Netsky: “I really like it when people take risks”

Netsky – underground drum and bass phenomenon turned reasonably-successful crossover artist.

Depending on who you ask, you’ll hear wildly different opinions on which of these career choices is superior. Most people at Warwick might answer your hypothetical question with “who the hell is Netsky?”, but there’s no denying that he divides opinion among those who are familiar with his material.

You might recognise him for his most recent pop-enthused single ‘Rio’, which, although not charting in the UK, managed to worm its way into the London new year’s firework celebrations.

Some context, then. Netsky emerged on the scene in the late 2000s, becoming famous for his ethereal liquid drum and bass. He signed to one of the largest labels in the scene, Hospital Records, in 2009, and his first album Netsky was widely regarded as one of the best releases of 2010.

Netsky built on his clear talent for creatively naming albums with his follow up, 2, in 2013. This was a significant departure from his liquid material, introducing a more soulful sound and featuring many collaborations with vocalists. It was even better received, and Netsky left Hospital for Sony in 2014.

Since then, Netsky has been quietly working on new material, with two single releases perhaps not making as much a mainstream splash as Sony would have liked, although achieving a number one in his home country of Belgium.

I managed to catch up with Netsky before his Birmingham show last December.

Talking to him, I could really tell that making music is what he always wanted to do. He signed to Sony on the condition that his artistic development was under his control. “I didn’t want [Sony] to tell me what kind of music to make, basically.” And it’s hard to fault him for taking advantage of his success to work with people he couldn’t have before.

He’s spoken on the topic many times before, but I asked him the question of “selling out” in the context of ‘Rio’ – the video for which is a cartoon of him and a pig flying to Rio de Janeiro. I asked whether that reflected his music becoming more childish and mainstream. He wasn’t at all reluctant to answer, but I could sense the question made him slightly uncomfortable.

He thought for a second, then contrasted his style with ‘superstar DJs’. “It’s really renewing,” he said, “to not market a DJ as their face and being all ‘photoshoot’ and ‘make up’ and all those things, it’s really nice to just have a childish cartoon of me and Digital Farm Animals as a pig.”

“But yeah, selling out…I mean, for me, selling out is a term that I personally use when I see an artist doing the same thing in his whole career – Just working the kind of crowd he has, and the following that he’s got… Or jumping on the next bandwagon. I like artists who just try and take risks, for example like Jack Ü (Skrillex and Diplo) on their own, taking massive risks and doing stuff that hasn’t been done before, that’s what people should be looking at as what should be going on right now. Instead of sticking to ‘your roots’ or doing whatever you’ve always done, I really like it when people take risks and experiment.”

But his answer left me unimpressed. Instead of innovating inside the scene, as so many stalwarts have succeeded in doing, it seems he has stopped innovating by simply applying his production knowledge to tired old pop formulae. It’s even more depressing to know that he is choosing this direction himself, rather than it being forced upon him by Sony.

If he’d answered that he was taking advantage of his talent to follow his lifelong musical ambitions, I’d be able to accept that. But trying to stylise himself alongside Jack Ü as “taking massive risks” feels like not only a cop out, but an insult to everyone inside drum and bass who is actively pushing things forward – as well as to Jack Ü.

Inherently, the “risk” being taken by Netsky is a monetary risk. Innovation can, and does, come from kids sitting in their bedrooms on Ableton. The “innovation” that Netsky is chasing seems to be from a show business standpoint, and there’s no denying that his live show is a spectacle. But in my opinion, it fell flat and bored me.

And despite his protests, I don’t agree with his opinion that his live band brings anything new to the table. “This tour I can really feel people talking about the live band, the way we play live, and they love how the drummer plays… I see so much social interaction with it, and I’ve really got a feeling something’s growing the old school way, where people have to see a show and they talk about it.”

It all felt like a bit of a gimmick. At the end of the show, for the encore, the MC announced “IT’S TIME TO GET BRAZILIAN”. The band (Netsky, his drummer, and his keyboardist,) then came to the front of the stage, and began drumming a simple beat, on MIDI drum pads, to ‘Rio’.

Leaving aside the easy cultural-appropriation shots one might be tempted to fire, that moment summed up the show for me. Netsky bought some fancy new drum pads with Sony’s money, and is attempting to style his own pursuit of fame as musical innovation. To make things worse, Rio was one of the only new songs he played that night. The rest of the performance was mostly old songs, performed in much the same way to how I remember them being performed two years ago.

Netsky’s new direction isn’t innovation. It’s pandering, lowest-common-denominator stuff. I’m still interested to hear his new album, because I know deep down Netsky is a good musician. But so far he’s been trying and failing to toe the line between mainstream and the underground, and right now I don’t think he’s pleasing many people at all.

Read the full interview, published on UKF, here.