Twisted Individual

The artist known as Twisted Individual has been causing an absolute storm on dancefloors of drum and bass clubs since the latter end of last year. Since his 'Wales' debut on Formation's 'World of Drum and Bass Part III' a couple of years back 22 year old Lee has been releasing an onslaught of monster tunes mostly under the umbrella of Formation labels and their projects like the before mentioned along with the 'Jazz & Bass Session III', 'A Decade of Breaks', 'Power Play'.

Then came the 'Twisted Invidutron EP', hotly followed by 'Liver Cancer' & 'Scar Tissue' on his own label Grid Recordings and 'Scurvy' & 'Disfunktional' on New Identity. If you didn't get a chance to pick up any of those you most look out for the awesome 'F-Word' (with Ray Winston's chants) and the re-working of the all-time classic 'Lighter'. We thought it was high time to introduce Twisted Individual…

Tell us about your background in music?

"I've been producing for about five years now and have worked for Formation for most of that time. I was into dance music from an early age, especially the likes of The Prodigy and all that and then I picked up on the hardcore. I was about 12 or 13 when I first got into it all, collecting the tapes and everything.

I started playing in my bedroom and managed to get a few pirate radio shows. I got into the production side of things because I felt that just doing the shows wasn't getting me anywhere, so I got into making tunes. I then got picked up by Formation and Alphamagic and have been doing stuff for them ever since."

You're from London so how did you hook up with SS?

"I was in The Music House cutting 'Wales' on to dub once, he was there and started nodding his head like a chicken and he was like "I want this man!" so I gave him my number and he caught up with me and it all went from there."

Are you a regular Twisted Individual?

"Well my mates think so, there the ones that gave it to me! I had a short/little name, when I signed up with Formation they were like "no you've got to change that". I looked at all the artists that had been on the label before and they all had long names, I didn't know what to call myself so my mate came up with it."

What was your name before?

"I'm not telling you! It's too dodgy man! Ha ha!"

What are you currently working on in the studio?

"I'm doing the album, I'm about half way through that, it's called 'Tooled Up' and should be out in about six months. I've got a couple of remixes to do, the first one being a remix of the classic Formation tune 'Deep Soul', also 'Rollidge' for SS and Ray Keith wants me to do a remix too."

What are you inspirations?

"I just stick the box on in the morning when I wake up and just listen to what's on there. I don't really listen to a lot of other styles really, I'm proper into my drum 'n' bass, I don't really listen to anything else, there's nothing that grabs my attention the same way, apart from Kylie - 'Can't Get It Out Of My Head'."

Tell us about your move from London to Leicester…

"I get on better up here because when I was living in London I was living with my parents and when I was playing my music they were like "turn that shit down!" But I'm up here now, I'm doing it for a living, I can play music full blast in the house any hour of the night because I've got no neighbours and the studio is just in town.

I've been living up in Leicester for about a year and a half now. I'm thinking about staying up here for good, I'm thinking about getting a mortgage too, London's too rushed. I'm a laid back person, it's too much for me, it's chilled out up here. You've got a lot of students up here and you can have 'stoney' sessions, ha ha!"

How do you feel about the response you received from your tunes?

"I've done alright I suppose, Grooverider's helped me in a big way too, I mean he's been battering my tunes! But it's all just fashion, people follow fashion, once one big DJ is playing it, every DJ picks up on it and I think that's what's happened with Grooverider, he's helped me out in a big way.

I'm happy with what's going on because I've come quite a long way really, I mean now I'm getting good write ups in the magazines and people are starting to notice me and the same with DJ bookings as well, people are starting to call me up."

What's happening with your own label Grid Recordings?

"I want to keep something going, whether it will be Grid or not because I think it got off to a bad start with a few dodgy releases but from number 11 they've been alright, it's about quality control now."

What's the future direction of Twisted Individual?

"Well I want to get to the top and get my own Radio One show! Ha ha! I want to travel a lot more, I want to get the album out and then try producing some different stuff."

Twisted Individual teams up with fellow Formation producer APB on 'Hog Roast' & 'Gatorbite', which is out now. Also out very soon is the awesome 'F-Word' and sometime after that the much hyped 'Lighter Remix'.