If they were to start handing out action television shows Dieselboy would be the first one to get it just because of his names. It would be Damian Higgins IS DJ Dieselboy. To be blessed with a cool name like Damian is fine but then to call yourself Dieselboy it just isn't fair to an overweight Jew with the generic name.
Anyway Dieselboy is the most famous drum 'n' bass DJ in the United States. He has been at the forefront of the drum 'n' bass in America since it first gained popularity in the early 1990's. AK1200, aka Dave Minner, the longest running jungle DJ/producer in the U.S., has called Dieselboy "an icon for American junglists." It's hard to believe that Pittsburgh was a hotbed of dance music when Dieselboy was growing up. He first started calling himself Diesel when going to Internet chat rooms in college. But soon he discovered that a local graffiti artist also called himself Diesel. So he made it Dieselboy which reflected his interest in such things as video games and animation.
In 1997 he moved to Philadelphia and the next year he started Platinum, a weekly Thursday night event at Philadelphia's Fluid club, which many well-traveled junglists considered to be the premier drum 'n' bass club night in the U.S.
Since then he started his own record label, Human Imprint. They have just released his latest CD, 'projectHUMAN'.
Check out DJ Dieselboy's website.
Daniel Robert Epstein: How about a quick basic description of drum 'n' bass for the people who might not know about.
Dieselboy: Drum 'n' bass is basically a form of electronic dance music that's been around for about 10 or 11 years. It's characterized by its speed which is anywhere from 170 to 180 beats per minute which is about twice as fast as your average hip-hop tune. The core of drum 'n' bass is the creak beat and the speed. It has all kinds of different sounds that can go with it. There's drum 'n' bass that's jazzy, hard techno, with a lot of vocals, disco and all kinds of stuff. But the core of drum 'n' bass is just fast beats but to most people it sounds like hip-hop that's twice as fast.
DRE: When did you first discover it?
D: I got into DJing like in 1991 before there was drum 'n' bass when everything was about 130 beats per minute. Then as things began to splinter off and create subgenres I stayed with the genre that progressively got faster and became drum 'n' bass.
DRE: Did you help the form to evolve?
D: Not at the time. I did push the music as far as trying to promote it but I can't say that I help push it forward. At that time all drum 'n' bass was coming out of England. That's the motherland of drum 'n' bass. I wasn't part of that because I'm from a small town in the States.
DRE: Why did drum 'n' bass start in England? Was it the rave culture?
D: Yeah. It's kind of how we innovated hip-hop in America. It was kind of like UK's answer to hip-hop because it kind of came from the ghetto area. It was through the gangster crowd who was into the rave scene.
DRE: Do you think drum 'n' bass will ever hit the mainstream?
D: I don't think it's ever to going to get too mainstream. You'll have tunes that will crack the charts sometimes. But I think the basic form of drum 'n' bass is just too complex for mainstream audiences at least at this point in time. It just sounds somewhat alien to most people. Which is kind of cool because then it will maintain its underground credibility.
DRE: What appeals to you about drum 'n' bass?
D: If you go to a good drum 'n' bass show the music can be really intense. It's almost got a punk rock kind of vibe because it's so heavy. It can have this intense and heavy rock vibe too. I know a lot of people who have come into the scene from the metal, punk and rock scene. It's got a rough kind of energy that gets people hyped up. That's what I really like. Also I like the focus on the production side of it which is getting the most twisted sounds out of the gear in the studio. I find it very interesting. I've always been into percussion and drumming. Most drummers that hear drum 'n' bass are into it. I know so many drummers that like it because it's so technical.
DRE: I heard you went to your first rave kind of late at age 19.
D: Yeah that's right. At first I didn't really know about real underground techno music was at the time. I was into some electronic music like industrial. I'd been to a Front 242 concert. That was my doorway to techno and shortly thereafter I went to my first rave at 19 but I'm getting kind of old now [laughs]. I'm going to be 31 this year.
DRE: How did Pittsburgh help you to find drum 'n' bass?
D: Being involved in the scene in Pittsburgh early on was cool. There were only two guys doing shows there at the time and they were pretty forward thinking and into some pretty heavy hardcore techno. But when they would throw shows they would represent a wide variety of music so you would hear all kinds of stuff. There was a sense of open-mindedness in Pittsburgh in the early rave days. We didn't have promoters that were primarily pushing house music and making everyone house heads. The hard part was that early on it was hard to get drum 'n' bass records in America. Most of the good records weren't getting over to the States. There were so many records that were big in England but it took forever to get them over here. So you would have to go on this manic hunt for these records. There was no world wide web to help you get them so it was quite challenging. It made our jobs a bit more difficult.
