If Every DJ in My Position Were to Rest on Their Laurels, Then the Whole Industry Would Be Fucked
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“If every DJ in my position were to rest on their laurels, then the whole industry would be fucked. In fact, that’s the reason the industry IS fucked, because DJs are resting on their laurels.” RENEGADE MASTERJackmaster has hit the big league in recent times. The DJ who started out in a local Glaswegian bar has now made a name for himself worldwide, yet with those international tours has come assorted pressures and temptations. DJ Mag follows the Numbers boss from Glasgow to Glasto to hear about his unstoppable rise... Words: ADAM SAVILLE Pics: BRIAN SWEENEY & SARAH GINN 026 djmag.com 026 djmag.com djmag.com 027 Untitled-1 1 13/07/2017 16:32 bring all my dates here,” Jack Revill Jackmaster & Eats Everything announces with a cheeky grin and glint in his eye as he steps into his favourite Glasgow bar, in Fin- nieston, just a few blocks from the Numbers office. Obviously, we’re flattered. Ordering a pint — at 2pm on a Wednesday — we’re both trying to remember the last time we’d bumped into one another. On a BA flight back “Ifrom Brazil, this reporter remembers. Jack had just been booked to play during carnival in Warung’s breathtaking main room. An impromptu b2b with Maceo Plex only lasted a couple of tunes until management (not his) intervened, perhaps fearing what affect one of dance music’s most eclectic and energetic selectors would have on the Ellum Audio boss’ tidy prog-techno set. The point is, Jack will play with pretty much any- one he respects as a DJ — he just loves DJing. “I try not to be too snobby about it, I’ve always re- ally disliked the snobbery about dance music, this holier-than-thou kind of thing,” he says when asked about the company he keeps. “I am more picky now than I used to be about what line-ups I’m on, but I’ve always been of the mindset that music is for everyone, it’s easy to get caught up in this cultural snobbery. I might be on a line-up one day with the so-called ‘cooler DJs’ and the next one might be with Armand Van Helden…” This correspondent last interviewed Jack three years ago in a tropical hotel garden just off Collins Avenue during Miami Music Week. He’d just slept through probably the most important gig of the trip, Damian Lazarus’ all-star Get Lost party. It was a time when things were really Jackmaster & Skream kicking off for the loveable Glaswegian, he’d only recently picked up a marquee 12-week residency Jack gets his Best DJ Award from Idris Elba series at London’s XOYO and later that year he won the coveted Best DJ gong at our annual Best Of British Awards (four years after scooping the Best Breakthrough Award), following in the same footsteps as Eats Everything, Andy C and, more recently, DJ EZ. At the time he told us: “I don’t think I’ll ever see myself as part of the ‘big league’ and I’m not necessarily looking to be either, because I find when people start thinking like that, they suffer from it and start to compro- mise their vision.” TOP OF THE LEAGUE These days, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for him to deny his status as one of the UK’s top-level DJs, yet there’s still no sign of him losing sight of his philosophy. “I grew as a DJ very organically,” he asserts as we sip pints two-and-a-half-years later in Glasgow. “I took on management because I couldn’t deal with everything that was going on, so I needed some help, but it wasn’t like I Two years ago he even found himself playing of younger ravers, sure, but not a music policy wanted to be taken on by management because b2b2b2b as part of J.E.S.u.S, a DJ-super-group aligned to Jack’s freestyle approach to rapid-fire I wanted to be the biggest DJ in the world, or alongside Eats, Seth and Skream, which sold out genre selection; an ethos picked up from his days whatever…” large venues in places like Miami and Ibiza better in Glasgow attending Optimo’s weekly Sunday Now, however, it’s indisputable — because of the than it worked as a concept; its too-many-cooks party at Sub Club — or from Diplo’s early sets, line-ups he’s appearing on and the crew he runs approach at times proving slightly jumbled or which drew upon everything from Detroit electro with — that Jack’s ball automatically drops into incongruent, their disparate styles occasionally to favela-funk to Aphex Twin. the