Boy 8-Bit
Interview Josh Jones
Photography Ben Rayner
A quiet, friendly and unassuming man, Boy 8-Bit has built up a huge reputation for his remixes – something he’s been doing since he was 15 – and is now showing that his original stuff is pretty damn hot, too. After remixing the tracks of people like Armand Van Helden, Chromeo, Lethal Bizzle, X-Press 2 and Black Ghosts, this year signals the release of a couple of his own EPs and hopefully a live show as well.
‘SUP caught up with him at his South London apartment for a cup of tea and a chat up on the roof of the block. Mild-mannered he may be, but whatever you do, don’t think that just because he’s part of the 8-bit music scene. He really isn’t, and we’re clearing that up right now.
My flatmate came home last night and said he’d just seen a guy called Kid 8-Bit. Is there a gradual increase in age with you guys? Is there a Man 8-Bit, too?
There should be. The name’s a bit of a funny one because when I was about 15 I used to use an Amiga computer and that used to use 8-bit quality samples. Nothing to do with 8-bit music. I took the name then thinking it was a bit weird and a bit geeky. But now I get lumped in with the 8-bit thing. Some of those people get a bit angry and have a go at me for not being 8-bit. I have to say ‘I’m sorry, but when I was 15 in Penzance I was the only one of my friends who had a computer.’ I didn’t realize that come 2009 there’d be this revival. There are a few of us with that kind of name, but I’m not that kind of 8-bit and I apologize profusely for it.
Is it true that your parents got you the computer because you weren’t allowed a console?
Yeah, I wasn’t allowed game consoles because my parents said they weren’t educational. But all I did was play games on it. I basically had computers all the time. My granddad gave me a ZX81, which I don’t even remember owning. Then after that I had a Spectrum 48K, then a 128, then a Commodore 64, an Amiga 600, then an Amiga 1200.
You could open a retro computer shop with all that.
Well, yeah, but with a very small stock. More of a boutique. I think that people of my generation – I’m 28 – it was just the thing wasn’t it? Everything was up and coming. It’s funny now, the amount of people who have a computer. Back then it was a bit of a niche. You were seen as a bit of a nerd if you had one. But people I know from back then who would tell you to come out instead of sitting playing on the computer are now Mac addicts and are going on Photoshop courses and are Twittering.
You started off with quite a simple machine. Do you use loads of really technical stuff now?
I dunno. I’m not very technical at all. I actually use a piece of software called Fruity Loops FL Studio, which kind of came out in ‘97/‘98 and is a very simple looping tool for making drum loops. I was using Cubase VS2 before that, and I just couldn’t get on with it. On the Amiga I could program the music, but with Cubase you just had chunks of audio that you shifted about and couldn’t program. Fruity Loops gave me a way to program drums and stuff again. So I’d do that and then put them into Cubase and work from there. Now Fruity Loops has become more fully fledged and I’ve stuck with it. I know it and all its idiosyncrasies now.
What do you use to work on now?
I’ve got a PC. I can’t remember what it is now. I had to upgrade it because it blew up in a thunderstorm, and I’ve also got a MacBook. The MacBook is for my stuff and email, and my PC pretty much just runs Fruity Loops. They had to change the name to that because of the American cereal Fruit Loops. There you go – there’s a little bit of geek trivia. Well, not geek. Maybe just a bit sad.
It’s quite interesting. It might come in handy at a pub quiz.
You think? You reckon they’d really ask that? ‘What software firm nearly got sued by a large American cereal brand?’ That reminds me actually. I missed the pub quiz yesterday.
You said you’re not that technical. Are you not that computer-y at all?
Well I actually studied software engineering at university, so I would say reasonably.
Oh right, so do you reckon you could build a computer out of parts, Scrapheap Challenge style?
Erm. Probably not. If I had the parts I could I think, but I couldn’t make like a microchip out of a piece of metal. I’d give it a good go. I did more of the software programming side of things. This was a while ago, but I’ve still got all the books on a shelf downstairs. I’m quite proud of it. I really liked it. If I hadn’t have got into music, I’d still be doing that. I used to work for a company called Sun Microsystems. They built servers and stuff and I was totally into that, all that Unix and nerdia stuff. People who work in it now call it I.T. which is crap. Proper computing doesn’t exist much any more. I did that because I was too stupid to make games.
Talking of games, on your Myspace I’ve seen comparisons to Jeff Minter. Was he an influence to you?
That was nothing to do with me. That was funny because he programmed games and wasn’t known for the music on the game. That was a bit of a journalistic error by who wrote that. I definitely know Jeff Minter’s stuff, he’s quite revered. He did kind of left field, quite British-type games like Llamatron. He lives out on a farm somewhere now I think, he was quite a late ‘80s/early ‘90s eccentric. But yeah, he was definitely an influence. The first time I really got into music and melodies and that was through the Commodore 64.
Your influences are really quite varied, from computers, games and music .
Life’s too short to stay on one thing. It’s kind of that whole – and this is probably really clichéd now – but the whole ‘80s thing. There was so much to take in as a kid. There were computers and music on those, there was heavy metal and there was home video and music on that as well. There were just all these influences to take in.
Which one was the biggest influence?
It would have been the computer game music. I hope people can hear the influences from there. The stuff back there was so melodic, which is why I’m so into melody.
Your musical influences are really different: metal, hip-hop and all kinds of DJs. Do you just like everything?
I’m quite selective still, but I used to be quite stuck in my ways. When I was a teenager it was metal and then I moved onto drum and bass. I kind of left university and I opened my horizons a bit more. As a musician you kind of think that everyone’s doing it for the same reason: that they enjoy it. So I’m totally open to what they do and if they’re into it. I keep the music that I make and music that I DJ pretty separate to be honest. Stuff like metal, I like to keep to listen to for fun really. For me.
Have you ever fancied writing metal music?
I’ve dabbled. I can play the guitar. I’d love to find some other musicians and just go and thrash it out – literally. Yeah, one day.
You’ve been on tour with some great people. You’ve got a wicked picture of you and Justice’s Xavier on a fairground ride for instance. What’s it like hanging out with them?
I don’t know about hanging out with them! With Justice, I was a big fan of their stuff in the kind of 2004–2005 era, when they were doing their first remixes. They came over to London and played for my friend’s night at Fabric and I got to know them then. I haven’t seen them in years. They’re just stratospheric now. Everyone I’ve met is just normal behind the scenes you know?
What are your plans for the next year? I saw you had to pull out of SXSW, which must have been a shame.
Yeah, I canceled that. My dad got ill, but he’s okay now. He was in hospital for about three weeks and I really didn’t want to be stuck in America while he was there. The way I look at it, there will be other opportunities. I’ve got an EP coming out in the summer. It’s a four track EP and it sounds obvious but I’ve put on tracks that I know people like from my shows. I didn’t go into the studio looking to make a massive hit. I just knew from playing them that people liked the songs. I’m also working on an album. There’ll probably be a second EP later in the year too. I’ll be doing less remixes too. It was one of things last year where you have to do a bunch of remixes to get your name out there. Now it’s time to do original music, a tour and a live show if I can work out how to do it. Lots coming up.
