Nu Y
ou ar
T
one
e her

◊
47 e

◊
47
THE SHOCK
OF THE NU
NEW HUSBAND, NEW FATHER AND NOW
PRODUCER OF A SPARKLING NEW ALBUM, WE
HOOK UP WITH FAST SOUL MUSIC MAN NU:
TONE TO FIND OUT WHY HIS LIFE HAS BEEN
TURNED UPSIDE DOWN; FOR THE BETTER.
It’s been two years since 29 year-old Dan we had a child. That changed everything!” and DJ loads, and your sound becomes more
Gresham’s debut album ‘Brave Nu World’ was Bringing a kid into the world obviously turns dancefloor. It happens to everyone. And I guess
released on Hospital Records. “I listened to it anyone’s life upside down, and your priorities in the past two years my music has but I used to
for the first time in ages last week, actually,” change in an instant. Dan was no different. make quite hard stuff in the past; my first tune
the bespectacled producer explains to Kmag “What I used to hold dear to me I didn’t seem was quite techy, basically me trying to copy the
across a rickety pub table in Kings Cross. “I was to find as relevant any more, and vice versa,” he Bad Company sound. Soul and funk is a big part
at my parents’ housåe; they always have it by says, “but the amazing thing was, with all the of my musical heritage, so I guess on this album
their stereo, and my little boy was getting a bit extra responsibility that came with fatherhood, I I’m trying to marry the musical side of things with
agitated. He loves drum & bass so I åput it on became so much more focused. And it affected a more dancefloor friendly edge.”
and thankfully he calmed down a bit.” every other part of my life. So I went back into
the studio, and I found I was as creative and As with his previous work, the album is littered
In the time between albums, Nu:tone’s life has productive as I’ve ever been. I wrote the body of with collaborations, and features a multifarious
changed in a big way. As well as getting married the album in about six months.” range of vocalists and musicians. There are
to his long-term girlfriend and moving his home the predictable hook-ups with his brother Matt
and studio into the quiet countryside, he now Appropriately titled ‘Back Of Beyond’, the new Logistics (“he’s doing great”), old friends Commix
has a one-year-old son called Henry. Going album has taken shape quickly and efficiently (“we’re like a family, really”), and vocalist Natalie
through such major upheavals and taking on the with his new outlook and surroundings. “The Williams, who guested on ‘Brave Nu World’
inevitable responsibilities that come with it, you move out to the countryside is when it all (“an amazing vocalist, talented musician; she’s
might be drawn into thinking that drum & bass switched for me,” Dan says. “I went from living got the lot”). But more far more interesting are
has taken a back-seat for the foreseeable future. in some flats, surrounded by people with loads the alliances Dan procured through Hospital
But apparently, nothing could be further from of noise and traffic everywhere, to having fields co-owner Chris Goss’ affiliation with quirky
the truth. on three sides of my house. Turn the lights off at downtempo label ‘Wah Wah’.
night and it’s totally pitch black and silent. I think
“After the first album dropped, I really didn’t write this influences me more than I realise.” “I’ve done two tunes with a band called Talc,”
anything for about 12 months, to be honest,” Dan explains. They’re a sort of west-coast
Dan remembers, lighting a cigarette. “My studio So because of this newfound peace and Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan-type band. I went
wasn’t in good shape. I had shitty neighbours, so tranquility, is the album is a more chilled out to their studio with a very basic sketch of a few
I couldn’t get into the zone and basically it was affair? “I don’t really think so,” Dan says. “There’s things, and we ended up writing something
all a bit of a struggle. But I married my girlfriend, this inevitable thing that happens with loads completely different.”
we moved out into the middle of nowhere, and of producers. You make an album, then you go
K46-48_NuTone.indd 47 8/6/07 19:32:00
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74