Alex Moul’s unique, creative tech skating shot him into the spotlight at a seriously young age. He was consistently knocking out tricks nobody else could do.
But as his moves were stoking out skaters around the world at the time, his constant urge to try new, exciting things that got him hyped, which he honed on his board, pushed him further away from skate spots and into clubs to DJ and make drum and bass.
After listening to a series of his tracks and hearing how his music became increasingly popular in the 90s and noticing how people still hit him up regularly today for tunes, and also seeing he still releases new music, we had to find out more about a series of his tracks we’ve heard and get his thoughts on a few of them and also discover how he produced them too.
So we hit up Alex to have a chat about a selection of his songs, and also to ask him why he became as fully gripped with making drum and bass tunes and tweaking buttons on his mixing decks as he was with doing over head high grabs and flips on his board.
Read Mouly’s Sounds Good Playlist to find out how he got into making Drum and Bass in Oxford, how he’s always balanced DJ’ing and skating, why he thinks making a sick tune is similar to nailing a banging trick, meeting Graham Lucida, playing in clubs around the UK and Europe, meeting music icons and celebrities along the way, moving to America, soundtracking Transworld’s In Bloom, Ewan Bowman, making his segment for On Video and creating all of the music for it, the story behind one of his sickest Frontside Flips, his thoughts on making new music, finding inspirations for unique samples and a playlist of some of his favourite tracks he’s, other bangers by his all-time favourite drum and bass artists, alongside a series of some of his dopest skate photos and parts.
So before we got on the phone you said you’ve been travelling around America and exploring recently?
We’ve had some serious adventures, seeing lakes and stuff, just seeing America, you know what I mean?
Yeah, there are a couple of reasons, but mainly because right now is the only time we’re probably ever going to get to do it. So my wife was like, let’s just get in the van and go, so we did! We punked it.
Sick. That’s good. Sometimes you just gotta make spontaneous plans and go for it before you start thinking about all the small details that stop it from happening.
Yeah. We winged it fully. At this time of year, campsites are pretty hard to get, and every campsite we went to, we managed to get the last spot, apart from one place that turned us away because they were full. But then we went to the next one, and we got the last spot there. It was like some of these places on the lakes and stuff; people book a year in advance.
Damn. That’s crazy. What have you been up to?
Yeah. It’s that jammed down. I was fishing and making food on the fire and stuff. Yeah, we saw some wicked stuff. But it was also kind of a nightmare as well, with the driving. But, you know, it’s worth it to get to see everything.
I can’t think of two more totally different places than being in a drum and bass rave in England and being in the wilderness in the northwestern states of America, you know, I mean, even.
Even though I was pretty much raving whilst I was camping, I really had to drum and bass on constantly, like making food and shit, you know what I mean?
Oh, that’s sick. That’s dope; that says a lot about you, no matter where you are you’re going to be listening to drum and bass even if you’re in the middle of this wild environment, with no access to power you’re still listening to it!
Basically, though, that’s how I discovered this sort of music. Well, before it was drum and bass, it was just rave music, but you know, that was in fields in Oxfordshire, you know what I mean? So basically, if I’m out in the woods somewhere, a good bit of drum and bass goes well with it.
Mouly: Kickflip to Fakie: Shot by Andrew Mapstone
Right. So what are you listening to the most at the moment?
I’m mostly listening to a lot of, like, drum and bass that came out in 1995 again, really at the moment.
Interesting. Do you feel like 1995 was when Drum and Bass was at its peak?
I don’t know. That was obviously when Graham Lucida and I had our tracks out on Timeless. We’ve both done our own things since, but I just felt that era of drum and bass was really wicked, and so I’ve been revisiting it a lot.
Who are some of your favourite drum and bass artists from that era?
I’ve been listening to a lot of Photek and LTJ Bukem, PFM, Alex Reece, Wax Doctor and Doc Scott, Total Science, Oxford Boys Make Some Noise, and all that vibe. But yeah, a lot of stuff like Brendan Collins, aka Future Bound, as well.
Also, a lot of the Timeless stuff for Legends Records, recording stuff, C.I.A. Records stuff, Good Looking Records stuff. Moving Shadow. Metalheadz, of course. All that vibe.
Yeah, Metalheadz. Years before Bournbrook DIY was where it is now in Birmingham, it was like one of the first spots that heads used to visit to make graffiti in the 80s, and Goldie from Metalheadz was doing that there.
