Grooverider – Riding The Grooves Original Godfather

Following numerous phone calls and false starts, I eventually made a date with the one and only Grooverider. Outside Euston Station… I waited. And waited. Made several phone calls – “I’ve just got two things to do”, I’ve just got one more thing to do”, “I’ll be twenty minutes” – and waited. An hour and a half later, some guy dripping in gold surprises me from behind and I fall off the wall, looking really professional in a heap on the floor. I guess my search for the Rider is over!

Groove strides out, with me in hot pursuit – I’m not going to loose him now! A couple of minutes later, we reach his car and some crazy WestEnd driving ensued. Whilst touring Hornby in search of a parking space, conversation ranges from body piercing and tattoos to oral sex, McDonalds and why on earth do I want to move to London?! Rider can’t wait to leave the hustle and bustle of the big smoke and set up house somewhere in Kent. But for the meantime, this is his city. He ditches the idea of trying to park up, we head for Camden and the scene is set. In a small pizza place, the tape began to roll, but unfortunately, the Rider’s words did not.

What’s your real name?
“Can’t tell you that”.

Age?
“No, can’t tell you that either”.

Hmm. Great start. Time for a change in tactics.

Grooverider has been a pioneer of the rave scene since its infancy. After hooking up with the Phase One radio station in 1986, his DJing as we know it was the natural direction for Rider to take:
 “I got into DJing ‘cause…. I don’t know…. I just like music. I used to play soul and disco before and it all went from there really”.

Groove has come a long way since his pirate radio station days and believes that being based in the nation’s capital was a great advantage. “London’s where everything happens. The drum & bass scene ain’t that different from the rest of the country though. I mean, there’s more sections. You go round the country and you don’t have so many styles in one town. You don’t get more than one style when you go outside of London. London’s got the whole spectrum”.

Very true. Take the Midlands, for example. Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry – the jungle scene in these towns used to be massive, but now there are very few jungle clubs, let alone the whole spectrum of musical styles. “They get too much trouble in the Midlands. It’s not the music that’s the problem, it’s the people that follow it”. But shouldn’t that be the same whether it’s north, south, east or west? How come London manages to keep so many jungle clubs going? “Don’t bother thinking there ain’t no trouble in London, ‘cause there is. But there’s certain people who try to filter it out. I don’t know about the Midlands – they’re on a different trip. And Manchester…. you go to Manchester – they’re on a different trip man. I don’t know what’s going on up there. People want to be taking guns into parties. If you’re not going out to party, what you going out for?” Groove reckons the problem lies with the younger generation. “Kids will be kids, y’know what I’m saying? But kids now, compared to when I was a kid, they’re more violent for some reason. When I was 14, I was still going to school, mucking about and hanging out, playing with my friends. Kids now, they don’t play anymore. They’re more developed and they’re growing up more violent. It ain’t like it used to be”.

People are always reminiscing about the good old days when everybody raved it up under one roof. Rider preferred this one family atmosphere of days gone by, before the scene became so segregated. “I like all forms of music. A lot of people who say they like music only listen to one style, but I like all forms. If it was to go back together, I’d be up for it. I’d be right up for it. I don’t know whether that’s going to happen though”.

It seems fairly unlikely, with more and more clubs opening dedicated to one style of music. But perhaps bringing the music back together would be the only way to stamp out the violence at some jungle clubs – people like Helter Skelter and Dreamscape are proving that the scene is far from going downhill. “I like the mixed parties. They’re pulling the numbers, so they must be working. You got people like World Dance who are attracting about 10,000 people every time they do a party, so they must be working”.

Rider obviously rates World Dance, but refused to reveal his favourite promoter. “I don’t do this sucking up thing right?! (laughs) I haven’t got a favourite to tell the truth. There’s a lot of ‘em. I couldn’t say. It wouldn’t be fair”.

