Interview & Images courtesy of Defected Record
Words by Toni Tambourine.
Copyright are the amiable and energetic duo that have been knocking out their distinctive brand of soulful, song-based house for over a decade now, and have been doing so to an army of loyal fans. Anyone who heard their fans singing the lyrics to ‘Wizeman’ back at them when they play will understand just how influential these boys have been, and now they’re getting the recognition they deserve.
It’s time to stop talking about them and let them speak for themselves as they discuss, their roots, the highlights in their career and what is means to be officially awarded the title of House Masters…
Q. How long have you both been producing and DJing? What are the most important lessons that you have learned along the way?
Sam: Well, it’s been a journey of 10 – 12 years. It’s been that long a journey! It’s been a good one though.
Gavin: What we’ve learnt is you’ve got to stay true to yourself, you can’t just follow the fashion. Stay with your feeling and make the music you want to make.
Sam: People are now downloading house music from 2 or 3 major websites and it’s very easy for a DJ to download the same thing. When we started out, the DJs who were inspirational to us were playing something surprising in their set. That’s what you need these days, surprises from your record collection! Don’t just play the top 20 downloads, do your thing, get a sound and your time will come.
Gavin: The highlight of this beach party we did on Sunday was when we put on “Now That We Found Love” at the end of the night. This was THE moment of the party, it clarifies what he said, a few surprises.
Q. All DJ and producers have heroes, who for you were your hero’s and who do you still look up to?
Sam: When I was younger I bought every single Todd Terry record. Everything he did and everything Masters at Work did. Whatever they did, they did it really well.
Gavin: I’d say ditto for both of those. I’d definitely put Kenny (Dope) in there. In my opinion, he is the number one drum programmer in house music. Tommy Musto, who is an unsung hero, he isn’t around so much anymore. He went on to do the Henry Street label, any time there was a new release, I knew it was going to be good. This was a big influence for me.
Q. How do you see copyright as distinguishable from other DJs out there? What makes you different in sound and style?
Sam: People seem to like our tracks and they are predominantly vocals. We’ve always enjoyed writing songs, and always dreamed or writing that song, like a modern day Dennis Ferrer “Hey Hey”. When a song like that comes along, that pushes us to try and emulate that sound.
Gavin: Another thing is there are two of us but we play like one person. When we are playing, it’s like there’s four hands on the decks! It’s an amalgamation of what Sam likes and what I like.
Q. Surely the best dance music producers are American right?
Sam: There are some great producers in America right now. Dennis Ferrer, every record he makes is potentially a classic. He’s ahead of the curve. In the past our influences have come from America, but they also come from all over the world and they are really taking over!
Q. How would you respond to the statement: Beat matching is easy? How skillful do you actually need to be to be a good dj?
Gavin: I wouldn’t say beat matching is easy. You can learn and have an ear for it if you if you love what you’re doing and love DJing. But you need to know what record to play and when, that’s the important factor.
Sam: The DJing is not the crowd looking at the DJ whilst he’s playing for 2 hours. The DJing is sitting at home, downloading tracks, digging out a classic. That’s the job, you bring tracks to the people. The best DJs like Eric Morrillo, he brings an aura to the booth and the show he puts on. That’s super star quality!
Q. Ok tell me something about what kit you use to get the copyright sound. Don’t give all your secrets away just a hint!
Sam: The melodica! It’s a little keyboard with a tube you blow through! But the main hub will be the plug in synths you have on your computer. But we use some old synths, which makes our stuff stand out. Most people use the same synths and plug ins, but we have these synths where the presets are long gone. I love playing with the old synthesizers!
Q. In current times do you think that you could exist solely as producers and not DJ?
Sam: Well, it’s an interesting question. The way you survive in this is to tour with the music you have made. But what if we didn’t travel, what if we stayed in the studio and focused 100% on our production, could we have much more successful music which we could survive on?
Gavin: I think they go together, we’ll be making a track in the week and be thinking to try it out in the weekend. We’ll come back an arrangement is too long, or a sound should have come in earlier. So, one helps the other.
Sam: Our gig at Pacha was like a shot in the arm then you are inspired by that in the studio. Plus you hear new music when you’re out there.
Q. Louie Vega, Dennis Ferrer, Bob Sinclar; with this new compilation you’re joining an impressive list…how does it feel?
Gavin: We’re in good company there.
Sam: This is equal to the feeling we had when we were in the Defected offices with our debut album in our hands. We are fans of the other artists who have done this series, so to be part of those who have inspired us is amazing.