DRE: What made you start adding jazz and reggae to drum 'n' bass?
D: Drum 'n' bass has progressed and taken on different flavors and whatnot. Usually what happens is that some artist will come out with a record that has a new influence in it and everyone else will be inspired by that and a lot of producers will be producing tracks with that element in it. Ragga is drum 'n' bass with a reggae influence and that started back in the UK during the hardcore days. But there was a raga revival back in 1995 and that's when it started getting really popular in the States. That opened the door for a lot of people to get into this music because it had these more mainstream elements. I personally didn't inject a ragga influence into drum 'n' bass but I was playing it. In the past few years there was a disco influence and before that there was an old school revival using all these old samples. There is no prevalent style right now but people are doing all kinds of stuff.
DRE: What's it like traveling all over the world doing what you love?
D: It's great. There are times when I will be in South Africa in the summer, laying on the beach and I will think about how I'm getting paid to be here. It's bizarre. Everything that goes along with what I do know like traveling, signing autographs and meeting people is really quite surreal. It feels like I'm in a dream and I'm just watching myself do something. I've worked in the "real world" for many years. I was a stockboy at a department store, sold food at the zoo, cooked french fries and for an internet. Now to do this and get paid for it is wild. The hardest part of my job is the constant traveling, living out of a suitcase, always being at the airport, not spending a lot of quality time with my girlfriend and it's hard on all my relationships. It can get lonely but that's a small price to pay.
DRE: What's the average drum 'n' bass fan like?
D: The hardcore drum 'n' bass fans tend to fall into the nerd category. Meaning that they aren't geeks but they are really into learning every detail of every release, artist and they know everything. A lot of these guys come to shows and rather than dancing or rocking out they sit in the back nodding their head with a pen and paper to take notes on what you're doing. Its like a trainspotter culture [A person who makes a hobby of following war by memorizing everything about one subject]. People are just hardcore with the facts and that can take the fun out of it. The average drum 'n' bass guy tends to be pretty knowledgeable about artists and what tracks are being played. That's actually better than a lot of genres of electronic dance music. Drum 'n' bass guys really do their homework about the scene.
DRE: What was it like in 1998 being the first American to win the award for Best Drum 'n' Bass Mix DJ at the Global DJ Mix Awards?
D: That was a very short lived award; I think they only gave that out for two years. There were some big names nominated so to actually win that award I was surprised. It was cool but to put it into perspective. They had this event at this club in San Francisco called 1015. I was DJing that night but yet DJ Rap, who didn't even get nominated, got a better time slot than I did. At the time it put a damper on the whole thing.
DRE: I bet there were a lot of people who were upset at you winning.
D: I'm sure there was. But that award was like a US based award even thought it was for international DJs. One accolade I got that did get people in arms a bit was when DJ Magazine did a top 100 DJs and two years ago I won number 63. I beat out Groove Rider and Fabio who are like the godfathers of drum 'n' bass. That definitely ruffled some feathers because that magazine was UK based. I think that was the beginning of people realizing that Americans are starting to make headway into the scene. It can be a very closed culture in England. To them drum 'n' bass is a UK thing and anyone else who does outside of the UK is a poser.
DRE: How is your label going?
D: I've got a few more releases lined up. I'm in the middle of my next mix CD which is going to come out on my label. It's called Dungeon Master's Guide which is a reference to my role-playing past. I don't do my own label to make money. It's just a creative outlet to promote artists. Some people run labels to make a living but I make my living DJing. Because of that I can release records at my own speed. So I don't have to rush people's stuff out. It's a stress free activity.
We just got international distribution for the last release.
DRE: Were a big fan of role-playing?
D: I played when I was younger up through college. I used to collect role-playing games. In drum 'n' bass the whole focus is on futuristic and futurism. A lot of my last CD used that futuristic aesthetic vibe. The graphic design and packaging. I thought it would be a cool nod to my geek past. I have friends I used to play with who follow my career and have them be surprised.
The next one is going to be my last mix CD for a while because I want to focus on original music.
DRE: Are you a fan of suicide girls?
D: I don't have an account but I've taken a look at it.
DRE: Do you like the punk, emo or Goth girls?
D: Probably emo because that hits closer to home to how I dress. I don't dress like most "drum 'n' bass people". I tend to dress more like emo. One of the Suicide Girls, Nitrous, is coming to meet me in Florida. Do you know her?
DRE: I don't know her but I've seen her naked.
