Dubstep dabblers Virus Syndicate have been quiet for a minute but don’t get it twisted they haven’t been swanning off on holidays, they’ve buried themselves in studio’s with different producers and up and coming artists to make sure your summer is given a soundtrack to skank to. Nardene Scott catches up with fellow Mancunians JSD, Nika D and Goldfinger about the new single Your Life, the upcoming US tour plans and what to expect from them in 2011.

We might as well get this out of the way, what did you think of the Liquid diss?

Goldfinger: I think he wanted to boost his following didn’t he? I’ve known him since he was a yout so when this story come out that Liquid has got some cheeky sh*t to say, I’m like na na na leave him, allow him, he’s safe, he’s our people, then they went, he’s talking about us though. Realistically though, these are kids whatever it is you want to say about any of these youts, I’m not going to be making no music back it’s not worth it…

JSD: Dya know what it is his team is kind of strong, so when he’s seeing Wrigz making moves and  Sly and SBD have been getting props as well, he’s obviously feeling wounded innit and rather than ringing people and saying I want to get involved in things can we do some work together, he thought I’ll make a diss.

Goldfinger: I just say allow these people, it was a three day hype.

JSD: It got him hype but lost him respect, we ain’t got no qualms…

Goldfinger: Good luck to them innit if our name helps push them forward good luck because their name doesn’t help push us forwards, not really got much to say.

How is the Unity FM radio show going?  Is it all of you guys or just Mrk1?

JSD: The radio show is just Mark, originally we thought about doing it as a group but there’s a few reasons, one being that we’re really busy recording. If we did a show something that Finger was saying it has to be good, it has to be tight, it has to be rehearsed, we don’t just want to go on radio like we used to on pirate, big up Bryan or whatever. Also, it was a good opportunity for Mark because he doesn’t really speak on radio and now Mark has developed his sh*t 2000%!!!

Nika D: The best radio station in Manchester.

JSD: Unity is a big movement serious, it’s like a little Manchester 1Xtra type flex…

Nika D: I think Ruth is pretty hot

JSD: We’re doing an interview over here and you’re chatting about who…!

Nika D: Eamonn and Ruth

Room laugh

Well that’s going in the piece

Nika: Don’t say I said it, just say one of them said it!

Yeah sure, moving on to the new single Your Life that’s coming out on Safe and Sound right?

Nika D: It’s just the label that we signed the tune to, two singles we signed to them.

JSD: But they are a new fairly young label from what I understand, I think the first thing they put out was Funkystepz Ft. Lily Mackenzie For You and this is their second release.

You’ve got a few mixes as well of current single Your Life too, tell us a little bit about them?

JSD: Well the label put forward some suggestions and then we put some of our own suggestions in. We know Funkystepz are dons in the funky scene and they’re sick so because we knew they had that affiliation with the label  it was natural for us to say shout them man. The Heavyfeet remix we lined up, they’re boys from Manchester we’ve been working with them so we had to get them involved. Starkey is our boy, a dubstep producer from Philadelphia we’ve worked with him before and he’s also under the same management. He’s just really creative man he’s not watching anyone else’s template.

The video for Your Life is kind of funny, did you have any input into the video?

Nika D: We kind of had a vibe that we wanted to go with…

Goldfinger: The whole track it’s something that we tried to do a little bit different…like have a bit of a laugh with the scene more as to how the scene works and we were looking for the right video to show that. Originally when we had written the song we had no plan for videos or anything but the label picked it up so we chose the treatment with the best vibe and then once we had that we were able to put in our own ideas. We’re happy with it in the end but it’s on to the next one.

So what’s next for you guys then?

JSD: We just dropped Talk To Frank which has done the rounds for the past year and a half or something like that, It got picked up by Ministry for the This Is Dubstep compilation, it got picked up by Skins and it got signed to an LA label as well, that was its first release. So because of our exploits in America we’ve put together a package with remixes  from Bear and J Rabbit and an acapella, so that one has been killing it. On the Beatport charts it’s been like Top 5 on the DnB charts and Top 20 on the dubstep charts…

Nika D: Top 15 to be precise

JSD: So after that we’re doing a track with, wait, can we talk about that yet?

