Dreadzone's Greg Dread talks Glastonbury appearances, and more

Last week eFestivals got the chance to speak to Greg Dread drummer and founder of Dreadzone ahead of this week's Glastonbury Festival appearance. As well as talking festival greg also revealed the new album isn't far off completion.

How are plans for the Dreadzone tour going?
The tour is all in place, it's a three month proper UK tour planned for the end of the year. Before then we've got all the festivals lined-up, well, obviously not all of them, but there's a fair few. Obviously Glastonbury kicks off the festival season properly, we've done a few already, Volksfest in Plymouth.

I saw you there actually, what happened with the sound?
It's one of those festivals where they put everything good in place apart from the actual backline crew, I don't think a lot of people what they were doing. They were all on some sort of work placement scheme I think, and there were a lot of misunderstandings about what should be going where. We sorted it out in the end, and because we had to finish at a certain time, we shaved our set a bit, but we managed to fit in more than an hour, which was good.

Usually at festivals, there's so many bands on that you only get to play an hour, so you have to condense your stuff. Whereas normally on your own tour you do ninety minutes, so you go with all the bombs. An hour is around nine tunes, so you have to go for all the big ones, the heavy hitters.

I also saw you wandering about the festival site, do you like to get away from backstage when you're at festivals?
Yes, absolutely, even though that one was pretty much Volkswagens. Yes, you've got to get out there, you've got to wander around, the best example of that is Glastonbury. You sort of do your stuff, and at the same time the overall festival takes over, and you become at one with the countryside, and the music, and the people, and the vibe. It's great, it's good for the soul to just get out there and just get involved.

This year at Glastonbury we were meant to be going and doing a festival in Europe but it's not happening now, so I'm going to be at Glastonbury for the whole weekend. Which doesn't really seem that much the whole weekend because people have started going down there from now, and for a lot of people the Glastonbury experience is the whole week, but I've got work to do, and album to finish so I can't be resting in a field for too long.

You've got a new single out in July called 'Beyond The Rock' will that be on the new album?
It is one of the forthcoming takes from the new album. It's the only one that's finished at the moment. We will be playing it at Glastonbury, it's actually been in the set for the last year. Like a lot of the new stuff we've been playing some of them live, to see what happens groove wise and whether people like it, and perfecting it over the year. It's sounding really good, it's hard to say what direction it is, but it's a rock and roll tune really, harking back to our Big Audio Dynamite roots. It's a pumping bass, and a funky, sexy, rock and roll track. It goes down really well live, and it's based around the new band we've got with new members, and a cool riff, and we just thought we'd come in with something different to what people expect, the skanking break beat or dub house or dub step, but we've got something that sounds like an updated Rolling Stones.

Who wrote the song, was it your new guitarist?
No, well he's featured on it, but the song was written by all of us, a lot of this album is a lot more band orientated, and a lot more spread out amongst us. A lot of the song writing, a lot of the melody and the lyrics come from Spee and myself. We're perfecting what we're doing as songwriters. We're hoping to push that through, most of the tracks on this album are proper songs. We started out as a stripped down instrumental dubby cinematic group, and we've added the bits as we've gone on over the years. We've been going sixteen years now so we've grown into being proper songwriters. We're very pleased with the direction it's going, and we're happy to be able to express the emotions we've gone through over the last years. We've been through some ups and downs, and that's featured in the music, which has been quite cathartic, and it's made some really good tunes.

Over those sixteen years what's been the most memorable gig you've played?
I suppose the Glastonbury's and supporting Oasis at Knebworth was pretty huge, but it could be the smallest festival it's just about the vibe of the people really. Glastonbury always does stand out, but we've done some other great festivals and some great touring which makes it hard to say really.

Which countries do you particularly like to visit, you've got European dates on the tour, where are you looking forward to re-visiting?
Poland, err, I was going to say Belgium then, we like travelling all over, but we always find the Belgian crowd the most laid back, you'd think it would be Holland, but it's Belgium. I don't know why it's the most laid back country in Europe when it comes to crowd reaction.

Is there any country which has surprised you how fervent they are about Dreadzone?
Some of the eastern European countries like Slovakia, or Croatia, the Czech Republic those kind of places. because they don't get too many bands, too many festivals or too much music coming through there, they are so excited about it. They really give it their all, and they are not blasé about it at all. so i's always new. These newer countries where they don't get a lot of that stuff, it's always brilliant and they really show the love and show they appreciated it.