Groove has played so many clubs/events in so many different countries, it would be difficult for him to pinpoint one favourite, even if he wanted to. With the rave scene continuously growing and spreading across borders, his music has taken him all over the world. “I’ve played everywhere, apart from Russia and India. I’ve been everywhere, man, get a globe and look at it!” Presumably, this includes the US. What’s is like stateside? “It’s picking up. I’ve been to Washington about 3 times and it’s been quite good. I’ve got some friends who’ve just come back from there and they said it’s picking up. They’ve done some big parties out there. We (Metalheadz) are doing a tour next year, in March. We’re going to all the large cities. I’ve never been outside of Washington before, so I don’t know what it’s gonna be like”.

Metalheadz, like Grooverider, has gone from strength to strength. Although Rider was the man behind the name, Goldie is the guy behind the concept. “Me and Goldie have been best mates since, I don’t know…. In about 1989-90, somebody gave me this record and I played it one night at Heaven ‘cause I thought it was all right. Some geezer with some gold teeth came up to me and gone ‘yeah, that’s my fuckin’ record’, and I’m thinking what?! Y’know, some little ragga looking boy with these gold teeth and I’m thinking, ‘who is this geezer?’!! We just kind of hooked and we’ve been best mates ever since. He helps me and I help him as much as I can. It’s getting hard to find the time though. I just can’t find it”. Natural progression led this friendship to a more professional plain. “I brought Goldie through. ‘Metalheadz’ is my name. I used to be saying on my radio show about dub plates and that’s what a metalhead is. Goldie kind of adopted the name, which is pretty cool and built his thing around it. That’s how I got involved”.

So what about the radio show? Most of the ‘decent’ radio stations only reach out to the south, with very few further north. “There ain’t any good radio stations up north, I don’t know what’s going on. I really don’t. I do a show on Kiss every Friday, midnight ‘till two. Well, Fabio does two weeks and I do two weeks”.

Fabio. Since the two joined forces back in 1987, their partnership has become synonymous with freshness and originality and their back2back sets are legendary. With Grooverider being fairly headstrong and having his own inimitable style, you might think that having to pander to somebody else’s whims would piss him off. “Naah, it’s pretty cool. As long as I’m with Fabio, it’s cool. That’s just like playing by myself. I’ve never played with anyone else. I never have and I never will”.

It’s almost as important for an MC/DJ partnership to work as well as a back2back one. A lot of DJs seems to relish the idea of wrapping the mic lead round the MC’s neck – just to give everyone a bit of peace. Some MCs ruin the music, some enhance it. It all depends on who it is. “There’s a couple I like. If I could choose, I’d have Cleveland Watkiss and GQ. I’d probably choose Flux as well. If I had a choice, there wouldn’t be any MCs to be honest with you. Y’know, I feel that a DJ’s job is to play the music and he can do that without any help. By rights, you shouldn’t need an MC”.

Something else Rider feels we can do without is the narrow-minded people who will only listen to jungle, only listen to techno, or whatever and so he doesn’t like to define what he plays. “How would I define it? Jungle, mate, jungle! Naah (laughs). I don’t know….it’s just music. I play jungle, but I also play house. The house scene’s getting better. It’s a bit pretentious for me though. It’s not the music, it’s the people that follow it. They’re too pretentious”.

Being pretentious is often an accusation hurled towards DJs – usually by jealous people who don’t know them. “You get some DJs who expect star treatment and loads of respect. But I ain’t like that. I’m doing this ‘cause it’s what I want to do, not ‘cause of the shit that comes with it”. DJs are also accused of charging promoters for too much, but DJs are also accused of charging promoters far too much, but Grooverider doesn’t think that this is the case. “We don’t charge a lot”. What about Sasha who is reported to charge ten grand on New Year’s Eve? “I people want to be mugs to pay it, then let them pay it. You don’t have to pay it. Nobody’s twisting their arm. If someone wants to pay it, then why not? Say somebody went for a job, any job and the boss says, we’re going to pay you X amount, you take the money don’t you? You can’t say no”.

Rider doesn’t just rely on his income from playing out, however. He has a couple of other projects on the go, namely Sony and Prototype, his own label. “Why Sony? They gave me loads of money!! Naah, I’m doing a compilation album for them in February, then after that I’m going to do a solo album. So I’ve got those two albums and working on my label, putting some more 12s out”.

