Tag Archives: The Young Punx

The second album by The Young Punx, ‘Mashpop & Punkstep,’ brings music to life. And this living, breathing being, capable of crossing boundaries and incapable of being confined to walls of any one box is music. And The Young Punx are the vision.

“The only act that would open an album with a drum and bass, heavy metal, pop and Cuban track ‘You, You, You’ and make it enjoyable and accessible.” – (read more + FULL album)

But…before we continue further on this pattern of splicing genres, let me just give way to their surprise. This pattern is a big part of their whole album: Track after track of Mashed up music, with the punk mentality of breaking barriers and riding outside of the lines. And who are we but fools for trying to label each track as a multi-layered genre crossing animal, when what we are experiencing is music as a whole, free from the chains of conformity.

But still paving respect to all things Music Theory, and giving the listeners that Pop.

Catchy vocals, ‘Sugar Candy’ ‘Super Nova, Super Nova’ light the way with almost too familiar titles ‘Juice and Gin’ but it’s nothing you would expect and certainly far from anything you’ve heard before. The Young Punx are delivering everything good about music and doing it with more than awesome drum and bass breaks in between the disco, guitar riffs and vocal journeys at least for one song, then another breaks down with a guitar solo!

Judging from the more than high and fun feeling we get from the music, one can assume the Young Punx made sure to have fun and let loose while composing this album at least I find it hard to imagine any different. But as much as the Punx let loose, their mastery of music is displayed in their power to BRING it back and keep things in an awesome awe of Equilibrium. Take the the track, ‘O Mio Babbino Caro,’ suddenly the hyper fast-paced beats are replaced with a romantic opera giving us all a chance to catch our breath before we return to the get down and the dirty, with ‘Like Dat.’

.:Q & A:.

So much talent in The Young Punx, from the music created to every face behind the curtain. This latest release is not only a display of artistic talent, but a full on demonstration of music, free from the chains of a single genre.

BN: On the Album. Starting with the track, ‘You, You, You’ how does one keep a song together, in key and on beat, with so many different styles of music?

I think this is pretty easy really because the tracks tend to grow out of realising the hidden similarities between different types of music. The track You You You includes elements of Heavy Metal, Pop, Drum and Bass and Cuban Timba but the beauty of if it is that it isn’t really difficult to put them together. They actually all have very similar musical pulses running behind them and they sit together very happily. What stops people putting these sounds together is the cultural tribes we make up, saying “I’m into this sound, but not that sound”. The music itself WANTS to mix together and move without walls.

BN: And do you intend on putting all those ‘genres’ in the music or is it just the way it comes out?

When it comes to making the music it is partly just the way it comes out. I have a broad background that spans leading an orchestra, playing drums in a jazz band, piano in a Cuban band, playing bass with Dizzee Rascal, and DJing at Pacha, Eden, Privilege, Ministry of Sound, Fabric etc. When I make a track its always painful to close the doors to any of these different influences. And since the mash up scene took off in the early 2000s, people have taken in interest in the sound clashes that happen when you put together 2 things that were never EXPECTED to be put together. I do however like finding ways of getting unusual performances out of people by deliberately putting them in a new environment. What happens when you take a rock guitar player and tell him to play on a Drum and Bass record? What happens when you put some classically trained choirboys on the same record as a rapper from a tough estate? Its a mischievous approach that can deliver surprising results.

BN: Are you completely satisfied with the way it [Mashpop & Punkstep] turned out?

Well I’m a pretty happy with it, but an artist is always wanting to move forward onto the next thing, so what I am really into at the moment is the music I am doing now that will be released later this year, not the music I did last year that is being released now! That said, I hadn’t listened to the album since we finished it, until this week when we launched the album, and after the rest it is enjoyable to hear again.

BN: What was the main direction/goal/aim in creating this album. What did The Young Punx want ‘Mashpop & Punkstep’ to be?

It started off as a random collection of tracks that seemed to have no connection. You couldn’t even recognise them as the same artist. But as the songs came together over time a bigger picture seemed to emerge. We had all the track names on post-it notes on the wall, and we kept moving them into different collections and different orders.

Eventually a certain set of them seemed to add up in a way that made sense to us as telling some kind of story, in which we have a love of all things musical, but have a love / hate relationship with clubland and the dance music ‘scene’.

Its definitely designed to be heard as a whole album, from start to end, as 45 minutes of music that takes you on a specific journey. Though this is very out of fashion these days when people just download single mp3s etc.

We noticed a great deal of support from other artist, in early on remixes, not to mention those who may have been a part of the actual production.

A lot of the tracks on the album are kind of 50% club mixes. They are inspired by dance music, but aren’t 100% for the club (will it depends on the club!). Therefore an important part of making any track for us is to get a second version of the track made immediately that is 100% club friendly so we can DJ it. We usually A&R 100% based who WE want to DJ and so before the album was released we invited our favourite producers like Riva Starr, Black Noise, Gramophonedzie, Shinichi Osawa, Phonat and Shir Khan to make club versions of the tracks for us.

BN: Very strong support group, I even noticed a Shinichi Osawa remix, were artist approached to participate or was it something the artist themselves requested to do?

It varies, but its basically us inviting our favourite people to create their own takes on the tracks.

.:On the Punx:.
BN: How did this talented group of artist get together?

Well it started as myself and Cameron Saunders working as the classic DJ  / producer partnership making bedroom dance music productions. But over time it has slowly grown. First we needed singers for our original music. Then we needed to perform live so we got a band together. Then we wanted more variety of sounds so we started to collaborate with more vocalists and producers. It’s like a wagon rolling down the road that more and people keep climbing on to over time, or hopping off when they have done the bit of the journey that’s right for them.

BN: The Young Punx, a physical trio of artist, a symbol for music as a Genre-less and free spirit, or ??  (abstract question, run with it rebel child)

Its very hard to say who is and isn’t in The Young Punx because we are a loose gang working together on a specific project with its own identity. However we find the ‘spirit’ of the project is best represented by the trio of me (Hal Ritson), Nathan Taylor and Simon Bettison.

I come from a ‘traditional’ music background – playing lots of instruments etc. Nathan has a DJ background in underground club music. And Simon (our drummer) is a bit of joker and entertainer.

Between the 3 of our different personalities it kind of makes a good metaphor for what the act is about : We aim to combine real high quality traditional music content, with inspiration from the sounds of the clubs, with a good time, fun party atmosphere.

You can hear this coming through when the 3 of us present our regular podcast. Check it out here:

http://www.theyoungpunx.com/podcast/

Find out more about the album Mashpop and Punkstep here:
http://www.theyoungpunx.com/site/about/mashpop-and-punkstep/

Thank you very much for your time! We really appreciated the answers and gladly support the release of the new album, which again is available for listening here: [ Mashpop & Punkstep ]

Be sure to purchase the album as well:  iTunes | Amazon: .COM | CO.UK

And enjoy these gifted remixes!