Oh, right on. I used to go to Covent Garden in the 80s to see the Chrome Angels pieces in London where they were allowed to do it. I think my mum has a picture of me tagging on one of their pieces, which was actually in the book Spray Can Art. It was over one piece that said devious or something like that, and then the other side was the Chrome Angels in this wicked sort of wild, style cosmos fill-in; it had a real chrome, shiny vibe. So there’s a weird one for you as well, but yeah, I was into that: graffiti and hip hop, breakdancing and stuff like that, you know, before the skateboarding and all that stuff.
Yeah, there was a wave in the 80s where skaters not only skated, but they were into graffiti, breakdancing, BMX, and skateboarding too.
Yeah, I did BMXing as well before skating.They’re all part of the same creative outlet culture, you know what I mean? Skateboarding is a creative outlet; graffiti is a creative outlet. Breakdancing is; so is DJing. Do you like producing tunes? Well then it’s all the same; it all goes hand in hand. A lot of drum and bass producers used to skate as well; you know what I mean?
Which other drum and Bass musicians do you know who skate?
Jason Maldini from Bad Company. I used to go to his house. His sister used to braid my hair, and we’d be DJ’ing and spin tunes and skate and stuff. Also, DJ Lee from Oxford; he’s on Metalheadz.
He introduced me to DJing, but I used to skate with him first. There are quite a few. DJ Die. He’s part of the V Recordings camp. He skated. Paul Harding from Pendulum; he skates a little bit. We became mates through skating together.
Right, so how did you meet Paul from Pendulum?
Yeah, he’s a great bloke. We just sort of met online years ago, and ever since then, whenever he’s been in LA, he always puts me on the guest list for any of the gigs that he does, so I’ll just go and hang out with him for a bit at one of those/
So you got into breakdancing, BMX and then skateboarding, in that order?
It was breakdancing with a bit of graffiti, along with BMX. We would go to the BMX track and do pieces on the BMX track because you were allowed to do it there since it was a concrete one. That’s the same BMX track that was in Spirit of The Blitz – the Death Box video where you’ve probably seen me skating off the pump bumps and the banks and stuff. So yeah, breakdancing, graffiti, BMX, and after that, it was kung fu and then skateboarding!
A little dip into kung fu as well.
Yeah, I did some kung fu for like a couple of years. That would bring me up to about 10 years old, and then I started skateboarding. Everyone said I had really good Melon Grabs because of my flying kicks that I learned from kung fu.
Mouly: Japan Grab: Shot by Percy Dean
Greg Nowik would come up to visit and skate and stay with me at my dad’s house in Abingdon, and there was one little picture of me on the wall just doing a flying kick in a red kung fu outfit, and he was like, “No wonder you could do Melon Grabs so well. Look how boned out that is, man!
Mouly: Melon Grab: Shot by Simon Thorpe
Back then, that was our thing. Like, how far can you Japan your Japans, and how far can you bone a Melon Grab? Do you know what I mean? Things like that. So we kind of had a little bit of that in common with each other.
Mouly: Japan Grab: Shot by Andrew Horsley
So, I remember you said you went out and shot a load of photos with Tim Leighton-Boyce for RAD Magazine which brought your skating to a lot of people’s attention and that got you skating for Death Box as well. But at what point did drum and bass come into the picture, and how did you start producing it and DJ’ing? Was that through going to raves?
I started DJing when it was just rave music. There was no drum and bass back then. Everything was together. There was breakbeat stuff and 4/4 techno beats. That’s when it was awesome, really, because there was a little bit of everything for everyone, before each tempo segregated off into house, garage, and techno, and from that to jungle techno.
Then it went from jungle techno to jungle, and then after that there was sort of a type of drum and bass with less ragga lyrics and stuff like that. I mean, I loved it all. I still do, but. But predominantly I sort of got more into the drift-out drum and bass vibe. Don’t ask me why. That’s just what caught my vibe.
Mouly: Nosegrind: Shot by Andrew Horsley
You’ve made some really dope atmospheric tunes. But was there a particular track that you heard that inspired you to get more into rave music at the time?
I think basically when Lenny D Ice did his track ‘We Are I.E.’ – I got that on white label, and just the amen breaks and more predominantly breakbeat and 4/4 style of it- that’s when I was like, shit, this is the vibe. You know what I mean?
Then you’d try and pick out the stuff that was a bit more breakbeat forward rather than the stuff with the 4/4s, as well as the breakbeats, like the jungle techno.
Right. So, where were you buying Drum and Bass records at the time?
