Bognor born boy Raffertie steps up to have a chat about his favourite tunes, trumpets and bad boy beats. Playing everywhere from Ibiza to Bestival, catch him rolling through with a record bag full of jaunty filth that will make you drop to the floor and bust a lemon face. The man’s got scissors and he ain’t afraid to use them!
H: Raffertie, your names a bit posh init – where did it come from?
R: My friend was working in a local bank and the girl she worked with had two kids called Raffertie and Mcintyre. I thought they were the best two names ever, so I called myself Raffertie.
H: Your music has seen people physically loosing it on the dance floor. How did you arrive at this furiously crazy sound?
R: Well, I grew up listening to bands like Radiohead then I started going out clubbing when I was 18, listening to electro, minimal techno and house. I found bassline house in Birmingham and then discovered dubstep. I’ve never been one for soulful dubstep, I like the more noisy ‘new school’ stuff. Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of artists like Reso, Starkey, STAGGA and Kanji Kinetic.
H: Raffertie seems like a friendly chap, are you really Antisocial or is this just a cunning guise?
R: Antisocial is about being mugged, it happened to me twice in one weekend! The first time was on a Friday night, I was walking home late in Birmingham, the second was at 3pm on Saturday when I was on my way to the shop to get a loaf of bread. I was counting the change in my hand, I looked up and these three kids pulled a knife saying ‘what have you got for me?’ I turned round to them and said ‘I got mugged on Friday I don’t have a wallet, you can have some change if you want!’ I went home that night and made the tune.
H: What’s your fascination with the ‘wobble’ ?
R: I think the wobble sound has a major impact, it’s like being punched in the ears. The tune ['Wobble Horror!'] itself is supposed to be a little bit ridiculous, i.e ‘Horribly Wobbily’ that’s what I called the project file in Logic, I’m just having fun playing a round with the L.F.Os (low frequency oscillators)!
H: This festival season we heard you remixing pop delights like Whitney, Britney and Fragma, what is it about these pop tunes that you find so inviting?
R: I think it helps create a party atmosphere, a lot of my music could be perceived as quite serious. You could play really eccentric tunes for an hour but it’s questionable to whether the whole crowd would enjoy it. So I try to make the DJ set as fun as possible whilst blending in those more abstract elements.
H: Is your logo any relation to Edward Scissor Hands?
R: I chose the scissors because it is kinda symbolic, my mates call my music ‘musical cut and paste’ which has a lot to do with the way I use samples and manipulate sound.
H: The remix you did for Foamo features Sheffieldian MC, Shiftee Moova, where did you pick him up?
R: I found him via Squire of Gothos, he’s a friend of theirs and he got in touch with me, the first track we did together was the ‘Backlash’ remix by Scarlet Harlots.
H: Is it true that you can play the trumpet?
R: Yes it is, I was 8 when I started playing, I had a good music teacher, if you have a bad music teacher it really ends up putting kids off – just think how much wasted talent there is in the world because of bad music teachers!
H: What’s next for Raffertie?
R: Who knows maybe a live thing next year?
Read the full interview at TheFatClub.com
