Zinc ft No. Lay – Killa Sound (MediaFire)

Zinc – Submarines (MediaFire)

Zinc – Crackhouse Mix (MediaFire)

The legend known as Zinc is back at 130bpm.

Having rocked the drum and bass scene as part of the Ganja Crew and as a solo artist, with tracks like his massive remix of The Fugees ‘Ready Or Not’, he helped invent what was known as breakbeat garage in the noughties with ‘138 Trek’ and his label Bingo Beats. Returning to drum and bass, he recently dropped his debut album, ‘Faster’, before coming back with a new ‘Crack House’ sound and label Bingo Bass.

Ahead of his appearance at May’s Chew the Fat!, we gathered together a couple of his new productions, his latest mix, and had a chat about how music saved him from a much, much less fun life…

I think it’s fair to say that to anyone into bass music that you’re pretty much considered a legend – tracks like ‘Super Sharp Shooter’ and ‘138 Trek’ are still massive anthems today. How come the man behind them is still relatively unknown?

I guess it’s cos I haven’t done many interviews, I’d rather let the music speak for itself!

You made a foray into the breaks/garage scene with your Bingo Beats label but the releases dried up some time ago. Why did you decided to wind things up before and what made you decide to make a foray back to house/breaks tempos again?

Both times it’s not been a plan, just following the sounds that I’m feelin’ at the time.

You’ve had an EP drop on your new label, Bingo Bass. What else have you got coming up? Is it purely your own tracks of do you have more artists up your sleeve?

Just my tunes for now. Album should drop before summer.

You’re touting your sound as ‘Crack House’. The mix we’ve heard is a great and takes in all kinds of stuff, funky, electro, fidget and even deep house. How do you source your tunes? I guess there’s sometimes the misconception that ravers into drum and bass are only into drum and bass but you seem to cast your net far and wide.

The name ‘crack house’ is just something I came up when I was in a bar in Japan with Dynamite – I was playing the house stuff for the first time out there and Dyna wanted to know how to introduce it. At first I was just sayin it’s house, but that’s too vague – but I dunno what its called that I’m playin’… it does include the sub genres you list, so I guess it’ll be a matter of people hearing a mix and let them decide what it is!

Given the massive popularity of dubstep, and the many other sounds that it draws upon, is this another sound that you’re going to be experimenting with? It just seems a really exciting time in terms of bass music at the moment with lots of new strains constantly evolving.

I love listening to dubstep and hang out with quite a few of the dubstep DJs and producers but I don’t plan to make any at the mo.

We hear that you’re a real creature of the night and don’t ever get up until the afternoon. Describe a typical Zinc day for us.

Hmmm. Today I woke up in Miami, went to the beach, had Cuban for lunch, now I’m at the airport and I’ll get back to London in the morning. Then I’ll sleep till about 4, go to the studio, then I’ll go straight to  Cambridge where I’m playin.

If you hadn’t done this, what would you have been?

Fuck knows. Probably low level office clerk.

You can follow Zinc on:

Twitter.com/djzinc
Soundcloud.com/zinc

Tickets to see Zinc on May 29th are available now.

Even more interesting stuff...

Brand new Bass Weazal tracks / CTF Brighton on Friday
The Boog-A-Loo Crew mix/tracks/interview party bag
Milanese – Electric Proms video and interview
Plimsouls – brand new mix and tracks download
16bit’s massive ‘Flat Beat’ remix to download, Kissy Sell Out mix and interview