Features

Chase and Status

Heavy metal doesn't get sampled in dubstep and drum & bass as often as funk, hip hop and reggae. Perhaps wall-of-sound electric guitar riffs and screaming vocals aren't such a good fit with beats and bass. Or perhaps it's just that most producers are too cautious of straying from the typical ragga-vocal-and-Amen-break combo to discover and work with new sounds.

Because it doesn't happen all that often, it's nice to spot when a producer with eclectic tastes digs into a heavy metal track and uses those elements in drum & bass or dubstep. A nice example is the Chase & Status track Saxon, which samples Metallica's Wherever I May Roam, from The Black Album, released in 1991.

The sample is taken from the intro - a foreboding and slightly discordant guitar riff, with a slight eastern twang reminiscent of Indian sitar music. In the Metallica tune, the lone riff jangles the listener's nerves to create anticipation for the heavy metal onslaught once the full band kicks in.

In Saxon it does the same job, only here the brute power is provided by a huge bassline rather than an arsenal of guitars. There are definite similarities though, with Chase & Status' bassline relying on distortion just as much as James Hetfield and his crew.

Chase & Status are said to have used the famous Massive synth to make the bass sound in Saxon (it's supposedly possible to recreate the 'Saxon' sound by tweaking one of the presets). Is it a coincidence that the vocal sample they used – 'Saxon massive are you ready?' – mentions the word 'massive'?

Incidentally, if any readers know where said sample comes from, we'd love to hear from you. It's the one that goes 'Wellington massive are you ready, Brixton massive are you ready, Harlesden massive are you ready', etc.

It should be said that Chase & Status are not the only dubstep / D&B producers with an interest in heavy metal. The biggest Metallica fan in drum & bass must surely by Dylan, if only for his D&B remix of Master of Puppets.