If dubstep has an all-star group, Magnetic Man is it. Its two most visible faces are superstar producers Skream and Benga, and its anchor is, arguably, one of the genre’s creators, Artwork. His 2002 track “Red” helped lead garage into the kinds of womp-womp basslines that would define dubstep. And, most importantly to Magnetic Man, it was at his own Croydon, England record store and studio, Big Apple Records, that he first met then-teenage Skream and Benga.
The three have enjoyed nearly a decade (and more, for Artwork) of solo success, but over the past couple years, they’ve quickly amassed legions of fans together. Magnetic Man shows are completely live, and psychedelic while still crowd-pleasing, full of singalong vocals over stuttering synth lines.
On the strength of their festival and club following, it was a major label who approached them to produce a proper debut album, due out for digital release in the states on April 12 and physically in stores on May 10. Full of guest cameos by the likes of stars like Katy B. and John Legend, it’s poised to take dubstep even further into the mainstream. URB chatted reached Artwork by phone at his Croydon studio for the rundown.
URB: How did you first meet Benga and Skream?
Artwork: We had a record shop [Big Apple Records], and I had a recording studio at the top of the record shop. Then we had the label, which was just an idea at the time, and they were like 15 years old, and used to come int he record shop and stay there all day long, every day of the week, and we couldn’t get rid of them. They were so into their music, they would go home and make beats on PlayStations and bring them in and up to the studio and play them for me.
I had like £30,000 worth of studio equipment at the time, and after about six months, they were bringing in records that were sounding as good as the stuff that I was making. They got computers and stuff, and that’s when we started the label. I put the first release out, and the second one was Benga, and the one after that was Benga and Skream together, and then we signed DMZ, which was Mala and Coki, and just sort of went on from there. We were all at the shop around 2000, and the label started around 2001 or 2001.
The tracks that you were making back then, did you consider them dubstep at that point? Your own track “Red” is considered one of the earliest dubstep tracks, but it also still sounds like garage.
Yeah, if you listen to some of the tracks on the other side, though, there are a couple that sound a lot more strange, and a lot more electronic. It was considered a bit weird at the time, but we just wanted to make records that sounded different, because we wanted to make something that people would have to travel to our record shop to buy! This was before you could download tracks to your iPod. This was still when people bought a piece of vinyl. People were starting to burn CDs, but it was all about going out and buying vinyl.
We were making garage records anyways; we were making stuff that was selling really well, but we wanted something completely different. We had our shop, and then we had the club, which was FWD, in London. We’d all go there every Thursday and I’d play the records and stuff like that. But there were only 50 people in the club, and 25 of those were probably producers. It was a weird vibe there, but it was great, because everyone was talking about music.
I think that’s something that’s lost now, with the record shops gone now. The record shop was a great place. There would be 50 people in and out during the week, and everyone was into swapping tracks and hanging around all day waiting for the new things to come in, listening to something and playing their own tracks. It was a great university for music. Music grows really fast when you’ve got that interaction between people all the time. I don’t think you’ve got that now, on the Internet.
Do you consider Magnetic Man to be a “dubstep” group, per se?
Yeah, it’s definitely based around that music. The thing is, people are saying dubstep is new music, but we’ve been doing it a long time. So for us, we’re always looking to where it’s going to go. So it is dubstep music, but it’s also just music. We’re interested in making songs and experimenting. There are just orchestral tracks on there, you know? It’s not just straight up what you would expect from dubstep, but it is a dubstep-based album, yeah.
You’ve got some pretty big pop stars on there, like John Legend and Katy B. Did you all pick those? How did those collaborations come about?
The thing is, Katy B. wasn’t a pop star when we made the album. We’ve known Katy B. for four years, and we’d been messing about on a very small scale. But yeah, Katy B. is a pop star now, but she wasn’t when she recorded with us! And John Legend, we played the backing track to our publisher, and he said, “This has got so much soul, you need someone with soul. I’m going to get you John Legend.”
So you don’t say, “Oh, no, no, no, he’s too pop,” or something. You’re like, “Yeah, great! It’s an amazing voice, an amazing vocal, we want it!” It just kind of fell together.
Your upcoming gig at Coachella is being billed as your live debut in the states. What exactly about your show is live? For such a big show, have you added or changed anything about the production?
Basically, you’ve got three laptops that are running in sync, and one will have the bass, one with have the drums, and one will have the top line. If you’ve got the drums, you can change the drums to another drum if you’d like, or you could filter them, or drop the kick out, or do what you want. We have live synths and stuff like that as well, and effects and everything. We just go for it; whatever happens, happens. It’s linked with the visuals and stuff like that, so you get live visuals at the same time that are all fired off different parts of the music.
When we first set out, we wanted it to be like you were seeing the music — you’d see a certain shape for the bass, and a certain shape for the snare drum, and stuff like that. You’d actually have two sets going at once. That’s what we’ve tried to achieve.
by Arielle Castillo
Love these guys! All about moving the music forward. Big things coming for them in the USA.
Awesome to get some info like, I had no idea of that Magnetic man was a group xD I’ve been like wondering around listening to Getting Nowhere n shit while I’ve been thinking:”wow, this dude has some serious skills!” xD