SergS and Cj Milner are proud to present Interview with Chris Scott. It's first LIVE interview for UK Trance Alliance.

Few words about Chris. He's very productive, making a lot of tracks under different aliases. But his most popular projects are Echomen and Lexicon Avenue.
Echomen (Chris Scott,Anton Fielding and Graeme "Cheb" Stew ) started in 2000. That year they released their first vinyl with "Orient" and "One Way" on End Recordings.
Both tracks were marked by Danny Howells and he played it in "Nubreed 002" compilation.That was very succesfull start. In 001 they released few tracks at Airtight records - "Thru 2 You", "Havana" and "Once More". In 2002 their track "Substance" was dropped in Nubreed compilation again. That time in Nubreed 006 mixed by Satoshi Tomiie. Later that year they were signed for 'monster' label Hooj Choons with track "Truth".
All the year of 2003 musicians spent in studio - and as the result were big hits "Cure" and "Perpetual", both tracks were released on american Saw Recordings label. Chris is all the tracks author, that's he who makes that tipycal Echomen-sound, and Anton Fielding are Graeme "Cheb" Stew just dj and singer helping
him in the studio. Another Chris' alias is Lexicon Avenue. You certenly heard their great remixes such as "Only When I loose Myself" and "Dirty Sticky Floor" for Depeche Mode. And their single "Midnight on West 27th Street", hit all the charts around the world. In 2004 Lexicon Avenue made compilation for Forensic label, which got very warm resopnses from guys like Danny Tenaglia, Mood 2 Swing, Deep Dish, Chus and Ceballos and Peace Division.

Q: Thanks for your time, I really appreciate it. I'm presenting here UK TranceAlliance Forum, there are a lot of people who like trance and progressive music there. And we know you, we like your productions. And the first question is - is it your first visit to Russia?
A: No, I think its maybe five or six times I think I've been here now, three times to Moscow, couple of times to Leningrad (Saint-Petersburg), and then back here.
So how do you like our city?
I've only seen from the train station to the club at night, so I hope I get a good look at it in the morning.

Q: What do you think about the weather? It was extremely snowing tonight.
A: Yeah, I came from England which is unseasonally warm, so it was a bit of an adjustment, its like -2 or something here!

Q: Usual question - how did you start?
A: I bought a drum machine when i was like 15, and I'd always been into electro and stuff like New Order, Depeche Mode and people like that, and I always kinda wondered how the sounds were made, so I just used to mess around in music shops and listen to the equipment that was around at the time. Roland made a lot of good drum machines in that era, and I would just mess around with them and think ah well thats from that record and thats from that record, and I wanted to do it myself so I ended up buying one and it started from there. I started with a multi-tracker and a keyboard, and then sequencers came along and gradually building up like that.

Q: How do you produce? What do you use for production? Software or hardware?
A: Times are changing really quickly at the moment, production techniques are really different now from when I started with a multi-tracker to what it is now, everything is in the computer. It was only four years ago that I moved over to Logic on computers, and back then I was doing everything with live Midi, and would use Cubase with loads and loads of racks of different equipment and they were mixed live to DAD. Everything now has just moved into audio so anything Midi that I used to play after a while I just recorded the audio as that. I got Logic 7 about 5 months ago and a few more plug-ins, aswell as a G5 Mac, I've got a few Macs, and I use a couple of analogue synths, but apart from that its entirely in the G5 now, so its just gone that way naturally.

Q: Do you make live acts? Perfomances?
A: Yeah sometimes when I've come here before with Lexicon Avenue and Echomen I've done live effects but its not a live performance, per-say, its always done over the top of what the DJ's are playing to try to enhance the set.

Q: You got a lot of aliases, what's the difference between them (in sound)?
A: We just get in the studio and see what we're in the mood to do, and see where the beat takes us. We start with the beat and bassline, if it kinda goes in the direction of an Echomen track, which is a more musical thing, we just go with it, and if it goes in a more Mooncat way which is more tougher tribal approach to house, then we just go in that direction. Whereas Lexicon Avenue, which is Scott, Mark and Myself, has a much more darker sound.

Q: How long does it take to produce the track?
A: It depends, thats the good thing about computers with the advent of everything being in audio, it was difficult before to be working on more than one project at the same time, so we could start something, Scott and I for instance, in one month, then come back to it three months later when we might decide to bring a singer in, and things like that take time to organise, so you can have various tracks on the go, but these tracks can take anything from a couple of days to 6 months depending on how often your in the studio. You can't really put a time scale on it, some tracks come together really quickly like in a few hours, and some take quite a while.

Q: I heard some guys can produce track in a few hours...
A: Well personally, I know some producers and they've obviously got a great work rate - the guys that are claiming these things and thats excellent for them, but personally I need to take more time over my sound. Sound production is a laborious task, to get the separation right, or to use the right synth and bass sound. I could very easily put something together in a few hours, but, I wouldn't be happy with it, personally, but some people can put great tracks together in just a couple of hours.