seeded pot when it comes to the World Cup of sounding a bit clunky. “People like Optimo have never been about house and techno DJs these days. Out of that tag-team, Skream is the one Jack had what’s cool and what is not, it’s just been about Picked up by Grade Management around the same most in common with. The Rinse FM star, follow- what’s good, what you like and what works, which time we met in Miami, Jack very quickly went from ing his years pioneering dubstep, is someone has always been the philosophy I like to work a playful familiar face mainly associated with the Jack refers to as “the most defining relationship with,” Jack asserts. “I would walk into a club and Glasgow scene — or UK bass nights in London I’ve had in my DJ career” — someone he’d regu- we would never turn our nose up at anything. like FWD and madcap mash-up grime/garage sets larly call for advice. It’s very easy to spot when people are trying to with Oneman as Can U Dance — to someone all of be cool, and when they’re very aware of their a sudden placed in the same bracket as house and Today, however, even Skream has been spotted surroundings… ‘I wanna be photographed with techno giants such as Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler playing b2b tech-house sets with Solardo — a fun this guy, hanging out backstage,’ it’s a load of and Eats Everything. combination guaranteed to work a dancefloor bullshit.” djmag.com 029 Numbers crew circa 2009 Only last month, he was second-place billing for eryone — there’s a difference. Opening of DC-10 says of DJ culture over the years, “and I’ve been DC-10’s Monday marathon CircoLoco, below only the other week, a lot of people said they enjoyed lucky enough to ride that wave, I guess. There’s The Martinez Brothers, and above the likes of it, but I purposely tried to play some things that always been little things going on behind the Marcel Dettmann, Ellen Allien and The Black Ma- were maybe a little bit against the grain. I was scenes, just little catalysts that I’ve been lucky donna — two Berlin legends, one a label-owning playing old rave stuff on the Terrace, breakbeat enough to benefit from.” veteran, and possibly the most re-tweeted DJ on and shit. I was like, ‘If this goes badly, and it all the internet today. And all without a single tune goes tits up, what’s the worst that can happen?’. Jack admits Numbers played a key role amid coming out under his name. I’ve been true to myself at the end of the day.” the “so-called UK bass movement”, especially But with his rising profile and changing scenery And that’s another secret to Jack’s success. His during the early ‘00s as it put out crossover hits has come the additional challenge of satisfying unpretentious personality and carefree approach by Jamie xx, Hudson Mohawke and Jesse Ware & rigid dancefloors more used to homogenous to life is reflected within the music he plays, and SBTRKT, and he also pays tribute to the ongoing house and techno DJs. How does he go about it? the way he plays it. A likeable character who plays support from Richard, Calum and the rest of the “It depends on my mood,” he reflects. “Some- killer records; a DJ people automatically connect team for their “no-bullshit advice” over the years. times you try to push it a bit, sometimes you’re with, he provides all the requisite ingredients for Rubadub, too — Glasgow’s revered record shop just like ‘Fuck it’, which is a bad thing... If every a good party. Regardless of whether you know — where he worked after flunking out of school DJ in my position were to rest on their laurels, of him or not, it’s more than enough for most at the age of 17. Despite almost losing his job for then the whole industry would be fucked. In fact, people — and quite rightly too. turning up late after DJ gigs and parties, he also that’s the reason the industry IS fucked, because made his living with Rubadub distributions where DJs are resting on their laurels.” LUCKY NUMBERS he got his education sorting records — Detroit Fully aware that dance music’s current rude patch The tragic loss of his mother and “best friend” techno, Chicago house through to IDM/elec- isn’t going to last forever, Jack is adamant not to during his early teens was what got Jack into tronica stuff — until things really picked up on take anything for granted. Fifteen years plying DJing in the first place. Around the same time the road during his early-20s.