The Emperor of Dubstep: Nero

Dubstep’s latest poster child, Nero, is composed of one part Daniel Stephens and one part Joe Ray. The innovative duo came to light after a string of big name remixes for the likes of Deadmau5, N.E.R.D. and La Roux, which they followed up with a 2004 EP titled “Requiem.” Currently dominating the worldwide festival circuit, Stephens and Ray are on a mission to apply their punchy beats and euphoric sounds towards boosting the dubstep genre one notch higher.

The guys arrived in LA Saturday afternoon to play to thousands at HARD Summer Music Festival. Following a 4-hour trek through immigration, Stephens and Ray arrived on the festival grounds. “The airport was just fucked today. I don’t know what was going on,” joked Stephens. After what he referred to as a “sucky start” to the day, Stephens took a seat in his trailer to discuss everything from clubbing in London to Nero’s latest album.

Is it true that you two got the inspiration to start producing after going clubbing together in London?

Yeah, definitely. I mean we were friends for a while and then we started hitting some various clubs around London – going out to drum and bass. That’s what kind of got us into bass music and wanting to produce. We kind of saw the effect it had on the crowd and stuff and we wanted to do that.

So while other people were out to pick up girls and get smashed you were out just scouting out the music?

Yeah. Pretty much!

You have a new album about to drop worldwide on August 15 and the 16th in the US…

We always do a Monday in other countries. I didn’t know they did Tuesday in the States. It’s weird!

What can we expect from the album?

It’s basically just a dance music album really. It’s obviously mainly set upon dubstep or a style of I guess what’s called dubstep. It sounds 80’s influenced and it’s quite cinematic and futuristic like “Blade Runner.” The vision of the future in the 80’s was sort of dark, post apocalyptic so it’s kind of painted around that imagery quite a bit.

Did you experiment with new sounds/tools when producing it?

Definitely! We bought a few old 80’s synths. We bought a synth called a Roland Jupiter 8, which is used a lot in those kind of old 80’s tracks so it helped us get that kind of sound. And it developed and evolved through the equipment that we were using.

Did you buy that specifically for the album?

Well we wanted it anyway but it was a good excuse to buy one. It just kind of took shape as we were writing it really. We were kind of coming up with the whole sound as we were doing it basically.

How did you guys hook up with your singer Alana Watson?

She was an old friend of ours from when Joe and me first met. Alana was part of the crew as well. We knew she could sing and so one day we convinced her to put a vocal on one of our tracks and it sounded really good so it just went from there. We just started getting her more and more tracks and she’s on quite a few on the album because it just adds a nice continuity.

So she is always with you guys when you do the live sets?

Yes she is. She is singing while we are up on stage.

You guys credit Phil Collins as an inspiration. Were you sad to hear that he is retiring?

Yeah definitely! I mean he’s been saying that for a while though I thought but he’s still going and that’s good news that he’s still going. I’ve heard he’s had problems with his ears recently and his hearing so yeah definitely sad. For us, the golden age of Phil Collins was the 80’s kind of stuff so that will always live on. We’re going to always be fans of that sound. He’s awesome. He’s an influence definitely!

What makes you different from other electronic acts out there today?

I guess maybe we’ve managed to sculpt out a recognizable sound. When you hear it people probably know – “oh that’s Nero” from the production and stuff like that. Also maybe the way we’re doing a bit of everything. We write a bit of house and dubstep and our dubstep is sort of French house influenced.

How do you feel about the dubstep genre becoming less underground and more mainstream?

I think it’s good. If it’s good music then it’s good. That’s the main thing. If the music starts getting sort of diluted or getting to repetitive than that’s when I think it starts to get quite bad. As long as people are sort of innovating the scene then it’s a good thing really.

You tend to play a lot of big music festivals like this, which get a bit crazy. What is your best piece of festival survival advice?

We’ve never been to festivals as paying customers so we’ve really only done it as artists. We’re always quite sheltered really in a tour bus or in an RV. In England though I’d say Wellingtons because it rains a lot so you need a pair of “wellies.”

What are “wellies?”

You don’t have “wellies” over here?

We probably do but I’m sure they have a different name.

They are sort of rubber boots that just come up high for farmers for walking in the mud and stuff like that. You just wear them instead of shoes.

We have rubber boots. We don’t call them “wellies” though.

Right on. Those are pretty essential in the UK because it rains a lot there. Over here, It doesn’t rain so much in the summer so you can sort of just turn up and have fun really (sans wellies).

In the crazy US festival crowd, you just have to be able to throw out an elbow and push through a sea of people.

Yeah if you’re in the crowd. I’d imagine.

A lot of half naked people out there!

Oh yeah? Cool! It looks like it’s a busy night.

Tell us about the concept for the latest video “Promises.” It looks very Matrix-y.

Well yeah it sort of ties into all the videos we’ve been doing already which are futuristic themes that go along with the album. So this one is very influenced by that kind of thing. People aren’t allowed to have emotions and stuff and people are kept under control. It’s one idea of the future that is quite popular in a lot of books and films. But yeah, we just really sort of wanted to make a futuristic sort of feature video.

And you had Alana in it.

Yeah, and she looks awesome in it!