Interview – Greg Packer
Having flown the flag for Australian electronic music for so long, Greg Packer now finds himself in a position that many DJs would be more than envious of, and it is this hard work over the years that is to be celebrated this Friday night in his very own showcase at The Nine. For years, Greg Packer has been one of the major faces of Australian drum’n’bass, with international recognition and acclaim.
Since his first release on Hardleaders in 2001 he has clocked up a remarkable ninety releases on over thirty two different labels, including the likes of Good Looking, 31 and Tangent. Yet with this astonishing average of one release every month over seven years, it may only just be now that he is really about to hit his stride with the resurrection the once stalled Interphase, Australia’s only dedicated drum and bass record label. Yet the question on many peoples lips is; why did Interphase go through such a long hiatus after between releases? At the end of the day, Greg believes that the finger may point at the economic problems that have plagued the record industry in the past few years.
“Well, the whole thing went a little bit quiet,” he explains, talking of the slow down in both the label and the production side of things. “It didn’t stop but it slowed down a bit. mostly because of the state of the industry at the moment, everyone is saying sales are bad, vinyls dying, its all mp3s. Old story that’s been kind of fed to us for the last few years.”
“Lots of record companies have been using that as an excuse to not pay you, and not give you advances,” he remarks, touting and oft heard gripe amongst producers in recent times. “You know, it’s never really been about the money, but you do lose a bit of motivation to crack on when things are so bad. I still managed to make tunes because it’s what I love and that’s the whole reason I got into it in the first place. Obviously I have a passion for music and i wanted to keep making music regardless of whether I was cashing in on it or not, so I carried on.”
When the distributor for the newly fledged Interphase records suddenly went under due to bankruptcy, Greg took a step back in order to wait and see which direction things went after the bottom fell out of the distribution industry a few years ago. As a tactical move, it was the right one, as his patience was well rewarded.
“Everyone was fighting each other to get with this distribution company or that distribution company and I didn’t want to get caught up in it,” he mildly laments. “A few years later, which was October last year, I was approached but Load media, who used to be Vinyl distribution. They actually weren’t aware of my label, and they said if you want to run one let us know. I told them that id started one and had three releases and that the distributors went bankrupt – they turned around and said well, look, you know, let’s pick up where it left off – and that really put a spark back in me.”
“There’s definitely a higher standard that’s been set at the moment. I find things have really changed these days as well. When are artist sort of starts to come through, people just pounce on them and want them exclusively for them. For example Pendulum and Breakbeat Kaos; Makoto, Good looking; Nu:tone, Hospital – they just end up getting locked into this exclusive deal and people get locked into an exclusive deal because people recognise a bit of talent and then go okay we don’t want this guy on 20 different labels we want him on our label, and we can pay him an advance and offer him album deals, put him on our agency on DJ bookings and you know, you get offered an attractive package and it’d be something you would be silly to turn down so you go ahead and do it. Now, you have to make at leas five anthem and five standout tunes for someone to take notice of you and go right, lets lock this guy in. It seems to be the way things are going right now, if someone signs a tune and it sells well and they make a bit of money they say right we’ll lock this guy down and we need him for the next twelve month and do a CD, a mix or whatever.”
Yet for all the politics, and for his years as one of Australians most premier DJs, it sometimes feels to Packer as if the DJing isn’t even the half of it, and may not even comprise a small fraction of the success that those involved in d’n’b find themselves in, and the constant need to back up their DJ skills with skills in the studio.
“I think nowadays if you are coming through, you may not have much of a chance unless you have talent as a producer as well. Its kind of like anyone who has been into d’n’b for the last few years, it doesn’t matter if they are a wicked DJs or mixer or anything, no ones going to really pay attention to you unless you are making some good tunes. Its a proven fact, even if you are not a good DJ, you can still get loads of gigs around the world because of the music you are producing, and that seems to be the most important thing.”
Along with his weekly residency at the Rise nightclub, which lately has seen a massive influx of patrons turning up to enjoy the broken beats he puts out, Gregs tunes and getting the label back on its feet have always been priority number one, and his passion and drive are obvious in his ambitions for the direction he hopes to take it.
“I’d like to get at least ten good solid releases out there so that people sort of start taking it a bit seriously, so you know, if things go wrong and you need to switch distros or something then you have a good solid back catalogue or something and you can go, well, this is what I’ve released so far and they can go, oh yeah, these are all solid tunes.”
“I’m really trying to get as much feedback as possible now before I put things out,” he enthuses. “I might look back now at say one of my favourite labels, maybe good looking, and I can pull a record out from say ‘95 and its wicked., and people think oh yeah, that’s a wicked tune. That’s what I want to do. I don’t just want to knock out what i think is good at the time. I want to try to imagine if I put this on in five years will I still like it? you know? I want them to try to have that kind of lifespan, so that people play the tunes in years to come as classics.”
More information on Greg Packers Interphase label can be found at www.myspace.com/interphaserecords.
Tags: australia, good looking, greg packer, interphase, laroque, makoto, perth, rise