My friend Lee worked at Basement Records. So I would go down there and spend basically all of my Death Box money at the record store, and he would point me in the right direction to all the stuff that appealed to me. Like Reinforced and Metalheadz stuff. Well, this was even before Metalheadz. So Lee helped me out with the tunes, as well as showing me how to DJ in the first place, as well as being my skate mate from SS20. You know what I mean?
Spending all the money that you made from skating to buy records. Metaphorical. I remember you said that at one point you were going out to clubs and playing music more than you were skating. How did that get so out of balance and were you stoked about that at the time?
So, you have to imagine this. If nearly every weekend of your childhood, you’re off into a different country doing skate demos with a bunch of blokes. You’re not growing up like a normal lad, where you meet girls and stuff and things like that.
So, when I got into DJing, I was getting more attention from women, and that as well. So obviously, that was quite attractive, as well as loving something else and having another passion for something else as well. You know what I mean?
I also leaned that way a bit as well because of the way the UK skate scene was at the time in 1992. It was around 1989 when I was starting to get into DJing, and around 1992 was when I started to play out and stuff at clubs and things.
I think maybe a bit later than that, ’93 or whatever, but around that time the UK skate scene seemed a bit lame.
What was going on in the UK skate scene in the early 90s that made you think it was so miserable?
Everyone had an opinion about what you should wear, and if you weren’t wearing massive baggy trousers and also had the tiniest wheels, battling to get over cracks, then you weren’t doing what was considered cool at the time.
We were in England; we didn’t need wheels that small. If anything, we needed bigger wheels! I don’t know, and then there were sort of weird comments in the mag. Sometimes it’d be like Alex Moul, Abingdon’s techno king, and they were just slandering me just because I was into something else as well as skateboarding.
Mouly: 50-50, Oxford: Shot by Andrew Horsley
It sounds like the UK scene was pretty closed-minded back then
Yeah, I used to think like, as if my DJing is any of your business! I mean, the classic story that I remember from around that time was when I saw someone at South Bank. I was skating, and a guy rolled up to me, and he goes, “You got any pills?”.
I said, “No, why?”
They’re like, “Oh, everyone knows that you need a couple of pills to even wake up in the morning!”. I was like, I don’t even do ecstasy. What the fuck are you lot talking about!?
They were just trying to push me away. There was a skater; his nickname was Scamp. He went to Radlands a lot back in the day, and because I didn’t go down there for two weeks, someone told him that I had died of a heroin overdose!
Why would they say that? Because I like drum and bass music and raving, like, because of that now I’m suddenly a massive drug addict. I just thought, fuck you lot, you know what I mean? I think I will go off and do other things!
Mouly: Backside Nosebluntslide, Shell Centre, London: Shot by Tim Leighton-Boyce
Back then there were warehouse raves; they looked gnarly!
Yeah, we’d go to The Set in Oxford, and it’d just be coppers on horseback trawling up this one long road basically, and it used to be full of ravers, like just waiting for someone to get a phone call. Then suddenly, you see people dispersing. Everyone would go to their cars, get in a big convoy, and all of a sudden we’d all be in a field somewhere. Whether it be just down the road or three hours away, you know, and there would be a rave there. Then you just stay there for the night, dance your ass off, listen to all these wicked tunes, you know what I mean, and then go home.
That’s so sick. Things are a lot different now. Big illegal raves are not as popular as they were, which is weird because the internet makes them a lot easier to do nowadays!
But is the Criminal Justice Bill (CJB) still in play in England? Because suddenly they came out with that rule: no more than 12 people could gather in one place; otherwise, the police have the right to come get you and arrest you. I remember that started, and all the ravers got nervous, and then we all just did it anyway, and it was, like, don’t worry about it. But who knows now?
Going from touring and skating in front of crowds at demos and contest to DJ’ing must have been a trip. But how did you feel it went down at the time?
To be welcomed into something else was great. I was scared to death of DJing in front of a lot of people, but then my mate Peter Haslam got a gig at The Venue in Oxford, which was a club that was owned by Radiohead at the time; later it became the Zodiac Club…I can’t remember what it’s called now. But back then it was The Venue, and he got an opening slot for this night that was there.
He got the first spot, and he didn’t want to do it on his own, and I was buying all the records too. So, he said, “You want to go on for an hour, and then I’ll do an hour and then you could do half an hour and then I’ll do another half an hour. It’s a few hours at the beginning. I go, yeah, alright, I’ll just start.
So I remember I just got in there and there was no one in there really, and I started playing and I wasn’t even looking out, you know, I was just trying to make sure I could hear the monitors, and that was working well, and I started getting comfortable.
