Wideboys, the production/remix team of Jim Sullivan and Eddie Craig, have been pumping out garage and house tracks for more than 10 years. Originally meeting through a record store, the two have been darlings of the UK underground with releases on their label Garage Jams, using names like Atari Era and Medieval Hooligans while occasionally venturing out to work with the likes All Saints and Artful Dodger. 2007 marked a big commercial crossover for the Wideboys - new management, a hit single ("Bomb the Secret"), and big name remixes (Rihanna, Jody Watley). With remixes of Janet Jackson and Britney Spears and two forthcoming CD releases, 2008 is set for an even bigger year for the Wideboys.
DJ Ron Slomowicz: So, I hear you're working on a Janet Jackson remix.
Jim Sullivan: We did that last week. I think it was last week, we've
done so many. We're working on a guy called Christian George.
RS: Who is that?
Jim Sullivan: He's actually an up-and-coming guy from the US, and
we're just working on his new tune at the moment.
RS: Very cool. So how did the two of you meet up?
Jim Sullivan: Well, it was about thirteen years ago. I was running a
full-time studio in the area and Ed had his own studio and a shop, and
we just got together like that. I'd go in and buy records and we
really liked that we had the same ideas and the same views about
things, and we went straight into the studio together.
RS: When you started out, what kind of sound were you making together?
Jim Sullivan: The first tune that we did together was actually a
house tune. This was just before the big garage thing took off in
England, and Ed brought in this amazing record by Them 2, and that was
it. We changed our sound there and then, and we never looked back.
RS: OK, now remember we're in the U.S., and we're not as hip to
everything over there. Is garage what we call two-step?
Jim Sullivan: Yes, it has elements of two-step, but it's also a very
varied sound. So it has styles of house, it's got elements of drum and
bass. But it's a house tempo, which is slightly faster, but it does
come in different forms and some of it sounds very much like house or
electro, and some of it sounds like breakbeat, or even sort of sped-up
R&B sounds. But it has its own sort of style, with a lot of different
influences from music around the world, so it's a wicked sound.
RS: And what is Bassline?
Jim Sullivan: Bassline stems from the garage scene, and basically it
takes vocals, a lot of musical parts, so it's quite nice and light and
very musical, very friendly for the girls on the dancefloor to start
with. Then it normally kicks in with the craziest set of baselines
that we can possibly find, the crazier the better, and every week we
seem to be finding new sounds. Sometimes our tunes have as many as
eight different bass sounds, all playing one individual part of the
bass as a whole.
Eddie Craig: It's a really big thing at the moment. It's been blowing
up for a long time in the underground, in the clubs, in the very small
inner-city clubs in the UK for a long time now, but it is now starting
to go in to the wider market. It's become really, really popular. As
Jim said, it's very song-based stuff, but it's also got the tough bass
and beats to keep everyone happy.
RS: I'm noticing how, maybe in the past year or two, you've gone
from more underground to more commercial. Was that a decision, or did
that just kind of happen?
Jim Sullivan: We've always done all of them. We do underground tracks
every single day, and as with the more commercial stuff, we've always
done that. But we've always operated under different guises. But now,
because we're under new management, MWR Management, our manager Matt
Waterhouse, decided to collate all of that into just the Wideboys tag
and use that as a branding. So we've always done all of them under
different genres.
Eddie Craig: Yes, we've always worked on different styles. But now we
are under new management, and we've also been hooking up with
international artists like Rhianna and Snoop Dogg, and people like
that who obviously have an element of commerciality linked to their
name, who have been so successful. We try and put our style on their
style, and come up with an amalgamation of sounds.
RS: When you work with someone like a Snoop Dogg, do you ever
actually get to meet them or talk to them or hear feedback from them
about your work?
Jim Sullivan: Absolutely. Sometimes we do get feedback indirectly
from the management. We've always loved Snoop Dogg over here in the
UK, as well as Busta Rhymes, and it would be really nice to speak to
them directly. This week we got news that we've got to turn around a
Britney Spears mix in a week. I think the press have been giving her
a hard time lately, so me and Ed have decided to give her a touch of
the Wideboys love with a remix.
RS: Nice.
Jim Sullivan: Well, what we found is generally that most of it seems
to go through management, but certainly the big UK artists we've had
down to the studio. We've just been doing a track with Shaznay from a
group called the All Saints, which was very, very popular in the UK.
But unfortunately we haven't had Rhianna or Snoop Dogg in the studio
yet. But we have had the CEOs, and high up people in Def Jam have come
down to the studio to check us out. They always send their engineers
and everything. So we've been looked after nicely.
