Original content
Although they’ve only been operating under their OC & Verde moniker since 2014, Ben and Jon have been producing since the noughties under a variety of pseudonyms. Naturally, we were keen to find out more about the thinking behind the rebrand.
: Your discography includes more than just your OC & Verde tracks… OC: “Yeah, we went under a few different names first, which we won’t mention. Some of the releases were alright!” JV: “We were on Radio 1, and we had support from Annie Mac and Pete Tong.”
: So what was the problem? OC: “We basically made too much shit that came back to haunt us! The problem now is that there are loads of crap record labels out there. You’ve got a load of young kids who just start a label and they’ll sign anything and put it out. Our music wasn’t good enough, and we kind of knew it wasn’t good enough, but we were excited to get our music out there.
“So we put out a lot of shit records while we were learning our craft and getting our own sound. Then, once we got good, we had a name that had put out loads of rubbish music! When a label sees you put out a good record, they’ll put some of the other crap you signed to them five or six years ago. So we just thought, ‘Let’s ditch the name and have a fresh start’. We’d already been at it for ten years when we started with OC & Verde.” JV: “When we signed a track to Knee Deep in Sound, it was our chance to have a clean slate. Hot Since 82 wasn’t really taking any of our other names and wanted a fresh start. So that’s what we did, and it’s the best thing we’ve done.” OC: “Labels will check your history and see what labels you’ve been on and where you’ve released before. They won’t want to work with you even if the music’s good because of the past that you’ve got. What you should do is hone your craft before you release anything.”
: How is the OC & Verde stuff different to your previous output? OC: “Oh, it’s ten times better produced. The mastering and everything that Jon’s figured out how to do is just on a different level now. We use a lot of outboard stuff. We don’t use any sample packs, and if we do, we chop everything up.” JV: “If we’re sampling, it tends to be older stuff or very, very carefully selected. We take a long time to make our records as well. I’d say it takes us a week to make a record, though Maasai came together quickly.”
OC: “Other than that, we do put in a lot of time. We’ll sit on a record and play it quite a few times in the club, then go back and tweak it before we send it to anyone. It’s not just constantly firing stuff out. When we produced under the other names, we were always putting out music to aim at some label or a certain DJ. Now we don’t do that at all – that’s the biggest switch. We make music for us that we’re happy with and that we’re really excited about. Then we see what labels it goes on, because if you try to aim something somewhere, you never know where that label is gonna go or what their plans are. So we just make it for us. With Maasai and Solstice, we just made those records for us, we didn’t have any labels planned for them to go on.” JV: “If you’re producing something for a label today, their latest release might be similar, but it might be six months old and they’re already ready to move on with the style and switch it up a bit. So you’ve got to make music for yourself.”
: What happens if you make a tune you love but no label wants to sign it? OC: “Yeah, that’s kinda happened with us in the past. Steve Lawler signed Solstice to VIVa, though, and in an interview he said it’s not what he would normally sign to the label, but it’s such a great record that he signed it anyway. So I think the music’s speaking for itself and we’re creating our own sound. We’re getting people coming to us for that sound, and we aren’t really making anything like anyone else.”
“I think the music’s speaking for itself and we’re creating our own sound”