Stereosonic Exclusive Interview With Dubstepper Caspa
Has Brit dubstep hero Caspa (aka Gary McCann) ever actually spotted a ghost? “I don’t know,” he laughs, momentarily thrown. “I don’t think I have ever seen a ghost, nah. I’ve heard stories and whatnot, but seeing is believing, I s’pose!”
Caspa may share his handle with the friendly cartoon spook, but there’s nothing spectral about his DJing. Forget “the dopest ghost in town”, he’s more like a rave poltergeist, Caspa inventing jump-up dubstep together with his punky homie Rusko. Still, he is nocturnal, conducting interviews after 11 pm. ”It’s not too late – for me it’s like lunchtime,” he quips.
The West Londoner first played Stereosonic last year, MC Rod Azlan in tow. “I had a great time,” Caspa says animatedly. “I think I was one of the first guys to come over who’s played the dubstep stuff in Australia [in 2007]. But coming back to do something as big as that with some of the best guys in the world is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Last year I had the time of my life, to be honest.” If Caspa was the sole dubstepper at Stereosonic 2010 (“People were kinda like, ‘Wow, what’s this?’”), then this year he’ll be in good company with Sub Focus and Canada’s Datsik billed, too.
Gary aspired to be a pro basketballer, but in his late teens he dislocated a shoulder and so DJing – and music-making – became his new interest. Growing up, he’d been exposed to hip-hop, drum ‘n’ bass and UK garage. Yet hearing a darker garage strain at the fabled FWD>> night in 2001 was his epiphany. BBC 1Xtra’s J Da Flex supported Gary’s Bass Bins, the newcomer then calling himself Quiet Storm. (The tune was signed to Lombardo’s Fragile Beats but, mysteriously, never came out.) He even scored a radio slot of his own on the pirate Rinse FM. An industrious Caspa also established his inaugural label, Storming Productions. His first mega-anthem was the wobbly Rubber Chicken on Tempa. Along the way, Caspa befriended Rusko and released his music. They teamed up for 2007′s influential compilation FabricLive.37, which, in tandem with Burial’s eponymous debut, brought dubstep wider attention. Caspa was soon vetting remix requests from outside the genre, tweaking Depeche Mode (this impressed his Dad). He similarly turned his hand to I Remember for Deadmau5 and fellow Stereosonic headliner Kaskade. In 2009 the bass head presented an ‘artist’ album, Everybody’s Talking, Nobody’s Listening!, on Fabric Records. That same year he DJed at Glastonbury.
Dubstep is only getting bigger, with the American Skrillex a dance superstar and poppy UK acts such as Katy B, whose Easy Please Me Caspa recently reworked. “It’s gonna hit the charts in America within the next six months,” he predicts of dubstep. “It’s gonna make a massive impact on American pop music. I think it’s completely gonna change the way people make pop music – it’s already done it!… No one’s had that big crossover tune in America, but it’s definitely coming. Once that happens, whether you like or not, the music is gonna go overground, as well as [remain] underground.” Rusko has transplanted to Los Angeles to pursue production gigs with those major urban (and pop) stars like Rihanna now enamoured of dubstep. But, though he’s remixed Ludacris for Def Jam, and “loves” America, Caspa is staying put. “London’s where my heart is – and that’s where I’m at.”
At home, he’s been busy developing his My Style label comp series and unleashing a succession of underground bangers. Caspa’s bi-monthly night at Fabric, Dub Police, just celebrated its third birthday. However, he himself did generate mainstream buzz with Love Never Dies, a vocal incarnation of his earlier Back For The First Time. (Caspa roped in Mr Hudson, Kanye West’s British R&B cohort.) And Caspa plans to drop another album. He nearly “scrapped” the material, being “fed up with writing it,” but then it began to “fall into place.” Caspa now has “a rough tracklisting.” “It’s getting there. I’m just working on it at the moment! As we speak, I’m in the studio. So it probably won’t come out until January or February next year, but it’s coming. It’s been a long time since I’ve done an album, so it’s about time.”
Words: Cole Laroche