He is probably the biggest rising star in the current terror scene and it doesn't seem that this supreme rise will stop anytime soon. And during the upcoming Deadtown, he will play like his life depends on it. So enough reasons to get Execrate into the interview booth to know a little bit more about how he experiences his terror dream so far.
My first introduction with hardcore was a long time ago, when I bought a CD called 'Bonkers 12'. Most of it was happy hardcore, but on the disc by Scott Brown, the last few tracks were proper hardcore. I must have played those few tracks hundreds of times. After that, in 2006, I went to my first rave and immediately fell in love with the scene.
After a couple of years, I've got my own set of decks. So I recorded a mix and dropped it into my local music store. Soon after that, I was offered to do a set. After a couple of years DJing, I spoke with fellow British hardcore DJ Joey Riot and asked him if he had any tips to make it higher up. He said that producing was the way forward, so I decided to give it a go. At the time, I was mainly into frenchcore, so that’s what I focused on. At the time, artists like D.O.M., D-tox and The Sickest Squad were my biggest influences. Over the years, my interests moved more to terror, with my biggest role models being Drokz, Tripped and Striker. Since then, I’ve never looked back.
As I was watching videos and listening to CD packs from events like Nightmare in Rotterdam, I always dreamt of playing at parties like these. This dream came true in 2017, where I entered a DJ contest and won a spot at the line-up of Dominator festival.
Great British play-off
Back in 2011-2012, the birthday bashes of North in Bristol were awesome hardcore parties here in the UK. With three rooms of headliners from all of Europe. Unfortunately, the hardcore scene in the UK nowadays is quite small. Drum & bass is probably the most popular rave music over here. There are a few events still running that support the harder styles, but mainly in the north of the country. As I live on the south coast of England, it's quite a journey to get to these events. I'm usually closer to the Netherlands. Plus, most of the events over here are based around uptempo, which is not my cup of tea.
Hopefully, things may change. With Masters of Hardcore organizing a UK edition, this could be really great for the scene here. But I don't think terror will ever be as popular in the UK as it is in the Netherlands and Germany.
Biggest achievements so far
I already achieved more than I thought I would. I played at a lot of great events, released tracks on awesome labels and made some great collabs with amazing artists. And of course joining Speedcore Italia and Drokz' Terrorheads are important ones as well. So it’s really hard for me to pick any of them to be my biggest accomplishment so far.
However, if I have to pick, there are two achievements sticking out for me. One is playing alongside Drokz, Akira and Bruhze at the Hong Kong Violence stage of Dominator last year, while the other is hearing Drokz playing one of my tracks at the mainstage of Thunderdome. Those were really awesome!
Before joining Speedcore Italia, I already knew about it for a while. Meeting Nekrosystem during Thunderdome was also really cool. I always had huge respect for his particular sound and I used his tracks in my sets often. So we had a chat and before I knew I signed at Speedcore Italia as an artist, another achievement I’m very proud of. I see Speedcore Italia getting bigger and bigger. You only have to check the amount of Speedcore Italia merch worn at different events to see its popularity, so it's very cool to be part of this.
But no empty bucket list
At the moment, I'm trying out some more experimental sounds recently, more around the 200-250 BPM range. There is one track I'm working on at the moment, but details of that will be announced soon! Also, I have a remix in the works of a track by a hero of mine, so enough to look out for!
I still want to have a release on vinyl, so that's something I'd still love to do. Also making a track together with artists like Drokz or Tripped would be amazing. In terms of events, there's still a few parties I'd like to play at, since I never did already. So I still have some stuff on my bucket list.
Deadtown 12 will be something unique
My sets usually start around 200 BPM and during the set, I work up to around 300 BPM. But this is Deadtown! So I will be playing a faster than usual set. It was great last time as I don't always get the chance to play much speedcore.
So for Deadtown, I'm preparing a special intense set that will not be repeated anywhere else. So, if fast, hard and distorted kickdrums are your thing, you should not miss it!
I want to give a massive thanks to everyone who has supported me over the last few years. It’s always cool to meet people at events. So come say hi and let's have a beer!
Thank you Execrate for this journey. And like he said: don't miss out his set during Deadtown 12! Tickets are available on our event page. And get a little taste of his set by listen to Execrate's warm-up mix right here or at Soundcloud.
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