Then the next thing I know, in about half an hour, I look up, and the whole place is packed, and everybody in the crowd was just whistle posse blow, giving me the horns while they were wearing white gloves and everything, and I was like, what, this is mental, you know. Everyone was dancing to what I’m doing. I’d even tested the theory. I had this one tune that had an atmospheric intro.
So I just suddenly stopped one of the tunes, and then I dropped this intro, and everyone was full-on hands in the air, and it was almost like I was in control of all these humans, and then it dropped, and everyone went ballistic, It was so wicked, and after that, I was like, yeah, I love this vibe, you know what I mean? Also, I have to say, rest in peace, Peter Haslam, my mate. You’re always remembered fella.
RIP. It sounds like he really brought you into having such a dope experience.
Yeah, and from that I got more DJ gigs and people started buying my tapes. I’d make mixtapes and sell them for beer money at the pub and then eventually, like, I got a job at Massive Records.
Then once I started playing there, Graham Lucida, he came in the shop; he lives about a mile away from me in Abingdon, and he came in looking for a record called Tunnel Vision, which he’d done on Production House and
I said, oh, yeah, we have it here and he goes, alright, nice one, I’m Graham and then he says, you’re Mouly, I live by you and then he said, this is my record!
Then, just on the off chance, I was like, what? That’s wicked, mate. I said, any chance, since we live near each other, would you like to try and make a tune together? Then he said yeah, sure. So we did!
We did one thing, and on that first thing we did, DJ Gwange from Legend Recordings was interested – he cut a dubplate of it – but it wasn’t really that good, and the mixdown was awful, but he cut a plate of it, and that was that.
But then the second thing we did was Chilled/Spirits, which then got signed to Timeless Recordings, which was through Lee and Brillo, and that was that.
Then, since we were on there. Fabio from Fabio & Grooverider played Spirits on Radio 1, which was bananas, and it got a rewind at Dreamscape, the only record to get a rewind at Dreamscape 1995, which were these rave events held around the UK then.
Fabio played it at Dreamscape 95 in his set and all the other doors started opening up and then the next thing I know I was DJ’ing at Speed, which was at The Mars Bar in the west end of London with LTJ Bukem and Fabio and that. Also, for a short amount of time, Lee was a resident there before, but then I think he went off to something else, so I sort of stepped in, in a weird, roundabout way.
But, yeah, that was really cool. All of those times were just immense.
We’d see Björk in there, and Richie Hawtin, Lady Miss Kier from Dee-Lite, Tricky – who was in Massive Attack but who’d gone solo by then and stuff; like, all of these celebrity people would be in there.
You were already a really well known skater, but then getting nearly to a similar level in music, must have
been rad. What was it like seeing your music become popular and finding out so many people were into it?
It’s like landing a wicked trick; it’s massively rewarding. If anyone likes anything that you’ve ever done and they say it to you, I mean, shit, that’s the best feeling in the world. You know, even today when people comment on my skateboarding or how I’ve influenced them, or how I’ve inspired other people. That’s a massive gift to have that come back to me because I’m just stoked that anyone’s even liked anything I’ve done. So, anyone who turns their nose up at things like that is an idiot, and I’m just really, really lucky that people have liked anything I’ve done.
Mouly: Handrail Boardslide: Shot by Andrew Horsley
Yeah, there will definitely be thousands of people out there that only know your music and don’t know how gnarly your skating is. Are you working on any new music at the moment?
I am working on some new music. In fact, I just had a release out on SenZeru Records. I got Bam Margera plugging it for me. That came out several months ago, and I just spoke to them, and they want me to do something for another label.
As I look through your YouTube channel, there are a lot of tracks that say downtempo in front of the name of each of the songs. What is downtempo?
Downtempo? It just means it’s not drum and bass speed. It sounds kind of like drum and bass, but it’s like 120 or 90 BPM.
So it’s kind of like trip hop but not, I suppose; I don’t know. But yeah, on my YouTube thing, a lot of that stuff was just from music I’d made for skate videos. That’s why one’s called ‘Transworld’, and there is another called ‘Worldwide’.
There’s one that says ‘On’ for my On Video Skateboarding Video part. For that On Video Part that they did about me, they decided to just use all my music. So if you watch those videos on there and listen to that, every tune on there is written by me. People kept asking for them. So there’s no point in just keeping them on the hard drive. I figured I’d just put them on there and then everyone can have them, you know?
