When it comes to UK dubstep, no other group comes to mind than the Gentleman’s Club collective. Consisting of 50 Carrot, Soloman & Coffi, the trio came together with the common love of filthy bass. Huge names in their own individual right, the formation of GC was only a natural move that saw the super group go on to release several EPs and bring their heavy sets to parties across the globe.
You guys are making your debut in London’s legendary FABRIC club very soon. What can we expect?
You can expect a lot of bass, rowdy mosh pits, plenty of surprises and three gents throwing it down behind the decks. We like to customise our sets for every place we go to, making sure we engage with the audience on a local & personalized level, we will prove this with our set at FABRIC. It’s been our aim both individually and collectively since we began making music to play at this venue, so we are making sure we shut the place down with our first performance there. The line up is legendary in itself, so it’s going to be mad one playing there. In two words ‘f*cking excited’
It seems as if you guys are always touring around the world. What’s life on the road like?
Life on the road, for the most part is absolutely amazing. We have been lucky enough to see some of the most beautiful cities and places in the world. With us, there’s a lot of banter, inside jokes and overall laughter throughout the tours, which helps pass time through gruelling journeys. There are downsides of touring though too which I think can be overlooked, but they are never too bad, they usually consist of being hungover, getting ill & misreading handshakes… One thing we really love is meeting our fans across the globe, they are of course, the people who have helped us to get where we are right now. So as always, a massive shout to the supporters out there that have been with us on the journey so far!
Any funny stories?
We have a lot of stories from tours but one that stood out for us was before we left Australia after our New Years run, we decided to have a last minute party at the apartment we were staying at in Perth. We let a couple people know about it, who let a couple people know about it, who let a another couple people know about it… You get the picture. We didn’t really expect much to be honest, just a few friendly drinks with our good Perth friends. The time came around and more and more people kept showing up. We didn’t have a problem with this, everyone knew each other and as the night progressed, things got more and more messy, in a positive way. It was a perfect night, we had such a great time with everyone there & overall it was a great ending to an amazing trip for us!
At the end of last year you dropped the 12-track album “GC Collections Vol. 2 EP”. What made you decide to do an album this time?
This has become an annual thing, the success of ‘’GC Collections Vol. 1’’ showed us that the fans really enjoyed the concept of an album, the idea is we give out a big album to celebrate our favorite tunes of the year that we made and let the fans get their hands on them. We collaborate with our favourite artists and have a remixes on there as well. We are always surprising our supporters with tunes that we do and special collaborations that we do, this year is no exception. Keep posted.
When’s the Gentleman’s Club Strip Club coming?
For now we are sticking to the music & merchandise.
We do have plans on expanding our ventures out of the musical & clothing bubble and creating the worlds classiest strip club…
It’s clear that GC have brought hip- hop influences into your music. Your latest record “Almighty Dollar” sounds like the intro to an 808 Mafia record before dropping into dubstep filth. What inspirations do you look to when making tracks?
We take inspiration from every corner and aspect of music. Hip hop definitely being one of them, we are all fans of the gutter vibe music coming out from USA & UK atm. Yung Simmie, Maxo Kream, Krept & Konan, Future, Young Thug, Robb Banks, Section Boyz, Skepta and many more. Sometimes it will be something simple such as a noise that we hear whilst playing around with synths and we just ride with it and make it into something. We tend to bounce of each other when we are in a studio so in a sense we almost inspire each other with things we do whilst working on the tracks we make, which creates an interesting dynamic which is great for making tunes.
It’s been almost 3 years since you all joined forces. What’s the journey been like so far?
Amazing. We’ve managed to accomplish and surpass where we imagined this going. It’s been an awesome journey so far but we know it’s only just begun in the long run. We are very excited to see where we can take our collective and see what musical boundaries we can cross whilst doing it. All whilst staying fully independent, which is something we pride ourselves on.
NYE in Australia looked like a movie. What did it feel like to play out to such a large crowd?
The crowd at Origin Festival blew us away, we really had no idea what to expect when playing main stage at such as big festival alongside massive acts like Pusha T, Yung Lean, Skepta etc, but we knew it was going to be a mad one once we got on stage to see a sea of people out there, not to mention the front section of the crowd started to chanting gentlemen’s club before we’d stepped up behind the decks which gave us full confidence that we were going to shut it down. Australia was really was amazing for us, we’ve all endeavoured on previous tours there independently as solo artist but never played any gigs out there as the GC collective, so it was a first for us and one then we will never forget. From start to finish it was unbelievable.
Each of you pick your favourite moment from dubstep pre-2012.
Soloman:
For me personally, my favourite moments of dubstep was early 2010 when I was learning how to DJ! I had recently came across the likes of BadKlaat, Requake, The Aliens etc. and I was HOOKED! (Prior to this I was listening to Benga, Caspa & Rusko); I spent days and days researching into this particular sound and from that I went to some great events and met some even better people, which I still to this day work with!
50 Carrot:
My favorite time pre-2012 was 2010-2011. I remember listening to dubstep earlier during the Stagga, Zomby, Rusko/Caspa, Jakes, Skream and Benga days, but I really found myself engaged around 2010-11 by the underground scene that was influenced by that early era mentioned above, at that time for me personally Badklaat, Requake, Eddie K, Funtcase, Cookie Monsta, Bar 9, Stinkahbell & Trolley Snatcha. Plenty more but these are the ones that sprang up. The 16bit ‘’The Milky Pie’’ mix was a huge influence on me getting into dubstep and inspiring me to make it as my genre of choice.
Coffi:
When I first started producing, I was really inspired by the likes of Coki, 16bit, Caspa and Rusko. I loved shifting through YouTube videos and finding new music that I’d never heard before, it brought me so many ideas! That’s where my love of the genre began really
Remember when everyone in the dubstep scene had MONSTA Art profile pictures?
Yes it was great haha, I believe I (Coffi) had one. Very twisted art but always fitting with what tunes they were for and the UK scene in general. Caspa had a video made by him it’s pretty dope, and he did his a lil short mini series which we all enjoyed. We should maybe think about collaborating with now to mention it, would be dope to have a video done by him.
And finally, what do you have in store for 2016?
You can expect massive things from us this year! Big collabs, huge shows, classy clothing & booming tracks!
We have big goals for this year and we excited to see where this year takes us! You can expect a lot of surprises from us. We just wanna shout out the fans once again for supporting us this far, they are the ones who push us to take Gentlemen’s Club further and further. Stay classy’ out there
