Next Big Thing?
Scotland’s Mylo Has Destroyed Rock-n-Roll & Dropped the Pressure on Global Clubland. Will His Wildly Tasty Tunes Turn on America?

Published in the February 2006 issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 19 - Number 2
By Jim Tremayne

It’s a Tuesday in December and Mylo sounds exhausted over the trans-Atlantic phone connection. It’s not so much that this round of press appointments has beaten him down. No, he’s still hung over from last night’s club visit.

But that’s life in the big city. It seems that since moving to London away from his native Scotland, Myles MacInnes, 27, has too many enticing options at his whimsy. Last night’s diversion was Erol Alkan’s Trash party where he saw a live set from The Juan MacLean—not something available to him on Isle of Skye, his remote former home off Scotland’s rugged northwestern coast. It’s a necessary deal he’s made with the devils of business which run his career now. Mylo, you see, has become a bona fide pop star in Europe.

Since cranking out a few dancefloor hits like the “Drop the Pressure” and “In My Arms” for his Breastfed label and remixing big tunes for acts like The Killers and Kylie Minogue, Mylo has graduated to the festival circuit, where he DJs and performs with a live band. Unfortunately, his album Destroy Rock & Roll (RCA), which won over Euro audiences in ’04 and ’05, had to wait for its American release. Due to sampling issues, his label’s lawyers wouldn’t have it any other way. For its American release, Mylo had to hire musicians and vocal mimics to “painstakingly re-create” much of the album.

Not that it matters a tremendous amount in the end, Destroy Rock & Roll remains full of wildly tasteful tunes. Like Daft Punk’s Homework, Basement Jaxx’s Remedy or more recently LCD Soundsystem’s eponymous debut, it’s one of those rare dance-music albums that holds up for much more than, say, its three or four most-popular tunes. Sure, it’s actually a collection of singles and remixes, but the album’s effect is like a taste-testing run though the Wonkaville Chocolate Factory: Every morsel is more delicious than the last. You get kickin’ anthems (“Drop the Pressure”), daft-funk (“Otto’s Journey”), crunchy send-ups (title track), sticky-sweet dance-pop confection (“In My Arms”), New-Age piss takes (“Sunworshipper”) and always-trendy mashups (“Dr. Pressure,” which dumps “Drop the Pressure” in a blender with Miami Sound Machine’s “Dr. Beat”). It took awhile, but Destroy Rock & Roll should be one of America’s favorite dancefloor album’s of 2006 because it’s one of the category’s better efforts in the last five years.

Here’s how our conversation with the somewhat muddled Mr. MacInnes went:

DJ Times: With U.S. dance and DJ culture being what it is relative to Europe, what are your hopes for the album in the States?
Mylo: The main thing is that I’m just happy that it has a proper release. I’m obviously aware that it’s been severely delayed by one thing or another. A lot of people who keep up with U.K. dance culture have obviously heard it already. It’s difficult, but I would never expect to have a big crossover success. I never expected it to have bit crossover success in the U.K., but it eventually did. But bands that are huge in the U.K., like Basement Jaxx, come over to the U.S. and never get out of their niche market. So who knows?

DJ Times: Why did it take so long for your album to get its release here?
Mylo: Specifically, the U.S. release got put back a lot further than the U.K. and Japanese regions partly because we had to decide which Sony affiliate to go with, and then there were some legal issues because, obviously, the U.S. is a more litigious culture than the U.K. Even though we ended up with a version we considered to be not infringing copyright some time ago for the U.K., we had to present it to New York lawyers.

DJ Times: So you got musicians to actually play the samples, as opposed to simply lifting them?
Mylo: Some were cleared and the ones we couldn’t clear were re-played. I wouldn’t have OKed them if I hadn’t ended up being happy with them, but it’s tough because I like the ethos of sample-based music and the idea that any old kid can just go to a charity shop, grab some records and make something new. Sample-based music can be great; it can also be dreadful thievery.