I’m sure everyone who produces music has got a thousand tunes on their hard drive, and if people want it, people are gonna like it.
Have you ever discovered anyone using your music for films, TV, or ads since it was released, and do you still get any royalties on those?
Oh, yeah, so speaking of that. That record, Chilled / Spirits, I found out recently from Graham – Lucida. Graham Fisken, my partner from our Timeless Days, said that Chilled and Spirits is on iTunes, and none of us put it up there! So someone’s illegally put our record up on iTunes, and now we don’t know what to do about it. So we’ve got to look into that and try and, you know, rain on someone’s brain, I guess.
It’s on iTunes, and it says, written and produced by Mouly and Graham Lucida. But neither of us has put it up there! We’re trying to figure out how to do that. I looked it up, and there is some way you can figure it out. You can get on there and not necessarily sue anyone, but, you know, get them to pay us the money back or, you know, give us our rights back.
I mean, let’s not get it twisted. There’s no bloody money in it anymore. So I’m not expecting to make anything much out of it, but apart from that, the only thing I really get out of it is the enjoyment of doing it. You know what I mean, and then the satisfaction if anyone else likes it and anyone else plays it, that’s just fantastic on top.
True. But you made it, and you should be getting paid for it.
Right. Yeah, don’t get me wrong, that record was our bestselling record, and you know, and now they’ve re-released it. People have asked me for original copies of it. We don’t even have the original DAT (Digital Audio Tape), and so whoever’s done it, I think, has ripped it from vinyl but somehow managed to get rid of the crackles, which is pretty clever, I suppose. But yeah, for that we should be getting paid for it. Not someone else who’s just going, I’ll just do that, you know, I’ll just put it up because I can!
So you had a load of tracks in Transworld’s In Bloom video. Did they commission you or did you hit them up?
I was living with Ewan. Ewan Bowman was staying on my floor at the time, and I remember he was working at 411 Video Magazine. He also got a job at Transworld, and he started to do the In Bloom video. When he was putting together the video, he turned around to me, and he was like, shit I really need an intro tune for the video! He wanted something like a Prodigy-type of song, he mentioned, and I was like, that might be a bit heavy for skateboarding.
So he went to work at Transworld that day, and by the time he got back, I pretty much had the skeleton of the tune done, which is called Transworld, and he was like, fucking hell, that’s brilliant! I was like really alright and he was like, yeah, let me see if we could get you any money for these – which I don’t think was much like a 100 bucks or something or even like 50 bucks a tune.
So I wrote a couple as I was writing quite a lot of that down-tempo stuff at the time. So then they ended up using Worldwide for a little bit of Mikey Taylor’s section in In Bloom and maybe something else. I don’t know. I was just kind of on a roll. I’d make drum and bass tunes, and then I’d have a break, a breather, and make something else, a different kind of vibe, and it turns out everyone seems to like that down-tempo stuff as well. So, I was like, cool.
That’s nuts. For how popular that video was and still is, you should have got paid way more than 50 bucks for those tracks.
But I was doing my mate a favour, and I was just stoked that he liked it… I didn’t know that 30-odd years later people would still be hitting me up going, “Wow, you made that? Can I get a proper MP3 of it?”.
So, yeah, I don’t even know if I have a full-wave quality of that track. I don’t have any of the original DATs of mine and Graham’s stuff. We don’t have them. We always ended up giving them out, so if anyone’s got any original DAT’s of ours out there, let us know. That’d be cool!
Yeah, definitely. That’s a good reminder to keep things that are important to you.
Oh, it’s the same with my pro boards for Death Box. I remember as a kid having loads of them, and now they’re worth a bloody fortune. I don’t even have all of my own pro models, because back then I just gave them away.
I would see someone who needed a board; their board would be fucked, and I would just say Need a board? Just take this one, and then years later it’s like, God, I remember having a stack of those! I remember a few years ago someone did a GoFundMe to help me get back my original Death Box Popcorn board, which I did; that was lovely.
I remember Dustin Dollin writing on that page, like, yeah, just give him his fucking board back, you cunts!
So as you were taking a break from skating to DJ and produce, were you still skating a bit in between making music? Or was it more like I’m literally just focused on the music and not really skating?
I was skating, but no limelight skating at all, and it was a lot less. It’d be once a week or every other week. But then, of course, everything goes full circle and Jeremy Fox, who runs Flip, calls me up. I come out to America, and I see what’s going on out here, and I’m like, that seems pretty wicked, and then drum and bass started having a bit of a weird lull.
