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Biography: Luke Slater
BORN
I was born apparently in Reading in 1968. It was a good year. It was the year of Mungo Jerry. He`s one of my glam rock heroes. I`ve never actually been there.
FAMILY
My dad was very much into gramophone records. I grew up from the age of 4 just surrounded by records. I was mesmerised by them. My dad wasn`t a musician but he just loved music. He was into the big band stuff like the orchestras where you had the full band... Read moreBiography: Luke Slater
BORN
I was born apparently in Reading in 1968. It was a good year. It was the year of Mungo Jerry. He`s one of my glam rock heroes. I`ve never actually been there.
FAMILY
My dad was very much into gramophone records. I grew up from the age of 4 just surrounded by records. I was mesmerised by them. My dad wasn`t a musician but he just loved music. He was into the big band stuff like the orchestras where you had the full band in the pit with a crooner at the front, that kind of 20s and 30s stuff. I just kinda grew up listening to that really. You get all these people who are singing on the streets and under the arches, Dixieland jazz greats, and I know them all. I just grew up with it. He was musical in that way. I was playing the drums at 6, and playing the piano too. The piano was encouraged but the drums were kind of a rebellious thing. There was this one evening when I was playing them in this room in the house, and it was about 10 o`clock at night, I was about 10. It was around the time of Pink Floyd `The Wall`. I was playing away and these three blokes just walked into the room, and I thought oh, they must be like friends of the family or something, and they go, is this a party mate?, and I said no, and they just walked out and I never saw them again. It was great. That was my first house party. My dad just loved music so much. It was really inspiring. When I reached teenage years other music took over my life.
MUSICAL ROOTS
Piano and drums, got in a band, I was 12 and they were about 16. I kind of moved out of my mum and dad`s house and I used to stay around at my mates house. I was kind of on the road pretty early. It was kind of a rocky sound. We were trying to copy Pink Floyd really. It was that time, very psychedelic, sort of goblins and things. Although I enjoyed it drumming wise I don`t think we were particularly good. And people wouldn`t turn up because a girlfriend would be on the scene – it was like a mini Spinal Tap really. That was the early years anyway. The weird thing that happened, I was playing drums in a band and the keyboardist didn`t turn up but he had his gear there. He had an 808 drum machine. So to get through the practise I worked out how to program this 808 machine and I did the keyboard parts because I could play them anyway. So I was checking out this 808 and I was thinking wow, this is really cool because you can do things on it that you can`t do on the drums. It doesn`t even sound like drums. And I think around the same time, electro hip hop came across from New York and it was just a complete revolution really. It changed everything. Suddenly there was this music that was electronic based but they weren`t necessarily songs, it was a lot to do with the groove. So they really just took over my life. From there the whole essence of making music on cheap instruments in your bedroom, that was really the start of it. I think that`s something that`s carried on since then. I was about 14 when I got my first pair of decks. I was hearing all the electro records and my old man bought me this kind of disco console, like an all in one, two decks, plastic kind of things, faders in the middle, and I learnt how to mix, you didn`t have pitch control so you had to hold the record with your finger to slow it down and then speed it up and that`s how I learnt to mix. So when I eventually got a pair of Technics when I was about 17 I think, I couldn`t work them because they had this pitch control on them and it was too easy. Old school.
