Features

The Nextmen

We go on the road with The Nextmen for a week and Dom gives us an insight into the not-so-glamourous world of the touring DJ!

Saturday

This was the last gig of three in a row. Manchester and Budapest were in the bag and after a few thousand miles travel on all means of transport there wasn't much conversation going down between the three of us - me, Brad and Jon aka MC Wrec - on the Heathrow Express bound for Hayle via Paddington.

As most touring DJs know, it's the travel that really knackers you out. Planes, trains, automobiles, lifts, escalators and buses all add up to a pretty bad case of red-eye, especially when you're getting only a few hours kip a night.

Home, a cup of tea and bed would suit, but at least we're off to Cornwall. We love Cornish gigs – the kids down there don't like to give up on the party. The best one we ever did was in Praa Sands a few years back. They got a load of teenagers on a bus and drove them to the venue for the gig, then at 2am the promoters asked the MC to make the kids aware that the bus was leaving.

Dynamite MC grabbed the mic: "Anyone who gets on that bus is soft!" Not wanting to come across like pansies, only about three kids boarded it after that. Later on in the cab back to the hotel we passed a few hundred stranded clubbers walking home across the moors in the dark. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere...

This gig, at The Sandsifter, had the same party vibe we've come to expect from the south west. The venue is a hut on a beach with a load of space around it for the kids to camp in. "If anyone offers you anything," says a pissed punter to me as we arrive, "don't take it, it's plant food."

"OK, thanks," I reply, looking over his shoulder into the club since we're on in five. The place is rammed, the system is banging and we know we're gonna tear it up. We have the place jumping from the off. Unfortunately, the plant food takes its toll on a couple of kids about half way through the set and a fight breaks out. Us getting a bit grimy with the dubstep doesn't help so we cheer things up a bit with some reggae, finish up around 2am and head back to the hotel.

I use 'hotel' in its loosest sense. The joys of Premier Inns! Brown tobacco stained walls and if you're hungry then it's Mini Cheddars from a vending machine, if there are any left. This hotel is the first I've seen with a 'No Croissants' poster. This suits Brad - once when on tour in Singapore he famously bit into a plastic display croissant thinking it was real. Jon and I stay up for a bit and talk shit through the tinnitus.

Sunday

On Sunday morning I get up at 7am. Outside Jon and Brad are waiting. "Why are you going so early?" says the cabbie, "there aren't any trains for over an hour and there's nothing at the station. Nowt".

He offers to drop as at a nearby Spar. We accept. I get a coffee spat from a grubby, dribbling machine that's covered in fingerprints. It tastes like burnt shit. Wrec, player-manager extraordinaire, has got the train's departure time wrong, so we've got an hour and a half to kill on the platform when we could be getting some much needed sleep. Hayle station consists of some concrete, a few crisp wrappers and a pre-fab bunker which we hole up in and keep close watch for village idiots. We look at Wrec. "Sorry guys," he says.

Monday

Monday is often a write off but this one's all about something very secret and we had to sign NDAs. Shhhh. After that I'm looking forward to having a cup of tea and a bath but instead I get home and discover a load of kids have run all over my car, covering it in dents, the little shits.

Tuesday

Tuesday is spent in our Studio in Stroud Green coming up with new beats and edits for the set. We're working hard on the mash-up stuff, preparing acapellas and instrumentals that we can then put together live in the sets. I have a few conversations with Ms Dynamite about our next track together, a dirty UK dancehall track that we're looking to wrap up ASAP. I moan about having loads of gigs. "Stop complaining," she says, "one day you won't have any."

Wednesday

Wednesday is Annie Mac five minute mix day. These mixes are crazy, and we always try to outdo ourselves, upping the intensity every time we have to make a short mix. You can get through a lot in five minutes and this mix is really shaping up. We blaze through hip-hop, reggae, house, funky house, dubstep and drum and bass, linking it all together with edits and switches in true Nextmen style. We've got a couple of wicked American dubstep tunes courtesy of our old pal Z-Trip who's over here doing shows for a week. Yeah, US dubstep doesn't sound like it makes sense but trust us these tracks are heavy.

