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Atlantic Connection Interview

Atlantic Connection Interview by Norman Mayers Photos by Dave Bullock / eecue and Roberto Freeman Since the late 1990s Nathan Hayes aka Atlantic Connection has gone from drum & bass DJ to label owner and multi-genre producer. After years of establishing his name as a purveyor of sexy, soulful DnB, AC has morphed into an artist of the highest caliber with his genre-defying album Tomorrow’s Not Enough. With a multitude of projects in the works and a unique sound that projects quality, precision and experimentation, Atlantic Connection is a name that will continue to turn heads in the electronica community at large in the years to come. Nu-Soul was able to catch up with the prolific producer at his home studio in Los Angeles to find out where he’s been and where he is headed. Nu-Soul: Where are you from originally? AC: I was raised in Boston. I lived there for 15 years then I moved to North Carolina. Nu-Soul: Like Wilmington, North Carolina? AC: Exactly. I went to UNCW. I stuck around for a year or so. Worked on music and enjoyed my time off then I decided I needed to be in a much higher caliber situation so I came to LA. Nu-Soul: So pretty much you started out as a drum & bass DJ? AC: Yes a drum & bass DJ first before producing. Nu-Soul: So when did you first get involved in the whole scene? AC: The rave scene in 1997. I was in high school in North Carolina. It took a little while to find. I hadn’t been into drum & bass at that time. I was mostly into house and garage. I went into a CD store one day and I saw LTJ Bukem's Logical Progressions. I saw the CD cover and I just bought it. Then it just clicked. Within weeks of buying that CD the sound just started coming out of the woodwork. I started meeting people that were into drum & bass, and getting mixtapes. I stuck with the more soulful end. I enjoyed the harder stuff but for me the more musical stuff just naturally appealed to me. Nu-Soul: What were your influences growing up? Did your parents listen to a lot of soul and jazz? AC: My dad: old jazz and funk. My mom is a classically trained musician, choir director, piano teacher. A lot of my roots come from my mom’s side. Her whole family is incredibly musical, music teachers and stuff like that. Nu-Soul: When did you first start DJing and playing out? AC: Probably 1998 – 99. It didn’t take long. Once I figured out what was going on I was like I wanted to do this. I started researching who was on Good Looking Records. There was a group of friends I had in North Carolina that were all drum & bass DJs. They all took me under their wing and introduced me to the sound a lot more and we would practice mixing. The showed me the basics. Nu-Soul: From there when did you start getting into producing? AC: Producing didn’t happen until mid 2000. By that time I had already been DJing out at clubs and had established a name. I put out my first record in 2001. Nu-Soul: The name Atlantic Connection. What does it mean to you? AC: At the time I was releasing records under an alias Basic Operations. It was myself and DJ partner. We went strong for about four years and then I decided I was definitely good enough as a DJ and certainly an established producer. I needed to go solo. In 2006, I decided enough of this duo shit. I want to do this on my own. What’s a good name? I had become a connection for a lot of overseas DJs wanting to come over to the U.S. Most of the industry is based in Europe and it’s divided from us by the Atlantic Ocean. So there it was. Nu-Soul: For people that may not have heard your music, how would you describe the Atlantic Connection style? AC: That’s a tough one now. I started out full throttle in drum & bass. Now I released this album in May and it has three drum & bass tracks on it. I think Atlantic Connection, period, is just a sound, regardless of the genre that I choose to create that day. You are still going to know it’s me. Whether it's 80 bpms or 170. It’s soul, it’s funk, it’s the groovy stuff. That’s what I tend to go for. Nu-Soul: Tell me a little about the creation of the album, some of the artists you worked with and what you were trying to achieve. AC: It’s called Tomorrow’s Not Enough. It took me about a year and a half to write. I knew I wanted to do a full-length player that wasn’t just a collection of songs. I didn’t want to make a compilation. I wanted to make something that had a beginning, an end, and everything in between. For me writing music, I am rarely inspired by other artists. What mostly inspires me is everyday activities, interactions with people, my experiences, just life in general. So with that said, I couldn’t conceive it being in just one bpm. It had to be all kinds. Fast, slow, medium, that’s my life. It’s a whole collage. I also wanted to establish myself as a legitimate producer, not just an electronic DJ/drum & bass producer. So I said, okay, start writing some hip-hop, some funk, some house, some electro. Once you do that you are going to run into the problem of sample clearance, and you are going to want to put vocals in it so why not create a whole album where you are brining in artists, singers and rappers, and other producers and take it in that Timbaland-ish direction. So I started making some calls to some of my favorite artists like Tali, Armanni MC, and even MC Conrad, Lady MC, Whiskey Pete. I just sent them stuff and it came back. My management and I went through everything and tried to create a cohesive story that came down to 14 songs. We gained a lot of new fans but I shocked the fuck out of a lot of people though. But I went out on a limb and it was well accepted. I haven’t heard anyone in that industry do anything comparable yet. I was pretty proud of it. Nu-Soul: Now that you have the album out do you have any plans on bringing your new expanded sound into a live PA? AC: I have a project called Cruel Rumor, which is myself and Julz the Huntress. It’s kinda like glam, ghetto electro, but we are working on a live act. We’re including dancers, lighting and theatrics. That’s about as close to a live act I am going to get. Nu-Soul: What else is on your platter? AC: Westbay, my label, is doing well. We are starting to expand that out a bit. We have an EP with MC Kemst from LA that we are putting out. I am pushing him to do a lot of different stuff. Also working with Armanni on an EP. We’ve got Westbay International and that’s more our drum & bass label. We’ll keep that one for new artists. It’s all about the new NEW in drum & bass to keep the kids interested. And then we have a publishing company, Westbay Publishing. I’ve got another project I’m working on with a rapper from North Carolina as well as McClain Sullivan from North Carolina. I have my hands in a lot of stuff but at the end of the day it’s all about sitting in here and making some beats. www.myspace.com/atlanticconnection www.myspace.com/westbayrecordings Download Atlantic Connection at Itunes

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