Daniel Stein is sitting in a hotel room doing a load of interviews in the midst of the Parklife tour in which he recently showcased his new live show FRESH/LIVE. With his third record Nextlevelism out now in the UK and out in Australia in November, Stein has been dropping some of the big hits from the record in his Parklife sets. But, he says now that he’s got the fresh live show, some of his tracks are being received differently by punters. “The thing that’s interesting is that live, you get a totally different reaction to certain tracks than you do DJing those tracks,” he says. “At the moment for some tracks I get the most incredible reaction but if I play them in my DJ set, they’re not the strongest ones. It’s a very different thing the live show and just the interactivity with the audience and I just love it because it feels like when you’re up on stage with a band, you feel like you’re part of the same party and it’s like we just happen to be the guys up on stage. We’re all in that zone together. It’s a very communal, positive energy.”
Calling himself a “music-maker”, Stein admits that when it came to putting the live show together, he was a little rusty. “In the beginning, it was pretty nerve-wracking,” he freely admits. “I used to play the piano when I was a kid, I’ve always done that but never with an audience, so it was pretty nerve-wracking and the musicians we’re working with are all amazing, like our guitarist is incredible. I remember when we first started together, it was slightly intimidating standing in front of him playing the keyboard.
“I’m kind of more like a music maker than an instrument player. I’ve kind of found a way of adding what needs to be added into the group in a cool way and when I’m putting this stuff together, I’m looking at what I want it to ultimately sound like so I tend to be the guy that’s bridging the gap with what can be done with the other instruments using computers and all that kind of stuff.”
It’s always been Stein’s mission to help move drum and bass into the mainstream music realm and, with Nextlevelism, he’s hitting the nail on the head. “Basically there’s been this massive explosion in the UK because of bass music and what we call pop music is kind of changing,” he says. “People associate the word ‘pop music’ with factory made, boy bands, major labels and stuff that’s been made with little soul just to make money. The great thing about this revolution that’s happening – particularly in the UK and also in parts of Europe – is that this music that comes from a real place, that comes from young guys that are part of the bass music scene sitting at home in the studio making a track just because they want to make it, it’s becoming the basis of what is exciting. I’ve always tried to be a pioneer of doing something new all the time. And the newest thing at the moment that’s a challenge is trying to cross the music over in a worldwide level, trying to get it high up in the charts and try to take over the world with bass music.
“[Nextlevelism] It’s different to what I was doing before but what I was doing before was still part of the same path, it was just at a time when people weren’t ready for what I’m doing now. It’s just taken a while to build it up to the what I am doing now which is what I’ve always wanted to do – which is to do song-based, mega-catchy hooks and have people in massive commercial clubs dancing to drum and bass on a Saturday night.”
Nextlevelism features collaborations with Rizzle Kicks, Ms.Dynamite, Rita Ora, Fleur, Liam Bailey, Dizzee Rascal and more. Stein says being in the studio with all the artists when laying down the tracks provided for some funny times. “Jordan from Rizzle Kicks had to take a run around the block before he laid down the chorus to Skyhighatrist,” he laughs. “He said he needed to get himself into the mental state of being a Skyhighatrist so he had to go for a run. That was something that then became a running joke in the studio for pretty much every session after Jordan had come in.”
Having signed a six album deal with Ministry Of Sound, Columbia and signing his publishing to Universal, Stein is the priority electronic artist for American label Columbia, something he’s honoured by and says shows how the bass music revolution is starting to take effect (“there still hasn’t been a drum and bass tune that’s got into the American charts ever as far as I know…to see that an artist coming from the world that I come from can be taken that seriously by such a massive record label in America just goes to show how things are changing”).
And, hopefully when he returns for Future Music Festival next year, he’ll have an even better live show to boot. “We’ll be adding more of the new album tracks to the set, changing the technical set up slightly, adding to our lighting rig and to our visual setup,” he says. “Hopefully the next tour will be even better than the one we’ve done recently in terms of the music that we’re playing and the way we’re playing it.”
BY ANNABEL MACLEAN