Thursday

Freshers' Week Ball line-ups are often an odd mix. Tonight at The Old Fire Station in Bournemouth it's the local DJs, a Green Day tribute band called 'Green-ish Day', us, and Harry Bird.

Just me and Brad tonight, no MC. We go for dinner and seeing as the selection of restaurants isn't exactly wonderful, we take our chances at a KFC. Another symptom of life on the road: bad food. If it's not Ginsters pasties from a service station on the M1, it's Burger Kings and McDonalds' in late night city centres crowded with drunk humans.

At the hotel we crash out for an hour then meet bleary-eyed in reception. Back at the club, we hide in the 'dressing room' complete with ripped up old beige sofa, a floor covered in something old and wet, and a pile of cardboard sheets, and a smell somewhere between sweat and stale beer. We run through some set ideas. These kids are nineteen. When I was at my freshers' week night, they were still in nappies.

I try to forget this and we slip onto the stage and start the set. Green-ish Day's kit is still all over the stage and we can't see what's going on. All I can see is the cymbals from the drum kit until they're finally moved off stage and then we can see the crowd, a pack of pissed freshers all looking slightly awkward. At least the drinks are flowing. We've got a couple of bottles of Smirnoff to see us through and we make light work of it.

Monday

DJ Hero tour with Zane Lowe in Birmingham. You've gotta love doing these shows. You get to stay in a Raddison SAS. You get to play to a guaranteed sell-out crowd, and you get properly looked after.

The venue is a hive of activity when we arrive, with the techs and stage managers rushing around getting everything in order. Goldie Looking Chain are soundchecking 'Your Mother's Got A Penis' and I double check they're going to do "Half Man Half Machine", my personal favourite.

We do a pretty good job, coming on straight after GLC, although a major technical hitch at the start of the set means that the first two tracks start slurring and distorting making us look like pricks in front of thousands. We come up with a work around whilst donning our 'nothing's wrong' smiles, and manage to ride out the situation. It makes the set harder for us, but the kids don't notice.

I once had a vodka-induced tantrum in Singapore, and around half a bottle in I can feel another one coming on but I manage to reel in the rage and calm down. 'Fucking Tanty', Brad calls me.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning brings an above-average hotel breakfast and I sit down with Greg, the tour manager. A South American lady walks past. "She's inflated to just the right PSI," he says.

A good start to the day, but it's back down to Earth with a bump when we're told we'll be staying in an Ibis hotel for our gig at Brownes in Nottingham. Ibis hotels are a flat pack nightmare, all identikit rooms and plastic shower pods and the very worst room service you can imagine.

I order a pizza and it's basically an oversized cream cracker adorned with some shit cheese and economy Ragu. The cherry on top in Ibis hotels is the staff. Premier Inns are worse overall, but Ibis have somehow managed to pick the most miserable people from France and stuck them on reception.

Brad is so tired he falls asleep on the toilet in his room. The gig doesn't exactly run smoothly, what with some set-up difficulties, but once again we work with what we've got and manage to pull it off. A couple of kids enjoy the set so much that they demand a hug from us. I decline, but Brad caves in and gives them a big old cuddle, albeit a reluctant one.

There's a week in a nutshell. I look to the rest of the week hoping that it'll be a little less manic but the diary is looking pretty full. There's a charity gig for the Rainforest Foundation where we'll be playing after Sting, and we'll be getting our offer from the tour agency in Australia for our forthcoming trip down under. The thought puts a smile on our face. Any tour that cuts out a month of the British winter is OK with us...

The Nextmen's current album is called 'Join The Dots' and is out now, and their new single 'Round Of Applause' ft. Dynamite MC comes out on 19th October.