D: She's got guns on her stomach. But I think she looks different now. There are some hot girls on the site though. Nitrous is a friend of a promoter I know. I met her through him.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
Anyway Dieselboy is the most famous drum 'n' bass DJ in the United States. He has been at the forefront of the drum 'n' bass in America since it first gained popularity in the early 1990's. AK1200, aka Dave Minner, the longest running jungle DJ/producer in the U.S., has called Dieselboy "an icon for American junglists." It's hard to believe that Pittsburgh was a hotbed of dance music when Dieselboy was growing up. He first started calling himself Diesel when going to Internet chat rooms in college. But soon he discovered that a local graffiti artist also called himself Diesel. So he made it Dieselboy which reflected his interest in such things as video games and animation.
In 1997 he moved to Philadelphia and the next year he started Platinum, a weekly Thursday night event at Philadelphia's Fluid club, which many well-traveled junglists considered to be the premier drum 'n' bass club night in the U.S.
Since then he started his own record label, Human Imprint. They have just released his latest CD, 'projectHUMAN'.
Check out DJ Dieselboy's website.
Daniel Robert Epstein: How about a quick basic description of drum 'n' bass for the people who might not know about.
Dieselboy: Drum 'n' bass is basically a form of electronic dance music that's been around for about 10 or 11 years. It's characterized by its speed which is anywhere from 170 to 180 beats per minute which is about twice as fast as your average hip-hop tune. The core of drum 'n' bass is the creak beat and the speed. It has all kinds of different sounds that can go with it. There's drum 'n' bass that's jazzy, hard techno, with a lot of vocals, disco and all kinds of stuff. But the core of drum 'n' bass is just fast beats but to most people it sounds like hip-hop that's twice as fast.
DRE: When did you first discover it?
D: I got into DJing like in 1991 before there was drum 'n' bass when everything was about 130 beats per minute. Then as things began to splinter off and create subgenres I stayed with the genre that progressively got faster and became drum 'n' bass.
DRE: Did you help the form to evolve?
D: Not at the time. I did push the music as far as trying to promote it but I can't say that I help push it forward. At that time all drum 'n' bass was coming out of England. That's the motherland of drum 'n' bass. I wasn't part of that because I'm from a small town in the States.
DRE: Why did drum 'n' bass start in England? Was it the rave culture?
D: Yeah. It's kind of how we innovated hip-hop in America. It was kind of like UK's answer to hip-hop because it kind of came from the ghetto area. It was through the gangster crowd who was into the rave scene.
DRE: Do you think drum 'n' bass will ever hit the mainstream?
D: I don't think it's ever to going to get too mainstream. You'll have tunes that will crack the charts sometimes. But I think the basic form of drum 'n' bass is just too complex for mainstream audiences at least at this point in time. It just sounds somewhat alien to most people. Which is kind of cool because then it will maintain its underground credibility.
DRE: What appeals to you about drum 'n' bass?
D: If you go to a good drum 'n' bass show the music can be really intense. It's almost got a punk rock kind of vibe because it's so heavy. It can have this intense and heavy rock vibe too. I know a lot of people who have come into the scene from the metal, punk and rock scene. It's got a rough kind of energy that gets people hyped up. That's what I really like. Also I like the focus on the production side of it which is getting the most twisted sounds out of the gear in the studio. I find it very interesting. I've always been into percussion and drumming. Most drummers that hear drum 'n' bass are into it. I know so many drummers that like it because it's so technical.
DRE: I heard you went to your first rave kind of late at age 19.
D: Yeah that's right. At first I didn't really know about real underground techno music was at the time. I was into some electronic music like industrial. I'd been to a Front 242 concert. That was my doorway to techno and shortly thereafter I went to my first rave at 19 but I'm getting kind of old now [laughs]. I'm going to be 31 this year.
DRE: How did Pittsburgh help you to find drum 'n' bass?
D: Being involved in the scene in Pittsburgh early on was cool. There were only two guys doing shows there at the time and they were pretty forward thinking and into some pretty heavy hardcore techno. But when they would throw shows they would represent a wide variety of music so you would hear all kinds of stuff. There was a sense of open-mindedness in Pittsburgh in the early rave days. We didn't have promoters that were primarily pushing house music and making everyone house heads. The hard part was that early on it was hard to get drum 'n' bass records in America. Most of the good records weren't getting over to the States. There were so many records that were big in England but it took forever to get them over here. So you would have to go on this manic hunt for these records. There was no world wide web to help you get them so it was quite challenging. It made our jobs a bit more difficult.