So I switched back up, and I came out to California, and I was like, skateboarding is really cool again. No one’s that opinionated. Everything’s good. You could even do a Boneless, and that would be a cool thing to do, you know?
So yeah, I just stayed out here, and then it got to a point where I was like, yeah, I started to learn how to produce on my own, on other people’s computers and stuff, and then just around the time I was going to turn pro for Santa Cruz, I wrote loads of tunes, so I’d basically be skating my ass off, and then I’d get hurt, and then while I was hurt, I’d write loads of music, and then I’d skate again.
So, if I rolled my ankle or something, I’d sit there with a 12-pack of beer and an ice block on it and just write some tunes and it turned out that I got quite a lot of interest. So that was nice, and then that’s when I had the record out on Renegade – ‘Fall Into You/ Hanging Out Back’.
So you were going back and forth from America to the UK when you made that?
No. What I was doing was going back and forth between skating and producing. Instead of just concentrating on one, I was doing both, and it was a happy medium. When I was recovering from skating, I’d be making music, and then that would get me amped to go skate with the lads again when I’d healed up.
Mouly: Mute Grab: Shot by Aaron Jones
Every skater who has a creative outlet definitely uses it as a crutch when they’re injured or recovering to try something different. Do you have any advice for skaters who want to make music??
The only advice that I would say is that it’s just the same as skateboarding. If you like it, just keep doing it and have fun with it. As long as you’re having fun, then half the chances are you’re going to get quite good at it because you’ll be excited to keep doing it. Do you know what I mean? So same with that.
It’s like anyone trying to get sponsored or whatever- don’t think like that. Just skate and have fun. If you’re really good, someone will find you. So, if you’re into making music or the idea of it. Find yourself a program, you know, and just play around with stuff. Don’t be afraid to tweak knobs or tweak airs, you know; just have a laugh and get into it. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks. It’s just a matter of opinion. You know, if it makes you happy and sometimes if it makes other people happy too, then that’s awesome.
Have you played many gigs while you’ve been out in America?
Yeah, I’ve done gigs out here. One memorable one was when I first came out; I had all my dubplates and stuff with me from England. So I went to a free rave with my mate Tony C, and it was pretty sick. It was like on top of this mountain, and you know it’s an illegal rave, and I was like all up for that because that’s what I grew up with.
So I brought my records too, and I remember I got on the decks at five in the morning just before the sun came up, and the promoter was like, alright, yeah, you’re English, but you know what you’re doing, right? I was like, yeah. My mate was like, ” He’s got records out, man. Just give him the decks!
So I started my set off, and I put on LTJ Bukem’s track Music, which he released on Good Looking Recordings.
Then the sun came up and we were above the clouds and everyone who wasn’t dancing or in their cars, they all came out. It was sick; the muddy dance floors just filled up. It was wicked, and the guy was like, “Please come back and then I never saw him again!
Haha
Yeah, but it was a sick experience. I remember I borrowed 30 bucks to buy a 20-pack of Budweiser, and I remembered I sold half of them, and I drank the rest, and I made my money back plus some.
Did you ever feel like making music stopped you from doing a lot of skating you wanted to do?
I feel blessed to have had a chance at both and done okay at both.
I didn’t make millions from skating, and I didn’t make hardly anything from music. I basically have nothing. But I got to travel the world for free, and I possibly have a friend in every town in the world, or someone who’s got my back, if you know what I mean. So all that’s quite worth more than money, really.
If I’d have just done the music thing, I could have probably got burned out on that and vice versa. Plus, the thing is, you know, I was too young to go straight full force into music, because I was like, music’s gonna be around as long as I am. You know, I’ve got plenty of time to do that later on as well, and now, obviously, being at the tail end of my skating, now I’m getting back into writing music again.
So music and skateboarding has always been in tandem for you. You put down the other and pick up the other, that’s dope.
You know, as a skateboarder, you look at the world differently from the majority of regular pedestrians. You’re always constantly looking at things and being like Did you see that handrail? You know?
My wife would be like, what the fuck, you’re not gonna go and skate that! I will be like, someone else might!
You know, and in the same token, we’ll be listening to something or watching TV, and I’ll be like, wait, did you hear that? Then I’ll get Shazam out on the phone, and I’ll be like, that was a wicked sample, and she was like, how did you even hear that amongst all this!?
As a skater, you’re constantly alert to things that you would like to skate, or you would like to sample or use in a tune. I don’t know. It’s a different awareness. It makes sense to me. Maybe not to everyone, but that makes total sense to me.
