Since then he’s been all over the place – Metalheadz is now 17 years old and still going strong, and his production and DJing careers are still well and truly rocking. He’s made appearances on UK Celebrity Big Brother and acted in films like The World Is Not Enough and Snatch For The Hell Of It, been the subject of BBC documentaries, so getting on the phone to one of drum and bass’s legends was, to be honest, a terrifying experience.
While Goldie is rather well-known for being a pretty chilled-out, likeable dude, little did I know that he was such a cheeky bastard. “Hi there, I’m Miki and I’m calling from Beat Magazine in Melbourne, Australia—” I began, hands shaking from a mix of nerves and too much caffeine, and the voice on the other end indignantly replied that I’d actually phoned the offices in Richmond and began quizzing me as to where in the building I was and what I was doing ringing up at that hour. Confusion reigned for what seemed like an eternity as I attempted to talk my way out of the situation to no avail and the voice on the other end continued to ask me all sorts of weird questions.
“I’m not in the office! I’m sorry, I think I’ve called the wrong number. Maybe I’d better call the other one I have,” I said, beginning to panic. “Well, maybe this is Goldie pulling your leg.”
The penny dropped. And so within two minutes, Goldie had already made certain that this was an interview I’d never, ever forget. Famous for an infectiously cheerful, mile-a-minute manner of expressing himself and his opinions, coupled with a disciplined and serious work ethic makes him a particularly memorable figure within dance music.
His day’s been pretty good – the Bikram yoga obsession he’s known for these days, coupled with all of his artistic pursuits and the obligations of family means he’s a busy, busy dude. Metalheadz, the label he owns, is rapidly approaching its hundredth release over 17 years – was this something he’d ever anticipated? “To be honest, it’s exactly what it says on the tin. To be a cutting-edge label that would give people uncompromised effects on music, to have a place to play music and create music without having any borders,” he explains. “It comes from that b-boy mentality – someone would do a move and you’d expect someone to do a better move to follow that and that was always my intention, and that’s never been compromised, which is brilliant.”
That philosophy has seen Metalheadz have an extraordinary influence on the emergence and success of drum and bass – host to artists such as Ed Rush and Optical, Alex Reece, Dillinja and others, the nurturing of talent and the insistence on not diluting the quality of their material by putting out innumerable releases has seen the label become a respected institution not just in drum and bass, but the dance music scene in general.
“It’s good to still be here – I think all labels go through something,” he continues. “There was a period about seven, ten years ago where we didn’t put much out because the scene was changing. Most people that grew up on that sound were now having two point two kids! You wait for the new artists to pop up and the last five years there’s been a real surge of new artists like Subwave and Spectrasoul that grew up in the background of it, and that was very interesting, to develop those artists. Going through that catalyst of change, preparing for 2012 and those artists are making albums and really laying it down.”
As the drum and bass scene changed, and aged with time, the thought was that like its brother jungle, it would eventually die a protracted and painful death – but it’s still alive and kicking, with fans young and old all still buying records and talking about the artists. When I mention exactly how old I am to him (20), he laughs, telling me that seeing the youth of today still getting into the kind of output in drum and bass gives him immense hope. “It’s great! Young people in the next five years are gonna like drum and bass the way they like Motown!”
He thinks of Metalheadz as an ideal and a culture, rather than merely a business venture – and that idea being central to the survival of the label, along with the diversity and originality of sounds. July saw Goldie at the helm of celebrated mix series FabricLive’s 58th compilation, and the results are stunning. Traversing all manner of little subsections of the genre – everything from bangers on Ram and classics from Metalheadz, to the spacier vibes of Exit Records, it’s easy to see the universal appeal of such a mix for both older fans of the genre, as well as newbies. Listening to it, it is clear that this is a guy who knows his history, and knows what he’s doing. “It’s a good overview, you know?” he replies. “It’s like painting: if you don’t know what you’re painting when you’re putting it all together there’s no point to it! I’ve been around long enough to respect other people’s music and that’s one thing I don’t get: people say to me, why don’t you play your own music? Well, the one thing I’m reluctant to do is play my own music because there’s enough of other people’s music to play! It’s a little bit like looking pictures of yourself in the living room – I wanna see other people, it’s a more interesting landscape!”
Abandoned by his parents as a toddler and bouncing from home to home in foster care knowing that children such as him are, overwhelmingly, destined for bleak futures, music was a way of escaping – a mode of self-expression and realisation. “I’ve always grown up on music – the first thing I ever had was music, the first record I played was The Logical Song by Supertramp which is this fucking heartbreaking record about growing up in the care system and I found this record on a gramophone and played it, and was dragged away from it kicking and screaming! Music’s always equal, an emotional part of my life, it’s always been that, it’s always been attached to my emotions. When drum and bass came along for me, it was the interior soul – that defining thing.”
Given his background in the care of the state, his attempt to reach out to similarly disenfranchised youth and give them a hand makes perfect sense. “It’s like how Steve Jobs rewired Apple – we need to rewire this society to speak to young people. The government are living in the dark ages.” Last year saw the BBC documentary headed by him, Goldie’s Band: By Royal Appointment screen in three parts. He sounds particularly enthusiastic talking about this project. “It was with Prince Harry, which was quite interesting. It wasn’t ridiculous, it was ridonkulous!” he says, with a laugh. “It’s like, I’ve had so much riches – this scene has been good to me and I think wealth is the one thing I have – a wealth of experience.”
The collaboration saw him working with a small group of young musicians – resulting in a collaborative, creative and safe environment for his younger friends, who have ended up appearing on the album he’s four tracks deep into at the moment. He is philosophical, reflecting on the results of the documentary. “It challenges that whole X-Factor generation – isolating young kids and separating them, whereas this is about bringing them together,” he muses. “We had a deaf trumpet player, one guy who watched his two friends being murdered, a singer who was schizophrenic, one who’d had open-heart surgery, an Asian guy who’d copped loads of abuse – people who had very much come from similar backgrounds. We put them together and got them to write together, and they ended up performing at Buckingham Palace and blew the fucking roof off! I found that really worthy, really wholesome, if you like.”
He’s still shredding up the decks all across the globe, and Melbourne is in his sights. “Melbourne! I used to have some of the most amazing shows there,” he says, gleefully. “The Prince of Wales, does that even exist anymore? We used to play there years ago! It’s probably old hat now, but we used to have some throwdowns there! I’m looking forward to it – I think you might see some older people going, “listen, you babysit – I wanna go and watch Goldie tonight!”
To be honest, I disagree: Goldie’s magic touch when it comes to the turntables, ridiculous sense of fun and encyclopaedic knowledge of drum and bass looks like it could be fun for the whole family. Timeless, indeed!