DJ Times: So what was this process like for you?
Mylo: In a way, re-playing them is more painful because there’s only one reason to do it—financial expediency. You have a track that you’re 100-percent happy with, and then you pay someone to painstakingly recreate that. It just smacks of the corporate attitude toward music. I find it quite soul-stripping. I’d rather get on with my own thing—the live show, remixes, so on. It’s not really my area of expertise at all. It’s not a huge problem to me because I always found sampling to be a way into production and I’m very gratified that by far the biggest hit on the album, “Drop the Pressure,” didn’t have any samples in it. It’s something that I can obviously survive without.

DJ Times: What is your musical background?
Mylo: Pretty varied. As a kid, I was into whatever was on the radio. My parents didn’t give me much pop music, so it was classical music and The Beatles only. For people from the British middle class, even people who don’t approve of pop music as a whole, The Beatles are considered sacred.

DJ Times: I’m of the old mind that if you don’t like The Beatles, you have a character flaw.
Mylo: Yeah, I tend to agree with you. So, I taught myself to play guitar and piano. My parents bought me and my brother a drum kit at the age of 11 or 12, which we made a lot of noise with. I played trumpet quite badly in the school orchestra. I never quite did that well to doing music. I always had my own ideas about things. The first bands that really made it with me and my friends were Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, the Manchester thing around 1990. I was 12. We played all those songs note for note. We didn’t have the confidence to write our own songs—they would’ve been absolutely mortifying anyway. There are some cassettes floating around with me singing Stone Roses songs with my 12-year-old voice. If I ever get a great deal more successful than I already am in the U.K., they’ll probably eventually find them and I’ll be totally ashamed of it [laughs].

DJ Times: DJing was something that came to you as an outgrowth of your success as a producer, right?
Mylo: Yeah, absolutely. I’m kind of shameless about the fact that I came to DJing relatively late. If I was asked to DJ the big club, I’d agree to do it even though I didn’t have the technical prowess to do it for a long time. About a year and a half ago when the album came out in the U.K., Diesel the clothing brand asked me to do a couple parties because I’d won a Diesel demo competition back in 2002. So I went for a weekend of DJing in Dublin and Leeds and I had an incredible time. I really enjoyed being out and about in the clubs after a relatively quiet couple of years in the studio. It felt fantastic to be free and out there.

DJ Times: Having people responding to you?
Mylo: Yeah, of course, and playing my own music and other tunes that I love to play. Not being able to mix so well wasn’t a big problem at first. Gradually, it came together—it’s not that hard. I’m kind of comfortable being a slightly erratic DJ. I don’t see it as the end of the world if I screw up. Especially in the UK, where there’s a bit of goodwill because of the album, people don’t come out expecting a flawless performance from a DJ point of view. People are quite forgiving. Now with people like 2ManyDJs and Erol Alkan—they hit it off with the club kids of the U.K. It was because of their anarchic disregard for the so-called rules of DJs. Mashing together so many styles and tempos was what made them so exciting, rather than their technical prowess.

DJ Times: It’s about the tracks and the party, not always the perfect mix.
Mylo: There will always be an excess of fairly boring, mainstream DJs. If you kill one, there’ll be another two to take his place.

DJ Times: So what DJ gear do you prefer?
Mylo: As long as I have a couple vinyls and Pioneer CDJ-1000s, I’m OK. Having said that, playing in Miami a couple times this year I came across a couple of extraordinary CD decks that I had no idea how to use at first—Denons and Technics, I think. That took a while to get used to, but in general I’m not that fussy. As long as I have a decent four-channel mixing desk with proper EQs, I’m happy. There’s an Allen & Heath mixer—the Xone:92, I think—which has become more widespread in the UK with filters. It allows you to go at it DJ Sneak-style with the filter-house thing. It’s a lot of fun. Occasionally, when I play in Australia and New Zealand, they’ll have rotary mixers, which I find immensely satisfying. I always seem to have a better result.

DJ Times: Is there a format you prefer?
Mylo: I’m not bothered about CD or vinyl, and I’m sure if I had enough time I’d be getting into Ableton Live or Final Scratch or something like that.

