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An exclusive inteview with Slammy |
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| roncli: | | So, who exactly is slammy? |
| Slammy: | | Well, firstly he is this little guy that takes over my head everytime I sit down at the computer, whether it be for creating music or for just sitting and being a forum troll. He's a very proud Englishman, well, from England believe it or not, heh. He's controlling me, Martin Kilner. I'm 29 years young and I'm extremely interested in making my own boredom go away, which happens to be through music for the most part. | | |
| roncli: | | What made you decide on "slammy"? |
| Slammy: | | Well, initially my handle was "slammin vinyl" which I stole from a UK based happy-hardcore record label> of the same name. I was 19 or so at the time, and I simply couldn't figure something out... Anyway, I kept that handle for a few years, before I decided it was too long, and simply shortened it to "slammy". Being a bit older now, I sincerely despise my handle these days, it's almost GIRLY, but it's difficult to just "disband", you know? I recently thought up "Nitren" from using my name - but it's too close to Nicklas Nygren.... hehe, so I forgot about it. | | |
| roncli: | | Sounds interesting, I somehow don't think Nifflas would mind! What is your current profession? |
| Slammy: | | Currently, I'm a computer service engineer, which is what I trained for back in college, some 10 years since now. It's a boring job, but someone's got to do it! The majority of my work years, though, have been in the retail field, where I'm fully trained in management, and I also have qualifications in team leadership too! | | |
| roncli: | | Got a good computer service story from the field to share? |
| Slammy: | | Yes I do actually, but it's from my retail days (I worked in computer sales). There was an incident when one of our stores had a problem with a customer... I'm sure you've all heard "My coffee holder doesn't work!" etc... Well, this is the best ever, in my opinion, as it involved not just naivity of the customer, but the store in question too... The customer called the store and said his "10 of spades" I believe it was, was missing from Solitaire, and he demanded that someone fix it... The punch line to this story is, that store contacted the Retail Support department at head office and asked them for a 10 of spades to be sent out to the customer..... The RS department simply scanned the 10 of spades and emailed it to them... they then informed the rest of the company as to this store's stupidity! Absolute classic. I smile a lot whenever I recall that. | | |
| roncli: | | That's some serious solitaire! Where do you see your career moving in, say, five or ten years? |
| Slammy: | | Well, they say average folk change their careers quite often in a lifetime, and I'm no exception. I'm tired of computer work, and I'm recently finding myself more gratified when I complete an actual electronics repair, rather than simple swapping parts... My dad is an electrical engineer, and I've got this big urge to follow in his footsteps these days, it'll mean going back to school for sure! | | |
| roncli: | | Sounds pretty exciting! As for your music, what got you started in composing? |
| Slammy: | | Back when I was still a nipper, my mate Ross showed me a demo on his Amiga, Jesus on E's and State of the Art, many old skoolers will remember those... Anyway, he then showed me PROTRACKER...
I wanted to do that stuff so bad, but I can't code for toffee, and I
don't have the patience to learn coding... anyway, I got a program on
my Acorn A3000
computer, called "Module Tracker" and dabbled abit back in 1990-1991,
but never actually made any thing, and I then forgot about it. Then, in
1994, I got Whacker Tracker on my PC, as well as some Future Crew and other demos, this triggered it for me, and off I went. | | |
| roncli: | | Acorn... now there's an ancient computer! What programs have you used throughout the years? |
| Slammy: | | As well as the above, I've used Scream Tracker 3 extensively in my early days, before moving to Fast Tracker 2 for about a year before discovering Impulse Tracker 2.
Impulse Tracker is by far my favourite program - it doesn't do what I
need for today's demands, but my love will live on forever for this
wonderful piece of code, so much so, I have a purposely-built Impulse
Tracking machine!!! I use Reason for my main productions since the end of 2003, and I've dabbled with Renoise, Cubase, and Sonar, but never actually made anything of worth... | | |
| roncli: | | Do you use any hardware to help with composing? |
| Slammy: | | I certainly do! My mainstay is a vintage Yamaha SY77, it controls everything else, including Reason! I also have a Roland MC-303, Casio VZ10m, E-MU Proteus 1 XR and Yamaha TX81z! I love vintage stuff, but a Korg MS2000 is top of my shopping list. | | |
| roncli: | | You've also been heavily involved with some of the larger communities throughout the scene. Can you list your roles at the various sites and organizations you are and have been a part of? |
| Slammy: | | Oh Christ! You mean the ones I remember? I've been very
active in contributing my time to various communities, because I like
to give back to the very thing that I've taken so much from... I signed
up to TiS in December 1998, and it was about 6 months later when I
became involved with running the site. I was put onto files, I believe
after allenone
stopped doing it... I did this until the explosion of artists flooded
the site, when I could no longer handle it, and TiS wanted it to be
handled onsite, Sunny
took over! I moved to the Reviewing Overseeing Committee from there,
where I remained until the death of TiS. Homemusic cropped up soon
after, and I was a little shocked by the low review quality there, and
I was invited to become part of a reviewing task force there... this
was fun while it lasted, but HomeMusic was short lived... The death of
TiS really left a void, and no community filled it properly in the
years afterwards... I was involved with the UT sounding board, but I never really could get into it, and I joined CTG Music...