You can’t plan inspiration. It just happens and you have to figure out what to do with it
Yeah, I was talking to Dan yesterday. Dan Azimuth from SenZeru. He’s got another label as well. He wants me to do something for that, which will actually be a vinyl release as long as I make something good. But yeah, I was telling him, you know, I’ve been going out camping and what have you for a month. I’ve got all this inspiration to write some new stuff. I was even sampling stuff from nature while we were on our trip. It’s like bird sounds, running water, and things like that. So like I said, you’re still thinking about stuff to possibly use later on wherever you are.
Your Worldwide song, that sample that sounds like someone chewing some gum and blowing bubbles with it, that track puts you into a super relaxed state. It’s so good; there are so many layers to the song. How did you find that crazy fizzling sound sample and put that track together?
All I can really tell you about that tune is that, at the time, I was sponsored by Furnace Skate Shop, and next door to it they had a record store. I remember going in, and they had this CD playing called Breakestra The Live Mix Part Two.
I listened to it, and I heard that breakbeat clean in it, and I was like, for one, what…that’s a wicked sample. So then I listened to the whole thing. But because I would get photo incentive from Furnace, that also transferred over to the record store as well, so I could get a couple of CDs, as well as money or something.
So I got that CD from there, and when I got back, there were a couple of really good clean breaks that I believe they’d recreated from original 70s funk records. I could be getting that completely wrong. But anyway, my point is that the breakbeat from that tune came from that CD, and that was from skating as well. So if it wasn’t for Skating and Furnace, I wouldn’t have come across that CD, and I wouldn’t have got that breakbeat for that tune.
Yeah, it was the Live Mix Part 2; it’s a brilliant CD anyway, and they just go from tune to tune. But it’s like a mixtape, but they’re playing live in the band. It’s wicked.
Drum and Bass sampling, layering music and sounds. I think people who are into drum and bass are into loads of different types of music, and it’s the culmination of that.
Well, that’s because drum and bass is influenced by everything and nothing. I mean, that is real bloody English music. We came up with it. Like, we might be taking stuff from everywhere else, but it really is a British-made thing. I think that’s a proper claim, and you’re influenced by everything. Jazz, funk, soul, hip hop, you know, through to classical and all sorts. If you hear it, it sounds cool, and then there’s a good chance you can do something with it that will make it even cooler, and then people will like that also.
Definitely. I mean, it’s a perfect genre for a skateboarder. People who generally want to take creative influences from everything and everywhere and make something new from it.
Yeah, if you wanted to ask me about that track, I don’t know where I got that sample from. It’s just on a list of, like, sound effect samples. I think, and then even the recurring dinging tone stab in Worldwide. I don’t know where I got that from, but here we are!
It’s such a good tune. I like that; it makes it even more mysterious.
Well, thanks for liking it.
Mouly: Front Foot Impossible: Shot by Andrew Horsley
What about your track, Mello? How did you come up with that track?
That was in On Video as well. If you revisit my part, every tune on there was made by me, and they switch through all of those songs, basically.
How did your On Video segment ‘Alex does the Impossible’ In On Video Fall 2002 come about?
That was quite lucky, really, because Wing Ko, who is down at 411, he wanted to do it, and I couldn’t believe it because they’d only done ones on Danny Way, Natas, and Rodney Mullen and real gnarly legends, you know what I mean?
But he was like, you’ve got kind of a different story because of the music thing, and now you’re turning pro for Santa Cruz. You’ve turned pro twice now and in two different countries, and your story’s kind of interesting. Do you know what I mean? So we did that, and plus he likes drum and bass and downtempo music.
So I just gave him the tunes, and then in the end he just goes, I’m just gonna use all your tunes for the segment and I was like, oh, I don’t know if I like that idea…Now I love it because I realised how much it got out there to people, and people write to me quite often how much they like the music, which I thought people wouldn’t go for because it’s skateboarding and everyone wants rock and roll skateboarding and all that, but actually I have never heard any negativity on that as far as I know, so that’s bloody awesome. Thanks, Wing Ko.
You’ve done so much sick skating; it was more than deserved
Thanks so much. I don’t know about that, but It’s flattering to hear it, and it is to this day my favourite part.
Also, the funny thing about all of that is that this was after my back was knackered and I just started bouncing back, and I was putting together a kind of a sponsor me tape because I was going out with Geoff and Arto and them lot all the time, and I was getting clips, and they were like, what the fuck, Mouly, you should start putting this together!
