Jack Beats

British hard as nails electro/house/hip hop duo Jack Beats have been making a name for themselves pumping juice into tracks by the likes of Lady Sovereign and Steed Lord. They are just one of the sick artists on Hervé's Cheap Thrills label, perhaps the number one fidget label of last year, and have an astounding number of tracks and remixes in the pipeline.

Individually you have hugely impressive credentials – why did you decide to combine forces, and what do you each bring to the table?

It wasn’t really a conscious decision to do stuff together, we’ve both been really good friends from a long time ago, before the whole DJ championship stuff, and we just started messing about with making tunes together because we knew we’d have fun doing it. I guess we started making music both around the same time, and musically we were on the same page so when we got together it was pretty natural. We both knew how to make tunes and so it was just fun and creative. The first thing we did together was a remix for Deekline and Wizard, which was in 2005, that came out as a Beni G & Plus One remix, which was, I guess, the beginnings of what we are up to now. What do we bring to the table? Well one of us brings the milk, and the other brings the tea – we drink far too much of that in the studio, and possibly too much beer out of the studio.

There are some hugely impressive acts on Herve’s Cheap Thrills label, on which your debut EP will be released; how does it feel being on such a great roster, and what can we expect from the release?

It’s amazing really – we are so pleased to have a label like Cheap Thrills to be part of; we respect everyone on the label so much and couldn’t think of a better place for our music to be getting released. The first thing to come out is gonna be on the download label (Cheaper Thrills), which is a track with us and Dynamite MC, and is kinda our style meets Bmore, with a Boy 8-Bit remix. Then in the first part of 2009 we’ll drop our EP on Cheap Thrills, which is gonna be a real example of what sound we rep, and as it’s our first original material we’re gonna make sure it’s the best we’ve done yet! So far we’ve only written one track for it, called K Hole, which is pretty hard to describe really – we did it super quickly and both were like, ‘Damn, is anyone gonna get what we’re doing here?’ and when Herve heard it and loved it, I guess we knew we’d done something hot. We’re just really excited about getting the EP wrapped up and released now.

You’re gone on record saying Jack Beats is a sideline gig for you both – if the demand continues to rise as it has, do you ever see it overtaking your current priorities?

Well, we do both have other commitments outside of what we do with Jack Beats, but it’s definitely taking off more so this year. The good thing with us is that we have such a high work ethic that we’ll always be able to continue doing everything we currently do, as well as pushing what we do with Jack Beats as far as we want to.

Project Bassline - Drop The Pressure (Jack Beats 'Rinsed Out Rave' Remix)Got a nice Bodyrox-ish thing going on during this, I LIKE!

Boy 8-Bit - Fogbank (Jack Beats Remix)

Lady Sovereign - I Got You Dancing (Jack Beats Remix)

Steed Lord - Its What U Do 2 Me (Jack Beats Remix)

AC Slater - Jack Got Jacked (Jack Beats Remix)

Myspace here

And a cheeky extra Boys Noize remix of Royksopp which is doing pretty well round the old blog circuit at the minute

Royksopp - Happy Up Here (Boys Noize Remix)