DJ Times: Which DJs do you appreciate these days?
Mylo: The ones who inspired me, like Erol Alkan, who does a weekly Monday night in London called Trash. The reason I’m so hung over today is because I dropped in there last night to see The Juan MacLean, who were playing live [laughs]. Also, from Belgium, 2ManyDJs and The Glimmer Twins. Actually, just about everybody who played at The Pawn Shop party at Winter Music Conference last March—that was a who’s who for me— James Murphy, Tiga, Tiefschwarz, Ellen Allien, DJ Hell…

DJ Times: Don’t forget Puffy…
Mylo: Yeah, with Felix! Puffy turned up just as I was supposed to go on in the main room and played for about 20 minutes until eventually I persuaded [promoter] Tommy Saleh to kick them off, which I think wasn’t very easy [laughs]. That was a bit of a hard act to follow.

DJ Times: You often mention the incredibly freewheeling Optimo parties as inspiration, too.
Mylo: Yeah, I should’ve mentioned that. Optimo was just becoming hyped in Glasgow in 2001 when I moved there from the U.S. with the aim of getting into music. Going to Optimo every Sunday became an absolute staple of my life—a huge influence.

DJ Times: A lot of the newer generation of DJs seems to enjoy having that somewhat formless approach to their sets. How do you view the job of a DJ?
Mylo: Just to get the party started. I don’t take the whole thing too seriously. I have a great respect for really good DJs, but I don’t think there’s anything to analyze or theorize about being a DJ. For me, what excites me the most about DJing is being able to juxtapose unexpectedly different styles and being able to jump from something very new and cutting edge and underground with an old classic and see a crowd respond to that as you duck and dive through your set.

DJ Times: Advice to DJs?
Mylo: It’s good to have one more string to your bow than just being a DJ or a remixer or a producer or even just promoting your own night. All of it helps you stand apart from the rest. To just be a DJ for hire, it’s almost impossible because there are so many out there.

DJ Times: How much input or sway do you have over remixes of your tunes?
Mylo: I’ve described myself as a control freak—I am a director of Breastfed, my own label, as well. So I can’t imagine anyone with more control over what happens, with the possible exception of James Murphy with The DFA. But my favorite remixes that I’ve had were Tom Neville’s remix of “Destroy Rock-n-Roll,” also the Riton mix of “Drop the Pressure.”

DJ Times: How about remixing other tunes?
Mylo: Well, on The Killers’ “Somebody Told Me” I was determined to do an extended mix with the original parts. The only non-original sounds were drum sounds, like a cow bell and some squeaky electric noises. I chopped up the guitar riff to make it more spikey and AC/DC-style. I also tried to strip it down. I loved the original, but I thought it was a little over-produced. Ironically, I took out The Killers’ keyboard and did more guitar.

DJ Times: How about Kylie Minogue’s “I Believe in You”?
Mylo: That was the polar opposite approach to The Killers. I suppose I wanted to do something cool and underground and ravey and acid. So I took the vocal and tried to do something completely new with it—I made a slightly, weird and eerie chord progression. I wanted to make a dark, 5-a.m. club record. God knows what people expected. I thought that the original, which she had done with the Scissor Sisters, was kind of a perfect electronic pop record, so I thought it was more interesting to go in the other direction.

DJ Times: I love all those intentional mispronunciations in “Destroy Rock & Roll”—who is that guy?
Mylo: What you hear is done by a professional mimic, but the original sample was completely unintentional mispronunciations. It was a speech I found when I was a journalist at the BBC in Glasgow in 2001. It was a genuine sample from some crazed cult leader from 1985—I think they were based up in Utah. It was just an extraordinary thing to find. I enjoy a sample like that and use it in a satiric way to subvert the intentions of the original speaker.

DJ Times: Just like the crispy New-Age guy in “Sunworshipper.”
Mylo: Yeah, that was similar. That was one of the fun things about working as a journalist and understanding production—I had access to all this wonderful archived material.