DRE: What made you start adding jazz and reggae to drum 'n' bass?
D: Drum 'n' bass has progressed and taken on different flavors and whatnot. Usually what happens is that some artist will come out with a record that has a new influence in it and everyone else will be inspired by that and a lot of producers will be producing tracks with that element in it. Ragga is drum 'n' bass with a reggae influence and that started back in the UK during the hardcore days. But there was a raga revival back in 1995 and that's when it started getting really popular in the States. That opened the door for a lot of people to get into this music because it had these more mainstream elements. I personally didn't inject a ragga influence into drum 'n' bass but I was playing it. In the past few years there was a disco influence and before that there was an old school revival using all these old samples. There is no prevalent style right now but people are doing all kinds of stuff.
DRE: What's it like traveling all over the world doing what you love?
D: It's great. There are times when I will be in South Africa in the summer, laying on the beach and I will think about how I'm getting paid to be here. It's bizarre. Everything that goes along with what I do know like traveling, signing autographs and meeting people is really quite surreal. It feels like I'm in a dream and I'm just watching myself do something. I've worked in the "real world" for many years. I was a stockboy at a department store, sold food at the zoo, cooked french fries and for an internet. Now to do this and get paid for it is wild. The hardest part of my job is the constant traveling, living out of a suitcase, always being at the airport, not spending a lot of quality time with my girlfriend and it's hard on all my relationships. It can get lonely but that's a small price to pay.
DRE: What's the average drum 'n' bass fan like?
D: The hardcore drum 'n' bass fans tend to fall into the nerd category. Meaning that they aren't geeks but they are really into learning every detail of every release, artist and they know everything. A lot of these guys come to shows and rather than dancing or rocking out they sit in the back nodding their head with a pen and paper to take notes on what you're doing. Its like a trainspotter culture [A person who makes a hobby of following war by memorizing everything about one subject]. People are just hardcore with the facts and that can take the fun out of it. The average drum 'n' bass guy tends to be pretty knowledgeable about artists and what tracks are being played. That's actually better than a lot of genres of electronic dance music. Drum 'n' bass guys really do their homework about the scene.
DRE: What was it like in 1998 being the first American to win the award for Best Drum 'n' Bass Mix DJ at the Global DJ Mix Awards?
D: That was a very short lived award; I think they only gave that out for two years. There were some big names nominated so to actually win that award I was surprised. It was cool but to put it into perspective. They had this event at this club in San Francisco called 1015. I was DJing that night but yet DJ Rap, who didn't even get nominated, got a better time slot than I did. At the time it put a damper on the whole thing.
DRE: I bet there were a lot of people who were upset at you winning.
D: I'm sure there was. But that award was like a US based award even thought it was for international DJs. One accolade I got that did get people in arms a bit was when DJ Magazine did a top 100 DJs and two years ago I won number 63. I beat out Groove Rider and Fabio who are like the godfathers of drum 'n' bass. That definitely ruffled some feathers because that magazine was UK based. I think that was the beginning of people realizing that Americans are starting to make headway into the scene. It can be a very closed culture in England. To them drum 'n' bass is a UK thing and anyone else who does outside of the UK is a poser.
DRE: How is your label going?
D: I've got a few more releases lined up. I'm in the middle of my next mix CD which is going to come out on my label. It's called Dungeon Master's Guide which is a reference to my role-playing past. I don't do my own label to make money. It's just a creative outlet to promote artists. Some people run labels to make a living but I make my living DJing. Because of that I can release records at my own speed. So I don't have to rush people's stuff out. It's a stress free activity.
We just got international distribution for the last release.
DRE: Were a big fan of role-playing?
D: I played when I was younger up through college. I used to collect role-playing games. In drum 'n' bass the whole focus is on futuristic and futurism. A lot of my last CD used that futuristic aesthetic vibe. The graphic design and packaging. I thought it would be a cool nod to my geek past. I have friends I used to play with who follow my career and have them be surprised.
The next one is going to be my last mix CD for a while because I want to focus on original music.
DRE: Are you a fan of suicide girls?
D: I don't have an account but I've taken a look at it.
DRE: Do you like the punk, emo or Goth girls?
D: Probably emo because that hits closer to home to how I dress. I don't dress like most "drum 'n' bass people". I tend to dress more like emo. One of the Suicide Girls, Nitrous, is coming to meet me in Florida. Do you know her?
DRE: I don't know her but I've seen her naked.
D: She's got guns on her stomach. But I think she looks different now. There are some hot girls on the site though. Nitrous is a friend of a promoter I know. I met her through him.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
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