Prototype Recordings has been on the go for about three years now and is one of the most successful labels in the drum & bass scene. “It’s going better than I thought it would. I don’t know what it is. I don’t really work that hard at it. It’s just done it’s own thing man and I’m just sitting going ‘yeah’!! It’s only me that runs it. I don’t have any help or anything, it’s just me”.

Groove’s got a really busy life, what with all the sorting shit out that every DJ has to do, making tunes, running his label and playing out. However, his agency since 1989, Groove Connection (who also manage people like Fabio, Mickey Finn, Kemistry & Storm and Bukem), take a load off his mind by dealing with his bookings. “I leave all that to the agency. I just get a call on a Friday telling me where I’ve got to go to. The agency look after everything for me. What it is, I need time to do my own shit. I ain’t got time to be on the phone finding out when I’m supposed to be at a club. I did all that years ago and I can’t be bothered now”.

Of course, not everybody is in Groove’s enviable position at the top of the cutting edge of hardstep. Most new DJs these days have to know somebody to get anywhere, but those days are long gone for the Rider. “It’s not a matter of who you know; not for me. That’s why originally, with Prototype, nobody knew it was my label. I went out purposefully to make sure people didn’t know it was my label. As I said earlier, that’s how I feel about all that sucking up shit. I don’t know any promoter as chummy and all that. I’m not like that. I don’t kiss no arse ‘cause I’m not interested in all that. A lot of people do think like that, but not me, no way. They got to take me on merit. There’s been promoters, ‘cause I don’t kiss their arse, they think, ‘oh right, I’m going to leave him’, but sooner or later, they always come back, ‘cause they have to. If you’re that good, you don’t have to kiss nobody’s arse. Don’t get me wrong, I’m friendly with a lot of promoters, but when you get too friendly and say they don’t book you, or you don’t like what they’re out for, what do you do then? You can’t say nothing”.

So by not getting too involved with other people in the scene, Grooverider keeps out of a lot of the politics, slating and slagging off that goes on. Many people diss promoters who don’t put their all into production and don’t give ravers value for money. “What you got to understand is that it’s different things for different people. Not everybody’s got the money to spend thousands on production, not everybody’s got the money to spend thousands on production, not everybody’s gonna recoup that money. If you’ve got the money to do it, then do it. If you ain’t, then you can’t. It’s all right for people like Helter Skelter, ‘cause they know they’re gonna recoup their money. But people like Hysteria haven’t got that sort of money and they’re not gonna get back that sort of money either. So you’re being a bit hard on them by saying that. Not everybody’s got the same amount of dough”. If that’s the case, shouldn’t they start off doing small events and work their way up to the big venues? You shouldn’t go straight to the top, but start small. (Very grudgingly) “Yeah, okay. I suppose your right”. It became apparent that Grooverider does not like being disagreed with. “Who me? I don’t know. Not many people do disagree with me”.

With new found confidence and seemingly, Rider’s respect, I decided to ask about the taboo subject of his salary and about how much he’s earned since he started. “I’ve just been having a laugh the past ten years. It’s so easy. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked hard, but it’s so easy and you can make so much money – I ain’t telling you how much!!”

I take that as meaning a lot and I guess there’s a lot to come. What does the future hold? What does Rider envisage happening to the scene over the next few years? “I don’t. I don’t envisage anything. I just take it day by day. Six years ago, people were saying to me, this ain’t gonna last long and I’m six years on, so I can’t say. People have just got to keep trying to do the best they can and make the whole thing bigger and better”.

As the background music of George Michael became too much for Groove, we headed out in to the twilight, where Rider had an altercation with an irate cyclist over who had more right to be using the bus lane – him on his two wheels, or us on foot. Groove let him have the first couple of bars before cussing him down and sending him peddling off with his tail between his legs. This made me feel all the more brave for standing up to him and proving that he’s not the hard, arrogant jungle don I thought he was. Grooverider is, in fact, surprisingly friendly, with a wide grin that spoils the rudeboy image somewhat. Yeah, he might be a bit full of himself…. he’s good, he knows it and he says it. There’s nothing wrong with blowing your own trumpet once in a while, only in Grooverider’s case, there’s plenty of other people who would do it for him. Grooverider…a legend in the making.