I recently became Admin staff at CTG, but in all honesty, I've never
felt the same gratification that I got from being part of TiS staff all
those years ago... I also ran the TurtlesHead OHC compo's for a while,
before real life took a hold of me, making it almost impossible for me
to run them anymore. Throughout this period, the one constant has been Outpost Music,
a scene group, founded by myself and Seko1 back in 1999. We're still
going, although not very active... Hopefully this will change in the
future! During the middle years at Outpost, we ran various music
compos, which I thoroughly enjoyed! Even when someone pointed the
finger at us for cheating (which was never true, hahaha). Outpost
consists of some wonderful musicians. | | |
| roncli: | | That's quite an impressive list! And through all this you've still found time to write dozens of songs. Though many artists do have a distinct style, you seem to have defined your own more so than others. Can you put in words what it is that makes your songs distinctively "slammy style"? |
| Slammy: | | I can sum it up in one word. Cheese. A lot of my progressions, melodies, whatever are extremely cheesy, although when I write them, I don't think so at the time, only a year after I think, "OMG, Cheese" hahaha. I tend to just go with whatever is in my head at the time, and never try to be anyone other than myself when writing. Not to say, I've not tried to copy other artists styles, because I have - I think that helps with the learning process. | | |
| roncli: | | If you could name one of your songs that defines this style, what would it be, and why? |
| Slammy: | | Now you're asking.... *thinks* *thinks some more* Vinyl Goes Lead Crazy.
:D The reason is rather simple, its full of crazy leads over the same
old chord progression! which is very symbolic of my slammy-style tracks! | | |
| roncli: | | Another thing that you have become known for recently are your epic works, including Reflections and A Bridged Divide, clocking in at a total of over 40 minutes together. What inspires these monster-sized tunes, and are there plans for more? |
| Slammy: | | Great question! My primary musical love is probably the driving force behind such long epics, Pink Floyd. There are a good few Floyd epics, such as Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Dogs, and Atom Heart Mother, to name a few, which blow me away every time I listen to them. With the added influences of electronic music, such as Jarre
and 80's pop music, which I grew up with, I've got a more synthetic
sound than that of Pink Floyd, but their whole conceptual approach to
music is what is my main influence, inspiration. I simply love Pink
Floyd more than any other band, put together. :) As for more,
DEFINITELY! I love putting them together... a real rollercoaster of a
ride, some days I get right into them, others I get frustrated beyond
belief... but it keeps me coming back for more! | | |
| roncli: | | Excellent, can't wait to hear them! Would you say that there are any of your general releases more heavily influenced by Pink Floyd than others? Which ones? |
| Slammy: | | That's a tricky question, my more serious works are all heavily Floyd influenced, take Reflections for example, while some people might listen and say Jarre inspired me most to create it, I would have to disagree and point to Floyd. Just listen to some of the more quieter sections of the track, the madness of it all, is very Floyd-ish... and I like to head down those paths of oddness, just the melancholy of it all drives me wild. If you listen to slammy vs reason, it's there too, during my so called "fight with Reason". I just went wild on my keyboard during that middle section, and it fit beautifully, in an odd way! | | |
| roncli: | | Are there any other songs that are special to you in some way that you'd like to mention here? |
| Slammy: | | Yes. Alter Ego is especially important and special to me, it was written during bad times, coming to terms with my marriage breakdown, and wanting to break free from the very chains that inhibited my creative nerve. Work on Reflections started toward the end of that period, but was completed when I was in a much happier situation. The thing with Alter Ego is not just what the track stands for, but I think the musical content and production quality, is the very best I've achieved to date, and is the bar that I judge all my other works by. The fact I was in such a low point in life, yet I was able to drag that out gives me strength, even today, when yet I'm facing another personal crisis (keep your violins in, I can handle it people!!! :P). Just looking back on what I achieved with Alter Ego, gives me a great sense of pride, and helps to push me on, so to speak! So yes, it's very special to me. | | |
| roncli: | | What future goals do you currently hold for your music? Where would you like to be as a musician in, say, 5 years? |
| Slammy: | | I've thought long and hard about this in recent times. I'd love to start producing commercially viable dance music, and have my music played at top venues around the European dance scene, I think that perhaps I'm getting a bit of an ego in that sense, that I want my music to be heard on the radio, etc... Everyone is allowed ambitions though right? However, where my other work is concerned, I still want to keep that within the communities that I love so dear, because it's personal music to me, I just want to share it with friends. | | |
| roncli: | | That seems wonderful! Any last comments or words of advice you'd like to give? |
| Slammy: | | I love this clich? question! :D The only advice I can give to people, is be true to yourself, follow your heart when it comes to music, not theory minded stick-in-the-muds! As for comments, I'd like to thank you for this interview, I'm deeply touched, and most of all, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you, and everyone who has ever supported me and what I do. I wouldn't be half the person I am, without the wonderful people our community has to offer. Thank you all so very much, I truly love you all. | | |
| roncli: | | Clich?, perhaps, but it gives some of the best responses. :) Thank you for your time, and good luck with your music in the future! |
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