Q. Where are you from? What environment did you grow up in?

I am from London, England

Q. What are the roots of your music?

I grew up listening to and doing uk garage music and heavy metal/rock music…. I discovered drum and bass when I was 18 and never looked back.

Q. What was the situation of Drum&Bass when you first met it?

I first discovered dnb in 1999/2000 when I was a student living in Nottingham UK. At first I heard the more mainstream dnb at raves like DetonateUK and the major uk raves like Slamming vinyl and Halter Skelter… it wasn’t until 2002 that I really started discovering more underground darker styles of dnb.

Q. Do you think the UK has a unique Drum&Bass style from city to city? Do you think cities and places have an impact on music production?

Not really. i would say you find a wide and diverse range of styles in every city in the uk. From dark to jump up, to liquid and commercial.

Q. Please tell me your Top 3 favorite DNB Tracks

Konflict - MESSIAH

Bkey - MAN OF SCIENCE

Proket - LOCOMOTIVE

Q. What is the most memorable Rave or Party experience you had as a teenager?

thats a tough question. I’ve been to many great raves all over the world in the past 20 years. But I always preferred the ones with the harder more energetic music! I do have great memories from many Jungle Syndicate UK events and also Amsterdams legendary Cheeky Mondays Events.

Q. When did you start making music? Did you make Drum&Bass from the beginning?
What was the first piece of equipment you used?

I started djing garage music with my brother when we about 12 years old. We had very bad belt drive turn tables which were very difficult to dj on. We eventually saved up and got Technics 1210s by late 1997. I would always buy records on the way home from school. This progressed to producing drum and bass around 2005. I started on a very old pc using propellerhead reason DAW software. And eventually ending up using Presonus Studio One v5 today in 2020.

Q. Where does the name Smyla come from?

my name is Steve Smith. In the UK people with the last name smith are often nicknamed Smiler…. I just decided to spell the name smiler differently… smyla

2020.08

MDC Interview#44 "Smyla"