Q: What’s your most successful track?
A: I had a piano house music track (I Believe) in the middle of the 90's, which was number 7 in the UK charts. So I guess on terms of achievement, then I can't really better that from the conventional terms of what is an achievement. It was under the name of Happy Clappers, and there were a lot of DJ's like Masters At Work playing it at the time, it was a real house track, and when it crossed over it got bracketed as commercial house but I always kept doing the underground stuff on the side. I wouldn't like to say what the most successful underground track that I've done. One that was big - the Lexicon Avenue of Depeche Mode for instance, we never made anything out of that, we just did it as a promotional tool for Miami 2001, and as things happen, CD's get passed around and it gets leaked, the next thing is that its on the internet, and then some guy bootlegs it onto vinyl, and makes a lot of tax free cash from mine Scott and Marks work, and thats a bit frustrating because we never saw any returns from that. Financially its not really an affluent industry from the production side of things, but in terms of Lexicon Avenue, it propelled us a little bit and gave us more exposure than we had already and took us a bit further. With Echomen, theres some big ones on Hooj, it varies from project to project, a few successes, you just keep going. The successful thing about it is that you wake up everyday and you feel lucky that your still doing what you do for a living, and thats enough success for me really.

Q: I really like your ‘Cure’ track, who was the author of the lyrics?
A: I wrote the lyrics, along with Graem, a friend of ours that sang on a couple of tracks, he's a good friend.

Q: And your new track Womb, it’s not released yet – are you gonna play it tonight?
A: Do you know what, I haven't brought it! I've got a brand new Echomen called Rain so I'll probably play that.

Q: What are going to play tonight? What style?
A: I like to mix it up, I don't like to bang away and bang away, I like to mix it up with the tougher side of house and some techy stuff as well, a little techno, but, house music at the end of the day, I believe its all house music from the roots of it. Fundamentally, things are pretty much the same, its still a 4/4 beat, its still got a groove and its still meant to be played loud in clubs with people dancing, I think thats all you can ask for really.

Q: Do you know what’s you place in the list of the top dj’s?
A: Probably zero! I'm nowhere in the ranks, because I kinda really only concentrated on the production until recently and I never really took it as a serious thing until now. Your favorite DJ isn't necessarily the one that everyone votes for, you can hear some great DJ's and they wont be anywhere in the charts, you've just got to appreciate what your allowed to do. As long as you feel right, and your moving the crowd, I don't think its important to know that you're rated by numbers.

Q: Tiesto – he is No1 for 3rd year in the row, do you think he really deserve it?
A: Thats not something that I'd really want to go into. Personally I've never heard him play, its not the kind of night that I'd go to and watch him play and I've never been involved in an event that he's played at so I wouldn't really like to say whether or not he deserves it.

Q: What was your best party you played at?
A: Theres so many good places to play, theres so many great events to be involved in. I really like going to Tokyo, theres some great guys there, aswell as New York, and also Serbia theres a great festival called Exit Festival which is every year, we've done that now for a couple of years and its just a phenomenal atmosphere. Different places have different good things about them, you might like the crowd in one place, and the sheer size and awesomeness of a place like Exit.

Q: What do play with? Cd, vinyls? Do you use ‘Final Scratch’?
A: I just use CD's, I mess around with Ableton in the studio, and for purposes of mix CD's and stuff like that, it can come in handy for that and for loops and stuff. But I do buy vinyl, then transfer it to CD, I've always wanted to do it that way, it makes it more portable. I believe in vinyl, I always buy it, but I really like what you can do with a CD.

Q: What do you think about legal mp3 selling in the internet?
A: I think its a good thing in general, I think anything is a good thing if you can convince kids who download to start paying for the music, because there are so many people out there who have grown that used to getting the music for free that they don't consider that they should pay for it. We're involved with a site called Beatport, it can only be a good thing if you can convince people to start paying for the music. Especially with an underground scene like this, its not commercial or a big industry and theres no major labels behind it, they're small independent labels and they need to be able to survive. A lot of good labels could go under if the people don't buy the music, so I'd really like to be able to convince people that they should pay for the music. You can't police it, its impossible, but I would like other things in my life, that I can't afford, but I don't just go and take it. The people that make this music have a passion for it, and if your into the music and listen to it, then you should buy it really. The World Wide Web has given exposure to a lot of artists, and thats a good thing, but if you want this industry to survive then you should take it as if its everyones thing, and if you collapse it from within, and labels can't sustain an income, and artist have to stop producing music then its gonna eat itself out.

Thank you for the interview!


Here you can download mp3-version of an interview.
http://www.uktrancealliance.com/fly/Interv...Chris_Scott.mp3

Big thanks to Cj Milner for writnig text version of it.

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Interview By : SergS & cjmilner999