Gavin: It’s nice to see our body of work in this. It’s not just of our new records we’ve made this year, but it goes back over 10 years.
Q. Tell us about some of the tracks that really stand out from the course of your production career.
Gavin: There’s a re-edit we did about 10 years ago. We needed something special to come onto at the Soulfuric party during the Miami conference. We put some fresh beats and bass on to an accapella version of I Can’t Get No Sleep, which then turned into a remix!
Sam: People were begging us for the CD, we had done something good. When you hear what you’ve done in the past, you hear the energy. It’s nice to hear years on.
Q. Which tracks off this album work best for you on the dancefloor?
Gavin: There’s a current one. Chris Lake with “La Tromba Risin’”
Sam: This came about after Chris heard a mash up of the original “La Tromba” with “We Can Rise”. This was an easy project because there was agreement between two record companies, so we put our beats from the original with the horns and it’s created this monster anthem! On the album, we’ve got people who we’ve worked with for a long time like Imaani. There’s “Wizeman” which was a culmination of two or three records before. It’s one of our most requested tracks!
Q. Which of the tracks are you most proud of or have been your biggest success?
Sam: There’s “Wizeman”. We are most proud of that record.
Gavin: As a song it touched us deeply.
Sam: “Bulo” with Shovell was a massive international success, we shot a video, it went all around the world. It caught on! There’s a collection of different stories
Gavin: “He Is” with Dennis Ferrer was a big success. We wrote this song, which we sent to Dennis who took about a year to do the mix! He was trying to find the right angle. Eventually we got this mix, and said it sounds good!
Sam: It was great working with Dennis, we left him to come up with this master piece. We didn’t stress at him. If you play “He Is” to some big DJs they are like “You did that?! That was you?!” It was a big big record!
Q. Is it important for a track to have a good vocal for you, or do you need instrumentals too?
Sam: Every time we see DJ Gregory, he always goes in his heavy French accent “Guys, you musta makea more track!” He always wants us to more tracks but after we’ve done a track we always think “Let’s put a vocal on it!” Yeah we always say we must do more tracks but the law of the vocal is too strong.
Q. Outside of Dance music what are your musical influences?
Gavin: I’m an old soul boy at heart. I still love listening to old soul and jazz music. I’m now into Latin Jazz after going to salsa classes with my wife. She play a lot of Latin Jazz piano and I play the flute so we have these jam sessions at home. I enjoy music when it’s nothing to do with producing, I don’t know if that’s an influence, but it’s an escapism.
Sam: When I was my teens, it was late 80’s, early 90’s so dance music was blowing up! My dad used to take me to watch basketball matches where there would be a DJ before it start and I was like “WHAT IS THIS?!” So he took me to Piccadilly Records and Eastern Block. I just bought music and loved it! I was into soul too like Shaka Khan, Steve Wonder. A big regret of mine was a swapped two boxes of my early hip hop collection for a pair of trainers. I needed them so badly!
Q. You’re doing a producer workshop soon at The Roundhouse in London, what is this and what have you got planned?
Sam: We were asked to do a work shop around the event at the Roundhouse as they have a charitable side, involving kids in music. So we’ll be working to inspire, pass on a bit of knowledge and our experience.
Gavin: Over the years, we’ve gathered quite a lot of knowledge about the DJing and the producing. It’s nice to be able to pass that on to the younger generation.
Sam: It’s a two hour work shop, which we’ll condense down into the key things. We’ll be talking about plug ins, the technical side and then going through the business side. Some people make great music but it’s never released, as they may not know how to approach a label properly. This could be a new career for us after DJs and producers, be lecturers. QUIET AT THE BACK JONNY! QUIET AT THE BACK!
Q. Anything else you’d like to tell us about.
Sam: I think we need to sort out the grass routes level, of English football! It’s shocking! The show at this World Cup! I’m going to use this forum to vent! I am tired of overpaid footballers, and it should be about overpaid DJs! Thank you!
Copyright Bio:
“We play sounds with worldwide appeal. You can drop them from Portugal to Australia to Japan. It’s soulful house music with a global vibe.”
It’s been a busy time for London based DJ/production duo Sam Holt and Gavin Mills – aka Copyright – since the release of their debut album ‘Visions And Voices’ last year.
The album went on to be Traxsource’s album of the year and saw the boys tour the world supporting its release, including a magical, a five hour back-to-back set with DJ Spen at MOS in London and a huge launch party in Japan.
