He’s no newcomer to the scene having been in the hip hop/grime world for years with acts like Wizzy Wow and Chipmunk previously under his label and engineering for the likes of Wiley and Scorcher he’s far from a stranger but it’s only been over the past year or so that 25 year old Random Impulse has began carving out his own genre made up of pure fire lyrics over an electric guitar base. Now having been out in Hollywood mixing it up with the music industry he tells Nardene Scott he’s back to stamp his new sound on the UK scene.

Hey how are you doing? So have you been doing you been in the studio today?

Yeah I’m good. I’ve been in the studio every day man for the last four years. Every single day, seven days a week!

Hard worker! So you’ve just released The Refixes Vol. 1 how do you feel about that?

It’s been amazing. I didn’t really expect it to be this much this fast. I released Volume 1 which was refixes 1-14 but I’m going to do it for like fifty two weeks. I release a refix every week on youtube but every time I hit 50,000 views I’ll put just however many are up to that point available to download for free. I put it up at like 10pm a couple of days ago and then it got to 2am I got a message from send space going you’re file has been taken off and I’m thinking what’s going on…its because it hit a 1000 downloads and then I had to upload it again and then when I woke up it was like I had to download it again.

That’s a good look you should have made people pay for it…

Nah not at all. I mean if you’re willing to give something for free just like literally for the people who like your music just because it starts getting popular it doesn’t mean that you should suddenly turn on them like oh pay for it then.

We saw on twitter the other day that Plat Du Jour are taking you to Madrid soon what’s all that in aid of?

That’s to do a set with the dubstep guys called Tomb Crew and I’m getting taken over by the British consulate to go and do SXWS in March and I know some others went last yeah like Tinie Tempah, Mr Hudson so it would be good to see who’s on this year.

Yeah definitely and you’re managed by Chris Allen who manages quite a lot of big acts, how did you hook up with him?

He just heard my stuff on the internet, I did this remix called Brianstorm it was a freestyle over a song by the Arctic Monkeys and at the time I was listening to a lot of indie music but I wasn’t in the culture. I didn’t know all the forums and apparently it was on the Arctic Monkey forum. They put it up for download and it hit an awful lot of downloads, like it hit about 20,000 downloads. Domino Records their record label got in contact with me all effing and blinding, ‘This is a liberty!’ ‘What are you doing?’ suing and all this. I was like how can you sue me, I just put it out on myspace and back then you was allowed to do like remixes on myspace and I was like check the IP address I didn’t put it up. Of course it caused a stir so  he heard my stuff and back then I was only playing the guitar for something like two months or something.

When did you decide that you wanted to pick up the guitar? Was it just because you was listening to more and more indie music or is that something that you always wanted to do?

Do you know what, I was watching Jay Z  talking about that concept album he did American Gangster and he was talking about his influences, he was like ‘That’s why I did this album because the tunes are a reflection of the music that I’ve been listening to recently’. I listen to so much indie music, its just like grime and hip hop the music I was making it was a reflection of me but only one side and I just said one day being true to myself, I’m going to learn the guitar. That’s probably the only thing that even people that believe in me from day one were like ‘you cant just pick up a guitar and play the guitar’ but like I’m neurotic when it comes to learning new things so I just practiced like eight hours a day and here we are.

So your original fans have they moved with you as well or have you found people are not as open minded?

Nah its amazing man because my last mixtape Full Metal Alchemist it got kind of seen like that and its weird because deep down inside, I did want to do something like what I’m doing now because I mean it had a lot of heavy guitar samples. They was like Impulse is sick he’s different though so the minute you’ve got them saying you’re a bit different though you’ve kind of planted the seed to allow yourself to do certain things.

I get what your saying and I think the more grime goes into the charts the more people will search for something different anyway?

That’s it and it’s all about timing as well because when I had a meeting with Interscope in America one of the head guys he said something that really made me think about when to drop things. He said in England every two years there’s a cycle, the synths, then a year or two years urban music, then rock music and when you think about it like three years ago it was the Ting Tings, La Roux, Little Boots, all this stuff the synths and now its all urban music, where’s Franz Ferdinand like where’s all the bands, their last albums all sold a couple of million Arctic Monkeys, The Kooks, Kaizer Chiefs, Kasabian none of them have dropped their albums and I don’t think its a coincidence.

