In today’s interview, we take the plunge with scene-veteran Sub Zero about some of his past productions, while also figuring out some of his ambitions and goals during and after the lockdown. Not known for appearing in many interviews in the past, having the opportunity to fire away some questions and get to know more about his plans makes this extra exclusive for us at ByTheProducer!

Having released his remix of ‘All City – Ego Trippin’ back in April as well as producing ‘Missing Pieces’, his single featuring Roxi Yung as well as Ben Snow on the remixed version back in February, Sub Zero has shown a new sound and direction towards his productions we may not have seen as of yet, while retaining his aggressive, in-your-face style of production we all love him for!

We couldn’t help realise that you have a new 2-track EP coming out with DJ limited in May through Playaz. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

So there’s 2 tunes, first one is a track called “Something like this”, which is just a tune that’s been kicking about for the last year or so on dubplate and it’s been featuring heavily in our sets. It’s one of my fav tunes to mix with as it has lots of energy and goes well with a lot of styles! The other track is “Can’t go to sleep VIP” - The original came out two summers back and did well! It’s quite a mental tune with this mad long bass note that twists and turns followed by a really catchy wump riff, so the VIP is a play on that and we just have some fun with it really!

After playing in New Zealand, Vietnam, and countless other countries across the globe - is there anywhere else you would love to play if given the opportunity?

Japan is the one place I really want to play more than anywhere, although it would be nice to just play in the UK again right now! But yeah Japan is a country I have not managed to play in yet. I just love their culture, the food, the technology – everything really!

Japan would be awesome for sure! Apart from the numerous livestreams, have you got any other projects you are working on to keep fans engaged while you are in lockdown?

Yeah, me and Original Sin have been gathering some of our old back catalogue from Formation Records that we made about 12 years ago, maybe even longer. We’re going to re-master them and maybe look to release them too! We’ve made some interesting tunes from that collection. We have also been going through our old CD’s so I think people will enjoy hearing these older tunes and discovering more of our history – getting the chance to hear where we came from musically!

Your recent remix of ‘All City – Ego Trippin’ was a welcome surprise, do you have any other new tracks in the works you could hint at or tell us about?

I have a lot of new tunes that I’ve been working on, lots of collaborations and some remixes too. Also, some new g dub tunes there!

Have you ever considered delving into any other sub-genres as of late? I know back in February you produced a liquid tune called ‘Missing Piece’ with Roxi, do you reckon you would attempt something new like that again?

I have some new liquid-type tunes I’ve been working on with some vocalists as I really enjoy making deeper stuff, so I will be exploring into that a lot more as I’m really vibing off the sound design and creating emotion in my music as opposed to making tunes that make people go crazy in a rave or festival.

Will we ever see a return of ‘Sub Zero and friends’ sometime in the future or something along the same premise?

I’ve been looking at it, just waiting for the right time and venue so hopefully something will happen again - maybe in London which is where I’m based now!

Can’t wait! Are there any other producers which have caught your eye as of late?

You know what, there’s so many great new producers I’ve heard recently it would be hard to list them all! But to name a few - Disrupta, Gray, Hexa, J Selecta and Joely have really caught my attention for sure!

When all this blows over, what is first on your agenda of activities to do?

To be honest, I’m just looking forward to being able to go out for food and drinks with my mates and see family again. Of course, I also can’t wait to start touring and travelling again as well!

Who would you say has been the most fun to play with in the last year?

I think playing with Original Sin at Printworks has been the most fun set this year! It was one of those unforgettable moments that I will be buzzing off for years to come!

When creating the sample pack for ByTheProducer, how did you go about finding the parts you thought would make it signature to you?

I had so much fun doing the sample pack - I sat there and started making loads of new sounds and just got lost doing so - then I went through some of my classic sounds and found stuff in there that I thought people would enjoy getting their hands on!

As we mentioned earlier, it was extra special having Sub Zero down for his first interview in some time, we want to thank him for coming down to answer our questions and we can’t wait to show you what other interviews we have in store for you guys! We have now released 7 sample packs and continue to release more on a regular basis! If you wish to pre-order Sub Zero’s new EP with DJ Limited, you can do so here: https://bit.ly/2Wt4EcW

Make sure to check out his other socials while you are at it too:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/subzero.official/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/subzeroplayaz
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/subzeroplayaz/

Chris McKenna
Writer at By The Producer
Email: chris@bytheproducer.com