You mentioned earlier a new line-up...
Well it's still the same rhythm section as before, that's been together 25 years, from Big Audio Dynamite, me and Leo, on drums and bass. It's still the same singers as we've had, for the last 10 years is MC Spee, and for the last 15 years we've had Earl 16. On guitar our newest member is Chris Compton, and on technology – laptop and mixing is Chris Oldfield, or 'Oddfield' as we call him.

How have the new members blended into the Dreadzone dynamic?
They've blended in perfectly, they're great characters. Chris Compton the guitarist, has been a perfect zen like replacement for my brother, who we lost a few year's ago. He's a very chilled person, and very gifted musically, and he's fitted in perfectly. As has Chris Oldfield, who has become my technology General. He sorts everything out when it comes to how it should sound on stage, and all the technology that we are running.

When will the new album be released?
It's meant to come out later in the year, but we do have to get it finished first, so I wouldn't like to put a date on it. We're in the last stretch, the last two or three weeks of getting all the mixes together. If the different people who are doing the mixes finish them on time, and we get all the tweaks right, and run it all together, and get in mastered it should be ready within the month. But, obviously it won't be released then. You have to give it a three or four month lead out, I just want to get it finished before we start kickin' in with all the festivals. I'd like to get it finished by the end of the week, so we can take some tracks down to Glastonbury.

Presumably you wouldn't be able to work on it on the road?
Not really, no. We're at the stage where we are using different people to do the mixes, because we always used to have somebody in the band who could do the mixes, but it doesn't work out like that. We've got Tim Bran who I formed Dreadzone with sixteen years ago, he works with other people, but he's mixing half the album. We've also got this hot-shot break beat producer who has brilliant ears, so he's mixing the harder stuff, and we've got somebody else who mixed some of the earlier Dreadzone stuff, and also worked with Leftfield, and he's mixing a couple of tracks as well. It's going to have a varied sound.

You play a few new tracks in your live shows, are there more new tracks to be put into your set list?
There are, definitely, but we want to pace ourselves, because we don't want to start playing them all before it comes out. There will be a couple of new ones for Glastonbury, and then another one we want to put in for the festivals. Then there's a couple more we will probably put in for the autumn tour. You always have a lot of people who want to hear other, older Dreadzone stuff as well, so you've got to find the right balance, out of the nine songs that we're going to do at Glastonbury, probably five of them are going to be new. Now that they've been in the set a while they sound like they fit in really well.

You're appearing twice at Glastonbury...
Yup, once with the full bands, and I'm doing a DJ Set as well, the Arcadia Stage did that naughty thing of saying it was Dreadzone, which people do, it's understandable sometimes, but we do explain to people 'look it's not Dreadzone' especially as the times are so close, we don't want people who want to see Dreadzone going up to see us when we're not going to be there. I think it's not fair on people, it's Dreadzone Soundsystem, I think we're playing about 8.30 now, up at Arcadia, and I've also had confirmed that I'm doing Greg Dread Silent DJ Set at Joe Bananas. I don't know what day the guy is yet to give me a ring. I've never done a silent disco type thing before, so it's going to be a bit of a challenge. I've been in one, I haven't used the headphones and danced around, but it does look really fun.

I'm looking forward to it, I'm looking forward to having a great weekend, the album will be pretty much finished, and it will be a case of getting loose, and forgetting about work, and money, and all the shit that's been going on this year.

You've also got Beautiful Days, and Endorse-It In-Dorset later in the festival season, will those sets be the same as Glastonbury?
I think we're a bit early for Glastonbury to fit everything new in, so I think we'll have some different ones to play at Beautiful Days.

There was a rumour you'd be playing T in the Park is that true?
I wish we were, I remember we did play T in the Park once, it was quite legendary because Joe Strummer, got up on stage with us. That's the last time we played T in the Park, a long time ago, around 1995 I think it was.

Have some great festivals this summer.
Thanks.

As well as Glastonbury Festival, Dreadzone are playing Oxegen, Larmer Tree Festival, Wickerman Festival, The Wickerman, Limetree Festival, Croydon Summer Festival, Relentless Boardmasters, Endorse It-In Dorset, Fairport's Cropredy Convention, and Beautiful Days.

Dreadzone's tour starts in October, and runs until December with them visiting Coventry, Ulverston, Wakefield, Colchester, Sheffield, Swindon, Narberth, Gloucester, Oxford, Plymouth, Poole, Exeter, Frome, Bristol, Norwich, Portsmouth, Cambridge, London, Nottingham, and Newcastle upon Tyne.

Latest Updates