DJ Times: You do live shows with a band as well. Is playing live more satisfying than DJing?
Mylo: I think the live show is more satisfying because I’ve been a so-called musician for years. I’ve only done the DJ thing for a short time—I sometimes feel like an imposter when I’m DJing. Or at least, I’m well aware that my DJ sets can be somewhat erratic [laughs]. But, I must say, that on a very shallow, minute-to-minute basis, DJing can be more exciting because you don’t know what record you’re going to put on and you’re in an almost hysterical state of panic. Also, you’re able to play brand new things. You can hear a tune in a record shop that afternoon, buy it, and then you get to play it in front of thousands of people that night. That’s very exciting, as opposed to playing a pre-rehearsed setlist.

DJ Times: How did you move into producing dance music?
Mylo: I was determined to get into electronic production, but never had a great deal of money to spare [for gear], and I was very wary of being ripped off—just like any good Scottish person [laughs]. I wanted to do as much as I could with minimal amount of gear, so the first thing I got was a good second-hand iMac. Then I got a free version of Pro Tools, which you could download from the Internet—eight tracks. I bought a couple software synths, including one called Absynth—a great program from Native Instruments.

DJ Times: But you eventually became a Reason-head, right?
Mylo: Reason by Propellerhead, yes, I think it’s extraordinary. It’s limitless. I think you get better results when you create the tracks in Reason and put the final tracks together in an audio sequencer like Pro Tools—so that’s the approach I used. It was a slightly odd two-stage approach to making music because the programs don’t integrate particularly well together. It was a case of creating little loops and audio files in Reason and then exporting them and re-importing them into Pro Tools. I never really read the manuals [laughs].

DJ Times: Why Pro Tools?
Mylo: It was the one program that offered a free version on the Internet. Eventually I bought an Mbox version, which is considered a home studio version, but you can travel with it with your laptop. Because I wasn’t recording any more than one part at a time, I had no need for a big, bulky sound card or audio interface. It was quite ample for my needs. As long as you have a good few plug-ins to achieve the effects you want—delays, phasers, compressors, filters—you’re good to go and you can create any sound you want.

DJ Times: You studied at UCLA. How did your California experience impact you?
Mylo: I loved it. To be honest, I went just because I wanted to see Los Angeles and experience that, rather than furthering my academic career and finishing a philosophy PhD. It was one of my triggers to rethink things to come home to Scotland and do music. I’ve got friends from New York and friends from L.A., and they’re rather different. To be honest, I found the people in L.A. a little ga-ga to talk to [laughs]. It’s quite a culture of dumbness—but that’s quite exciting in its own way. I just like the physical things—the blue skies, having time to explore. I was already well into Steely Dan and The Eagles, all these California bands.

DJ Times: I think Steely Dan wears well after all these years.
Mylo: I’m glad you said that. I hear about Steely Dan from people, who don’t like them. But I like their notion of faded glamour and their general weirdness.

DJ Times: Did living in a relatively remote place like the Isle of Skye impact your creative process?
Mylo: I’m hesitant to get misty-eyed about the wonderful views and pure air—although I’m sure that all helps—for me the main thing about spending time in Skye is that there’s very little else to do. It’s easy to channel your energies. When I made most of the album, I was living in Glasgow, four hours from Skye. But in the period of two weeks in the summer of 2003, I made four or five of the tracks that ended up on the album. I’m now making the second album and I’m in the east of London and I’m constantly asking myself, “What am I doing here?” It’s not good for my concentration, but my life is here now.

DJ Times: Does the urban environment influence your music the other way?
Mylo: There’s a part of me that will never get used to being in the city. For that reason alone, I should really get out of it. But I’m reluctant to draw any more literal connections to the music and the environment because the whole thing about pop music is pretty universal. It sounds the same on the radio, whether you’re in London or Skye.

DJ Times: I guess we all wax too sentimental about things like The Rolling Stones recording in the south of France or whatever…
Mylo: I mean, yeah. Like, I don’t think there’s anything remotely French about that record, Exile on Main Street. It sounds like a bunch of London posh boys pretending to be from Alabama [laughs].