Nika D: Yeah man talk

Goldfinger: Nah we’re just doing a few more videos

Nika D: We might as well hype it

Goldfinger: Nah don’t give too much away!

JSD: Basically because we haven’t had a video out for a while, we figured that this video (Your Life) is on Flava and AKA and YouTube obviously so we want to keep that visual presence. We’d gone through doing a few videos and spending a lot of time and effort and money and resources.

Goldfinger: That’s the point where we’re at now because nowadays the internet is a big presence for us and we see it as it’s got to a stage now where especially in the UK, it is about a full package. You can’t just be thinking I’ll do songs and put them out there because there’s thousands of songs out every week; you’ve got to give your audience as much of a package as you possible can. I think that’s from the bottom to the top even if you’re signed by a major or unsigned you’ve got to be thinking like that.

Also Mrk 1 has been working with Doctor and we’ve jumped on a new track with him; there’s not always enough space to get all our vocals on and other peoples without making the tune sound sh*t. So we do a lot of stuff with loads of different producers but I think looking forward we do want to start working with more artists. We’ve been doing stuff with singers at the moment Katrina and Charlotte really good singers from Manchester.

So are you working on these new tracks with an album in mind?

JSD: Nah we’re just making good music we’re not even thinking about that at the minute obviously the bigger picture is about making an album but at the minute we’re just focusing on tracks. Something we should definitely mention is a guy we’re working with Killahurtz, he’s like a producer but he’s also a drummer and a singer and a guitar player, he does everything. The stuff we’re doing with him is tight man.

Goldfinger: Watch out for him he’s gunna be big, DJ, producer, multi-talented…

So he spans across every genre type thing?

Goldfinger: Whatever we’re on, that’s what he’s on now!

Room laugh

JSD: He makes some stuff that could be along the lines of Burial, some of his stuff is on another spectrum compared to the things we do with him, he’s just talented man and he can turn his hand at anything.

Goldfinger: He’s part of our Virus Syndicate sound, definitely.

How do you think your sound has changed over the years, we found an old Virus set recorded at Twoc Records from 2004 the other day so thought we’d ask?

JSD: Which one…oh it went off that one!

Goldfinger: We’ve learnt inside the scene, like we’ve not been a crew that sat at home for five years practised and then come out like bam. We’ve been quite honest in everything that we’ve done, everytime you’ve seen us perform it’s always a stage of development for us as artists. We can always look back at one thing and say that was sh*t but it’s all part of learning from what we’ve done. How rhymes sound transported from the bedroom to the live stage, the difference between performing on radio to on live stages, we’ve had to learn all of this stuff along the way. Now we’re at a point where we kind of know all of those different elements and we can put it together confidently, we’re not just limited to whatever the music scene would have allowed us to get away with at that time we can do what we want now.

Looking at singles Talk To Frank and Your Life which are both completely different to one another what can you tell us about the next few tracks?

Nika D: We got a track called Poppin Bottles coming out in August.

Goldfinger: It’s a bit like a crossover between an electro type of thing…I don’t even know, you guys will have to listen to it.

JSD: The next one we’re guns do is ‘ard, it’s just a straight banger, after Your Life which is a bit humorous; this next one is just hard man!

Goldfinger: We’ve got loads coming out and remixes as well, people have to go and get these things and check them out.

Have you got any more shows or performances that people can look forward to?

Goldfinger: We’ve kind of had to stop shows for a little bit because of all of the studio work we’ve been doing.

JSD: Yeah we shut up shop for a little while but we’re back now we’re gunna start taking bookings again.

Nika D: We start the US tour again in August (so far its Atlanta and LA), it’s hard to get back into the studio once you’ve been on tour and we’ve not got a tour bus with a studio on it…

JSD: Yet

Your Life is out now HERE!!!

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