No. 1: Fabio & Grooverider

Might as well start with legends in the game, right?

Well, hello.

Thanks for checking this out. We’re quite excited now we’ve got the first few interviews and photos locked and done. As you might know, the idea of this mailout is to expand outwards from Bass, Mids, Tops: so, where the book’s long, interlocking set of Q&As mapped out specifically Caribbean-influenced British sound system / bass culture, now we’re going out into wider subculture and pop culture. Everyone we talk to will be interesting in themselves, but the aim is always to have them work together, to allow the broader, deeper histories to show themselves.

Coming up over the next few weeks, we’ve got no less than her majesty Róisín Murphy, DJ GRANDMIXXER (with an incredible downloadable beatles grime mix), and Hifi Sean aka Sean Dickson of The Soup Dragons, and some other names we’re really buzzing about soon to be announced. But to kick off, we thought let’s stay close to Bass, Mids, Tops’s ethos and have some absolute legends who could easily have fitted into the book - indeed are mentioned again and again throughout it. So, here’s Fitzroy Hislop and Raymond Bingham, aka Fabio and Grooverider, who, with the Outlook Orchestra, are headlining Project 6 Festival in their old South London stamping ground this Friday.

This was mildly nerve racking as I’d interviewed them back in 2017 when their Rage compilation came out, but the podcast it was for managed to somehow corrupt two hard drives with the audio recording on and their time was wasted. I needn’t have worried: when we met up with them at Croydon Boxpark they were superb value, Fabio booming with enthusiasm, Groove drily cantankerous, both of them tripping each other up and laughing a lot. It was ridiculous to think they have been DJing together for 35 years, because mostly they felt like old mates shooting the breeze. This is the conversation verbatim - the only editing is to remove the number of times they each repeated the last bit of what the other had just said.

But before you dive in, though, if you are are a lover of jungle / drum’n’bass music, can we quickly divert you to a fundraiser for Leke Aerosoul - stalwart of the scene and designer of the iconic JUNGLIST MOVEMENT t-shirt - who is critically ill and in need of support. This Friday, a release featuring tracks from untold legends is going out on Bandcamp - click “follow” here to get a notification when it’s live. Now, on with the show…

(Grooverider, Fabio - no, they don’t always stand the same way round, what do you think they are, light entertainment hosts?)

Right. Can you introduce yourselves?

Fabio: I'm Fabio.

Grooverider: I'm Grooverider.

And we're interviewing you because you're preparing for...

F: Project 6.

G: Yeah, project 6 Festival in Brockwell Park.

F: We're doing the Outlook Orchestra¹ set first and foremost. We're doing the orchestra, then we're doing after party.

And how many Outlook Orchestra shows have you done now?

G: This'll be our fifth.

F: Fifth or sixth now.

And how does that work? What's your part onstage with the orchestra?

F: Well, we're hosts. So the concept of it is based around us, what we’d play, from '92 up until current day-

G: Yeah, mostly jungle, basically.

F: Basically, that's what it is.

G: The there to the now.

What did you think when someone came in to propose it originally: “We're going to orchestrate jungle tunes”?

F: Well, we weren't quite sure how it was going to work.

G: Yeah, or if it was going to sound shit. That's the whole premise for any project, like, if it sounds shit, I ain't putting my name to that shit. So, we come up with a track list and they defined how it was going to work in a score, and when the score actually got done, I still wasn't sure until I actually heard it.

F: And then we were blown away. We couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe what they'd done, but they'd been very proficient with that. We’d had numerous meetings with them, and it was a concept, but they carried it through really well, man. And it's great. We really enjoy it.

It must be weird, because you’ve trained yourself to listen with DJs’ ears...

F: That's what I'm saying. We're ultra critical. It's not like-

G: Yeah, it's got to sound like the record.

F: Exactly.

G: Or else-

F: Else we're not interested.

G: I don't want to be involved in something where it doesn't sound like what it's supposed to be. Nobody else would know what it is, either. Do you know what I mean? Jungle is not the most commercial music as it is, so you've got to get it on point or else nobody's going to know what you're doing.

And in terms of the culture, how do you get your heads around how things have moved from sweaty, moody, smoky clubs to people sitting down and watching an orchestra, or having jungle brunches?

F: Yeah, it's a lot more civilized and organized, but it's cool. Because you know what? It's not so much different.

G: If you'd left it 10 years and then went back into it, there'd probably be an obvious change, but if you'd been it in constantly, then you don't really notice it-

F: True.

G: Like, when you're going along day to day, ‘til somebody like you asks a question, you don't even notice it when you're in it.

F: Also, it's not just a sit down thing. It's still like a club environment. At first, people are kind of like [closes eyes, nods appreciatively] Then a couple of people stand up, and then by the end, everyone's dancing. It's a vibe there. It's not boring and sterile. It's like a club vibe, which is... I think that's what's so special about the shows.

So it takes a minute for them to actually get their heads around what's going on and what they're listening to?

G: Yeah. Well, it does as well because we start off with the early years, and a lot of them are very young and don't know those tunes.

F: Yeah, exactly, so they don't know the tunes. But then it is a history lesson and they get it.

What kind of '92 tunes do they do?

Fabio: Jonny L “Hurt You So”. [Lennie De Ice] “We Are I.E.” ...

Amazing.

G: Foundational tunes.

F: The foundation tunes. And then they go through ...

G: Early jungle classics.

F: Early jungle classics, into the late '90s.

G: Then we finish up with some new stuff.

F: And the way they do the orchestra as well, it's all seamless. There's no gaps apart from when we come in and talk about the eras. So '92 to '96, they do that, then we come in, then it's '96 to-

G: It’s like proper mixing.

F: They mix.

G: They mix the tunes.

F: It's not even a joke.

G: Can hear the tunes mixing from one to the other one.

F: It's insane.

Right. Let's talk about that actual history, then. Where did you both grow up?

F: South London.

G: Not too far from here.

F: Yeah, I was brought up in Brixton.

G: Streatham. Spent a lot of my time round Streatham, Brixton, then I moved down these ways, down to Purley [South side of Croydon] when I was about 16.

What sort of music were you surrounded by in your household as a kid?

F: Soul and reggae.

G: Yeah, mine was just pretty much shit reggae. [Fabio cackles heartily] My dad loved it, do you know what I mean? But I wasn't really a fan. I liked punk rock when I was growing up.

F: Yeah, Groove was a punk rocker.

G: Yeah, skinhead mate.

What kind of bands?

G: The Clash, X-Ray Spex. I used to love Billy Idol. Obviously the Sex Pistols, Public Image, all that kind of thing. Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Were you knocking around with other punks?

G: Not really, no. I just liked the music. I wasn't really dressing like that. You know what I mean? Green hair and all that, that wasn't me. I was just like a normal kid, but I just liked the music.

F: I was a soul boy. I was into the whole reggae thing and dub and sound systems. So yeah, in my house, it was soul and reggae constantly.

So you didn't have a generation gap: your taste developed from what your parents were into?

F: Yeah, I was into everything, though. I weren't just into soul and reggae. I liked punk too.

G: In a West Indian household, that's what you listen to.

F: It’s just there.

G: That's what's flung in front of you. So the reggae, that's what we're going to get.

F: And then you go down to Brixton, that's all you're hearing is reggae through the record shops and shit like that, and funk, and... so you can't help getting drawn into the whole thing.