Then somehow, you know, because Ewan was working at 411 and this On Video thing was going on. I guess he took the footage in or something, and they were like, yeah, let’s do a Mouly part. So it was perfect timing, you know? I was just about to turn pro for Santa Cruz. I had all this footage and what better place to put it and spark of my second pro career, like On Video goes worldwide. So there you are, really.
Your Frontside Flip over that rail was huge and so well flicked; it’s one of our favourites. How’d it go down?
Oh, yeah, the one that Arto shot the photo of. Yeah, I’m looking at it. The photo right now. It’s on my wall.
Mouly: Frontside Kickflip: Shot by Arto Saari
So we get to that rail and Bastien Salabanzi’s already firing off. I think he’d already done the Crooked Grind Back Lip down the middle one, and that was gnarly, and I went to try and Kickflip the rail, the one on the side over to flat, and someone was like, Rodrigo TX just Kickflipped that like last week or something for the éS video.
So I bullshitted a Frontside Flip, and this was like, after I’d had a serious back issue, so I didn’t want to jump down that thing many times at all. I remember Arto setting up his Hasselblad and some flashes, and I was just thinking, God, I wish I had a real photographer. He had never shot a skate photo or anything really; he had just got the Hasselblad. So he set that up, and Luke McKirdy was with us. It was. I think it was Geoff, Arto, Luke McKirdy, and Ewan, because you, Ewan, filmed it.
Then I remember I had like three tries, four max, and on the second try, I just caught it really well and I was like, shit, that felt, you know, and it felt like I could do it… But I kicked it away, and it was a long drop, and I also thought in my mind, I don’t really want to do this for long.
So I was like, if I catch it good, I’ll probably just go for it, and I remember the next one that I did, I just caught it real good, and I landed, and I was bummed because my fingers touched the floor. I was like, I gotta do it again!
Then, you know in the clip you can hear Luke McKirdy in the background go, yes, Mouly. That’s how I pictured it that was! Fucking nice one, and they put a 12-pack of Heineken and a packet of fags down on it as well. So I was rewarded in multiple ways, you know, I mean, not having to take too long and then also getting the photo.
The next Monday, I think Arto went to Kinko’s, and he printed out the picture; it’s pretty big, and he framed it. He goes, “Come around, see what you think of the picture and I came around, and he gave it to me, and it’s on my wall and has been ever since, and it’s a wicked picture. It almost got the cover, but it didn’t, and then it got a double-page spread in The Skateboard Mag or Skateboarder, one of those. So, yeah, that was his first skate photo published, and what a wicked day all round.
You couldn’t have popped it or flicked it any harder. It’s like you were just going all out, you know?
Yeah. The photo is mad because it looks like I’m about like 5 feet in the air above the rail and then the other thing is in the footage, I didn’t realise that my shoelace was undone as well. So that could have been sketchy. I could have got it wrapped around the wheel or something.
It looks like you flicked it so hard that you ripped your laces off!
Yeah, it was probably from the flickage because I would have definitely noticed that if I’d gone for it again. So I might have just done it on the go before or that one. Who knows? But there you go. How funny.
The photo of you Boardsliding the top of that shopping trolley is still next level. Where was that taken, and who shot it?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was at Munster, Germany, and just in the parking lot I believe it was Andy Horsley who shot it.
Mouly: Trolley Boardslide: Shot by Andrew Horsley
That’s good to know. Who are your favourite drum and bass artists and what are your favourite tracks by them?
I should definitely say Photek. I’ve been listening to Photek for like 30 years; he’s just phenomenal. Still. All of his stuff is just great, and he’s producing again now as well, which is excellent.
Sick, what’s your favourite Photek tune of all time?
Photek Fusion, the B-side of The Water Margin, is probably one of my faves, but most of the stuff he’s done is in my favourites too, so there you go.
Any more tracks you want to add on to your list?
Photek – Rings Around Saturn
LTJ Bukem – Coolin’ Out
Champion Sound (Total Science Remix)
Manix – Hardcore Junglism (Total Science RMX)
Doc Scott – NHS (Total Science Remix)
Future Bound – Sorrow
Metalheads – Terminator
Goldie – Still Life
Wax Doctor – The Spectrum
Wax Doctor – Heat
Pendulum – Plastic World
Mouly & Lucida – Inertia
Sick, look forward to listening to these. Any shout-outs to anybody reading this before I let you go Mouly?
Too many to mention. Thanks to my wife Erin and everyone who likes anything I’ve ever done. Cheers!