How did you find it out in LA I know you networked a lot and there was a load of producers who wanted to or work with you. How did it all go out there?

It was amazing, I honestly just see it as some guy that’s just started a studio in two years time could be the biggest producer in the world so you never know who you’re going to talk to so people that have achieved stuff you should be more at ease with them. Its like, well you know who they are so you don’t need to pull your punches, there’s sincerity. I’ve sat in a studio with Guy Chambers he’s sold like 35 million records and he’s like ‘what do you think of this new lyric or this new song’ and I’ve gone it is sh*t, he loved that although me and him are close. Networking in America is amazing I remember the last time I flew in as soon as I landed I had to go to this party for guitar magazine. I was just chilling and talking to these guys busting joke and I didn’t ask once what they did.  When I say one guy wrote Heroes and then the other guy was I don’t really remember his name but he’s like the biggest music lawyer, he’s like Beyonce’s music lawyer and all that just came about through being yourself.

We hear you’ve got a track on Lupe’s album too, Lasers?

I’m not sure if it’s on his album but the label hired me to make something for it so if not he has wasted his money. To be honest I didn’t even send it over to him, I sent it over to his A&R and they just proofed it. I’ve heard now that kind of the whole thing with his label is sorted so it should be out next year now, next year march I think.

How did you come up with the idea of starting to do all these other refixes like reworking a whole track to make it your on your on?

This Sunday is going to be like the sixteenth week and I’ve learnt all these new skills, I’ve been engineering for a long time like when I had my label. So, after those years I’ve learnt that trade, I come back to England and I was like I’ve been in America for two years everything started popping off here. I was like I want to have a foundation here. I sat down and I thought okay what’s a good way of getting all my skills out to the public and to my fan base without scaring the crap out of them; I thought if I make songs that they’re already listening to how they would sound if they were on my album I could see how the reaction was and it would be no skin of my back. I could just say it’s probably because the tune is bad, do you know what I mean like pass it on. The other reason was I listened to Gangsters and I was like this tune is sick why the f*ck doesn’t this guy use a guitar so I made it and I thought that’s cool let me make a mixtape. Then I thought no it’s a hot song and I haven’t got anything on my youtube. Next thing you know I was like I’m going to do it every week and I opened my mouth even more like I’m going to do it for a year…I have to do it now.

Okay you’ve got The Refixes Vol. 1 EP out now have you got another EP out before your album?

Right now I’m actually working on my EP, called the Overload EP.

What’s that sounding like then?

It’s sounding sick, I’m not going to lie to I’m not an indie kid trying to rap I’m a grime mc first so the EP you’re going to be able to bump it in the clubs. The track it’s quite ironic you know people do generic club bangers on the contrary I’ve never done that so this time I’m releasing a song that is just about defining who you are. It’s kind of like a metaphor you know you turn your music louder so even though its different it pushes through and stands on the same platform as everybody else. I’ve decided to give it a double layer so for people that aren’t like really interested in concepts they just want to hear something and be like ‘Oh my god fam that’s hard bodied’ they can just get down and enjoy it. It’s a hard song with genuine guitars so it’s going to be interesting to see obviously visually me playing the guitar and spitting.

Have you had loads of people wanting to work with you as well?

Yeah I’m in the studio with loads of people like my little brother Ed Sheeran, Sem who made like that Lily Allen and Professor Green track he’s been a friend of mine for years but like I’ve just been so busy and he’s been so busy that we just never really thought of working together because we were friends before he become like this super producer guy. I mean its weird because when I think about it, I can get some pretty heavy collaborations but I think I’m just going to wait for the album for that or maybe not, maybe I’ll just want to prove myself I mean that’s what I did on Full Metal Alchemist I just had one feature on the whole thing. My sound now it’s not like I’ve been playing the guitar for like the last five years and been trying to mix it with hip hop its only been really a year.

Have you got any performances coming up soon or are you still going to be holed up in the studio?

I just did ILUVLIVE, we’re performing on the 27^th at Proud Galleries and in December I’m doing a show with Ed Sheeran renting out a venue and that. I’m doing a show in November as well at the Macbeth alongside Jessie J and Maxsta and a few other people. The main one is at Balham with Ed Sheeran and November I’ve got Spain with Tomb Crew.

Any Last Words?

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The Refixes Vol. 1 is available to download for free now here

Tags: Grime, Indie, Interviews, Random Impulse