Doing the down beat thing

By GRAHAM REID

Jake Wherry - half of the British DJ tag team the Herbaliser with Ollie Teeba - admits he didn't do them any favours on their Australian tour.

Mid-morning after a show in Melbourne he picks up the phone - we are his wake-up call - and says while they enjoyed playing the music they love to punters, the numbers on the night were a bit down.

"That's probably because of me doing a load of interviews saying we're not as good as the band. We've been waiting for years to bring the band down here and in the last few years turned down a lot of offers to come and DJ in the hope that we would just focus on the band. But it just hasn't happened."

The band he is referring to is also, somewhat confusingly, called the Herbaliser and it plays a blend of steamy funk and spooked-up strings mixed with unusual soul and hip-hop.

It's a nine-piece outfit which has toured Europe and the States and, because he is an honest and barely awake geezer, he admits if it comes to a toss between the band and DJing with Ollie he prefers the band.

"We get a good mixture of DJ and live gigs and we like that, but because I've been a guitarist and bass player for a lot longer that's more of what I am." In the absence of their hydra-headed Herbaliser band - check the excellent Ninja Tunes album Something Wicked This Way Comes with it's downbeat funk, Elmer Fudd samples, snatches of jazz licks and moody rap - they are bringing their duelling DJ set to town, their first time here since Princess Diana died. "I remember, your country was in mourning."

But he knows how to say politically pleasing things. "For you, we're going to take out all the brainless pop anthems and put in some really deep music. I've heard there's some pretty tasty rappers in New Zealand."

The Herbaliser announced themselves in '95 with their debut album Remedies, a gumbo of jazz styles, hip-hop attitudes and a punching horn section. Before the decade was out, the band had played the Montreux Jazz Festival and Reading, delivered another album Blow Your Headphones (then followed it with Very Mercenary), and were sought after as collaborators and remixers.

Their latest album Something Wicked This Way Comes has guests Rakaa Iriscience (from Dilated Pupils), Blade, Phi Life Cypher (of Gorillaz) and the nugget-hard London rhymes of Wildflower.

Parallel to the band, however, has been the turntable antics as the Herbaliser in DJ sets which can slew from mixes of DeeeLite through Wu Tang Clan, soundtrack samples and old Ninja Tunes favourites like DJ Food and their own remixes. Don't expect a swag of Herbaliser sounds, however. That's not what their DJ sets are about.

"We'll do a little funk set to get things moving probably, but people in Australia have been saying we didn't bring enough Herbaliser music. They've been screaming, 'Play some more Herbaliser' and we're like, 'No, go home and listen to the Herbaliser at home. These are records we like and we want you to hear'."

Wherry expects to catch some local music while he's here but says these days he doesn't go out trawling for it with the same intensity. Back when the Ninja Tunes label took off they had be out there fighting off DJ Food and DJ Vadim to find the most obscure discs in record shops.

The ethic of the more obscure the better has also given way to some rationalisation. "It is nice to find rare stuff but the thing with rare and expensive records is a song that's £500 might only be that because they only pressed 500 copies.

"It may be good but maybe you can get something for £8 which is just as good but maybe not so rare. I don't get into the shops so much now. I buy expensive things off e-bay rather than trawling around."

Of course, being a high-profile DJ means he gets plenty of things pressed into his hand by fans and enthusiasts.

"I get loads of CDs and bits of vinyl but I've been very disappointed sometimes when some person comes up and says, 'I listened to Remedies and that made me go out and get a sampler and this is what I've made'. Then they give you something and you go back home with it and it's all this [expletive] techno drum'n'bass and you think, 'Oh no!'

"I'm a bit of a dinosaur but I do stay in touch with new music. A lot of people who are fans of Ninja Tunes are a lot more open-minded in their tastes than me and Ollie. Ninja Tunes is such a wide spectrum of dance music.

"When drum'n'bass exploded it never really affected what we were doing but we would find ourselves doing interviews and people would say, 'Are you concerned at the popularity of drum'n'bass and how will it affect your music'?

"And we'd say, 'Well, it won't. We like what we like and that's it'. We don't shut ourselves out to the possibilities of getting into new music but to be as passionate and have as much drive as we do in our field doesn't mean you can like all types of music."

Outside the band and DJing the Herbaliser production team is busy. There are remixes, of course, but also work for films and advertisements.

"We've got a couple of adverts where we're working on putting our music to visuals and that's really rewarding. We've been wanting to work in that field for a long time so it's nice those doors have been opened. We like the idea of making money for rich companies - and taking their money.

"People talk of compromise but I don't really know what I'm compromising. Myself? No, I want the money. Family? No, they need the money. The studio? No, I need the equipment. There's all that old talk of selling out but it's never affected me badly by doing ads."

Wherry is an amusing pragmatist and you have to admire anyone who can keep a big band on the road. But - as we have seen from his Australian interviews - he doesn't do himself any favours.

He's joking, of course, so don't take him seriously when he talks down and makes light of what they might do at Galatos.

"I've generally noticed New Zealanders and Australians seem to expect a lot more than just a DJ show. There's always that question, 'What can we expect from you?'

"Well, we're going to get on stage and play some records we like - and we might even wave and smile at you."

Performance

* Who: The Herbaliser

* Where: Galatos, Newton

* When: tomorrow night