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FIRST PROJECTS
We used to have a lot of parties, a lot of house parties. Parties have been quite a big part of my life. I think that`s a healthy thing as well. I think it`s a balance. I was working in a record shop in `87 with Colin Dale. That`s when I first did something. Around the time of that shop, we went in the studio. Not with Colin, me and Alan who worked there as well. And that`s when we decided to get a record out. There was a lot of crap music in the UK at the time. I`m sure people like soul music and that sort of laid back kind of lovely stuff, but there was a distinct lacking of anything with any sort of an edge. And I was interested in a lot of new stuff from Belgium and Detroit, and it really just wasn`t getting the right kind of attention, so we set out to abuse the kind of old school standards. England is such an old music scene. It`s the centre of the world really for music. But it`s so established sometimes it can be a bit like an old boys network and we kind of had it in mind to deconstruct that by just people putting out stuff that was testing everything. Testing the engineers, testing production, testing mastering and testing the public as well. So that`s really how Planetary Assault System started. It was a very enjoyable time actually. I take the music seriously, always have. But when people say how`s your career going, I think well, that word is the bloody word I was trying to get away from at school. When they used to take you off to a little room and say `yes well, Mr Slater, what are you going to do as a career?` and I`d say, `well, I don`t bloody know, do I?`. I think if I looked at what I do as a career, I think I`d hate it. So I just really try and live for the moment of everything and focus on writing. I mean you have to plan some things, but in the most part I prefer it this way, it`s more risky, but it keeps me sane. It`s scary isn`t it. You never know what`s going to happen in ten years. But would you really like to? I think some of it you have to deal with, but if you keep enough open so that it becomes creative, if you don`t shut off those channels to try and make everything formalised, and you don`t stick to one part just for the wrong reasons, that`s what keeps me going. In the end, I just love what I do.
LABELS & PRODUCTION
Mote Evolver. I wanted to set it up this year because the whole revolution, downloads etc, I felt that this year it had kind of come to some sort of level where it was working. Internet connections were fast enough and people had sussed out where to get stuff and stuff like that. I just really wanted the label to be part of that rather than looking at it from the old way which is a very long winded process and I didn`t see the need for it. The great thing is that when I have something that I want to put out now, apart from the pressing vinyl which does take a bit of time, essentially, I can get it released really really quickly. There are still some bits that need to be done in the middle. People have to know about what you`re doing but it`s a really freeing experience for an artist to be able to write something and get it out to people so quick, no just 11 months down the line. I get bored really easily so this works for me. The label`s just an extension of everything else I`m doing. It`s really an outlet for what I`m doing. The first release was a new Planetary Assault Systems and a new project I started called L.B.Dub. And I`m making a ballet. I got this residency in this club in Berlin called Berghain – it`s this huge warehouse that they`ve converted into this club that has about four floors plus these interesting little rooms that you should only go in if you`re of a certain persuasion. Just fantastic, very dark, excellent soundsystem. Anyway, they`re very involved with art and culture in Berlin and they were approached by the Stats Ballet in Berlin, which is the same as the Royal Ballet Company, and the dancers want to do their own choreography to electronic music in the club. So me and Michael who runs the club were talking and he said can you do like a 7th Plane piece, like a 15 minute piece, and I was really into that. I think it happens next June. The music is very dramatic
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DJING
I still travel a lot. I`m doing more longer sets in clubs now. I I`ve been slowly been playing 4 and 5 hours DJ sets in clubs which I love. It takes me a few hours to get he cushions out and really settle down. Doing that for me, it`s really like a hobby. I still like it in that way. The flying to all fucking airports is just bullshit, but the actual gigs are great. All that bullshit with the terrorists recently. All I could take on the plane is this little plastic bag, like a sweetie bag with my wallet in it. I was thinking, that`s it, I`m going to sail everywhere, like Poirot, arriving every two weeks. There has to be a better way. Over here in London being my home town, I kind of stick to Fabric really because it`s kinda nice and special. I think London`s really firing at the moment . It`s be really sad if London ended up over-gentrified. I`m not political, but when things start getting banned and censored, I mean , you got to know that ain`t the way to go. If you tell people not to do something. ..
FABRIC
Fabric`s quite special. They put a lot of effort into the club. So before fabric I don`t there was really a big club in London that had done it right. The sound`s good in there. It`s a good place to be and it`s really popular with the right crowd. You put all those together and you can`t really beat it. And there are some little small places in London I like as well, but when you`re taking about a club, I think Fabric cranks it really. I think Fabric is quite famous outside London and wherever I go everyone knows it.
THE FUTURE
I`m working in the studio at the moment on a new project and we have some releases coming on Mote-Evolver.We are hopefully planning a few more live performances for 2007 and travelling around DJing as I do.All I`ve really done is try to do what I love doing and get away with it. I`m sure nature will find a way to keep me interested. There`s always something interesting around the corner.
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