent me
some of his first productions, they were
very raw and not totally thought out but I
heard something in there and gave him some
advice and told him to keep at it, the next
tape he sent was better and it kept going on
that way, now he’s up there amongst the
best of UK dub / roots producers, its just
that things can take time, perseverance and
vision of what your doing.
And
finally, what does the immediate future hold
for The Disciples?
Allright
now I’m just continuing with my works, I
have a good number of vocals stored up for
release during this year, tunes with Bunny
Lie Lie, Lutan Fyah, Ras Macbean, Christine
Miller, Kenny Knots and so on, as well as
production work for others, there’s likely
some remix work to do as well... I gotta
work on furthering promotion and
distribution and am looking into the mp3
download thing... there’s still a lot of
interest in our dub works, especially the
older stuff, its ok but I actually want
people to also check what I’m doing now,
and as I said I don’t really have a big
vibe for building new dub tunes, but we’ll
see !
Cheers
Russ!
Do
yourself a favour and go to the
Crucial Disciples/BSL website: http://www.disciplesbslbm.co.uk/
Lotsa
goodstuff for roots/dub heads there
And
check for the BSL live broadcasts featuring
wicked weekly mixes and sound tape clips of
Disciples dub plates in the dance back in
the day : http://www.disciplesbslbm.co.uk/wsp3.htm
Big
thanks also to Dave Kennar and Messian Dread
for the assistance.
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