“I suppose the favourite gig was the Japanese album launch party,” says Sam. “It was an absolute roadblock and [long-time vocal contributor] Imaani joined us for an amazing live PA. Bizarrely, there were even Japanese girls in front of the stage actually crying with joy! Totally mad.”
And there’s to be no laurel-perching for Copyright in 2009. Along with Junior Jack, ATFC, the Shapeshifter and Simon Dunmore, they’re to be Defected’s Pacha Ibiza residents and have been selected to mix the Ibiza In The House 2009 album – one of Defected’s biggest-selling albums and a taster of the sounds you’ll hear at the label’s Ibiza parties. The album also features a world first, live percussion on a mix album, courtesy of rhythm king Shovell.
Look out for the upcoming relaunch of Copyright Recordings later this year with tracks featuring Jocelyn Brown, Mr V and many more plus the boys’ debut release entitled ‘Ready or Not’ on the legendary Strictly Rhythm label. Producing Strictly’s hot new female vocalist Yasmeen, the track is a tough, dancefloor r’n’b number and is a glimpse of the versatility of Gavin and Sam’s production ability. Here’s hoping we get an eyeful in the months to come.
Copyright dropped their first proper release on the hugely influential US label Soulfuric back in 2000. The boys proceeded to put out a slew of quality tracks on that and several other labels (including their own imprint, Copyright Recordings) in the early noughties, building their reputation and fan base in the process.
Tracks like ‘Good For You’ feat Angie Brown, ‘Bulo’ with longtime friend and percussion collaborator Shovell and ‘Release Yourself’ set the pace, while their move to Defected in 2005 saw them jump up a gear with tracks like ‘He Is’, ‘Bring Me Love’ and ‘I Pray’. The international recognition they received from these releases culminated in Defected boss Simon Dunmore asking Copyright to mix the 2007 ‘Miami In The House’ compilation. Distilling the Copyright sound while showcasing their mixing prowess and nose for what makes a great party, it went on to sell more than 30, 000 copies globally.
Then, in 2008 they truly jumped to the next level with the release of their debut album, ‘Voices and Visions’. An assured collection of soulful house, classic song writing, with latin, afrobeat, disco, funk and tech influences, it featured outstanding vocal performances from a stellar cast of collaborators and propelled Copyright into the super league of global house players.
Sublimely blending their trademark soulful sound with a host of other influences, ‘Voices and Visions’ is a reflection of their varied and universally-appealing DJ sets, with contributions from K.C. Flightt, Mr V, Miss Patty, Jazzie B and longtime cohorts Shovell, Imaani and Tasita D’mour.
Everything you always wanted to know about Copyright but were too scared to ask…
Over their nine year career, Copyright have released 20 singles and EPs. Their tracks have appeared on over 100 compilations or mix CDs.
Sam’s Godfather wrote the screenplay for Planet Of The Apes.
Gavin’s production career dates back to 1990 with cult classic ‘Hypnosis’ by Psychotropic. He also DJed at a number of seminal ‘90s raves including Energy, Biology and Raindance. He was once arrested for DJing at an illegal party.
The pair we introduced to each other in the late nineties by Matt Jam Lamont’s girlfriend.
Sam’s trainer collection numbers over a hundred pairs.
Gavin’s cousin once came second in the World Disco Dancing championship, presented by none other than an in-his-prime Bruce Forsyth!
Sam had an illustrious career in advertising before giving it up to chase the soulful house dream, rising to the dizzy heights of Managing Director of Team Saatchi.
When Gavin was a kid he wanted to be a diamond cutter but ended up cutting hair professionally instead.
Copyright have soundtracked a number of high profile ad campaigns including Sport England and Toyota.
Gavin has a massive collection of Japanese toys worth well in excess of 5K.
Copyright’s first Radio 1 Essential Mix was broadcast in March 2008.
Originally from Preston Sam cut his dance music teeth DJing in clubs in Manchester, including the legendary Hacienda.
North London boy Gavin bought his first set of decks from Aston Harvey from The Freestylers.
Gavin’s all-time hero is Miles Davis. Sam’s is Kenny Dalglish.
Gavin’s studio pride and joy is a vintage Prophet 5 synthesiser, as used by Herbie Hancock and Earth, Wind and Fire.
Gavin is also a keen photographer, contributing artwork for past Copyright releases and currently working on a photo book documenting Copyright’s time on the road with the world’s biggest house DJs.