Newcomer BYOB, or 22-year-old Ash Hamilton to his friends, has stormed onto the UK hip-pop scene with his blend of frantic drum ‘n bass beats, vocoders and trance-like synth stabs. Ash talks to Disorder about his new single, video and getting his balls on YouTube…for the second time.
When did you realise that music was the career for you?
I started making music when I was about 16. At the time it was mostly just rap while hanging out with my mates. I got bored using beats from other artists and wanted to start making my own music. I started on Reason 3 for a few years and moved on to Logic after saving for a Mac. Once I had Logic 8 it gave me the freedom to put what I had in my head into actual songs. I improved quite quickly after that and started to create my own sound and it became BYOB.
Your single ‘Save My Life’ has just been released on Loaded Records. Tell us about it.
‘Save My Life’ is basically about wanting to get something bad for you out of your life but in doing so receiving a lot of stress. I wrote the track at a lot slower tempo and it was one of the only really serious tracks I’d done. We sent the track to J. Majick and Wickaman for a remix originally, but they added something quite special to the song and we decided to get in the studio and turn it into a collaboration. It’s one of my favourite tracks on the album.
You recently did a video for your new single ‘Peaches’ and it looked like you were having a blast in the ‘making of’. On set they described it as ‘Drama, action and girl’s arses’.
“Walking on the beaches looking at the peaches!”. Kinda explains itself really! It was the video for ‘Peaches’, my next single. It’s my rendition of the old song by The Stranglers and it wasn’t hard work. Make sure you check it out. You’ll have just as much fun watching as listening!
You mentioned an album, when is that out and what can we expect?
My album “Everything In Moderation” is due out this year. I’m really happy with it, 90% of it is produced and written by me and I think it’s great to get BYOB introduced to the world. It’s taken about a year to finish and I really feel like I’ve grown as an artist doing it, the mix of genres and influences is why I’ve given it that name and I think it’s also a reflection of my personality.
I’ve seen the balls video, didn’t realize that one man could do so much with ping-pong balls. How did that come about?
I can’t take a lot of credit for that, but it’s my version of a video that I’d seen on YouTube. All I can say is that it’s all real, no camera tricks and it didn’t take that long! I’m planning on doing a part 2 so hopefully my balls will be appearing on the internet again very soon.
By Julian Von Nehammer
BYOB returns with his new single ‘Peaches’ out on Loaded records out on 4th October.
http://www.myspace.com/byobofficial
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