Profile: Mischief 'n' Mayhem

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Mischief 'n' Mayhem

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Artist(s): Mischief 'n' Mayhem
Hometown: Milton, Ontario
Other Alias: Defining Moments & Paragone
Labels: Padded Cell (Can), Rapid Fire Records (Can), Cyntax Error (UK), Dreadnought (UK), Sound Solution (U.S.A.), Digital Terror (U.S.A), Frozen O's (Can), Logical Beats (UK), Global Domanation (UK), Total Wipes Records (Italy), Total Raz (France)
Affiliations: Hektic Kru, Sound Bully, the business... it's a long list!

Q & A

What brought you to making drum 'n' bass?
Years of DJing DNB... We always loved creating new sounds with two or three records mixed together. After a while of playing other people's music, we figured it was time to be a bigger part of the sound we love by creating it ourselves.

Describe your music, does it fit within conventional genres?
No it doesn't, but what is a conventional genre anyways? It fits in with 'urban culture', consisting of drums, bass, FX, samples, usually around about 175 bpm. Really you can put anything into jungle/drum 'n' bass. We get a lot of feeling out of it, with so many sub genres to keep our minds expanding in new ways.

What keeps your ideas fresh in the studio? What music outside of DnB do you follow?
A big way for us to keep things fresh in the studio is diversity, not sticking with one type or genre of music. Expanding our productions to electro, dubstep, breaks, classical,...liquid dnb, jump up dnb, wobble dnb,drum step, even just playing the piano... Music we follow is mainly acoustic (a big inspiration to Mayhem's liquid DnB production), punk, new alternative rock, old school hip hop, and electro.

What kind of rig are you running?
Intel Core 2 quad processor Q8200, 4GB DDR3, 1TB SATA II, Intel GMAX 4500 (DX10), 64 bit SP1. Mainly software, using Reason 4.0, Sound Forge 9.0, Polderbits sound editor 64 bit edition, an old quick shot Midi controller, Behringer BCR2000 Midi Controller, along with 2 KRK Powered Rokit 8's, and a 32" Sharp HD monitor for enjoying it all that much more!

How much time do you spend in the studio?
I (Mayhem) spend most of the time in the studio, everyday I am in there, sometimes for the whole day. I have winters off from work, so a lot of my time is focused in the studio during the chilly months. As for the both of us, we get in there whenever our schedules work together.

What is your approach to DJing & live performances?
Putting on a show! Giving and getting energy from the crowd to make the gig more exciting, more interactive, and more appealing. It's boring to just standing there, it makes the show so much more when you get into it!

First 'big' break in Canada? Elsewhere?
It seemed to be a couple of things; one was winning Best Breakthrough Producers in the Toronto Drum and Bass Awards in 2008. With that came a booking in Rochester, New York, followed by flights paid to Vancouver/Whistler for two shows... That changed a lot for us.

Side projects we should look out for?
We have been working as another alias, and also on the lighter side of DnB which is more Mayhem's focus than Mischief. As we we're saying before, look for Defining Moments releases on Frozen O's Digi. We've also been getting more and more into dubstep, working under the alias 'Paragone'... Be sure to keep your eyes open for releases in 2010.

Give us a top 5
Graffiti artists

Seen, NYC
Craola, L.A.
K West, Canada
Destro, Canada
Jc One, Canada

How do you feel about Canada's drum & bass scene currently? What's going well, what's not?
Well Canada has always had (for the most part) a strong drum and bass scene. Countless great parties over a long period of time, from all out raves 'back in the day' to now, where they're more like club nights.

One problem in the scene right now would be closed minded people, people that are afraid to open up to new things and see them for how they really are. It seems some people forget that we're all on the same side and no matter what genre or style, it's still one community and we're all just working to keep DnB alive.

In the long run, things seem to be going well. A lot of new producers coming out of Canada are doing very exciting things, and we're definitely trying to help keep Canada's DnB on the map.

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