On Saturday I was playing in Zlin in south Moravia, close to the Czech border with Slovakia.   It's an interesting place - here is probably not really the place for it, but suffice it to say that if you're interested in early(ish) 20th Century Modernist architecture and planned towns, look it up!

Anyway, the headliner that night was Rusko, and I managed to collar him to do a quick interview.  I wanted to avoid the standard interview structure,  so we just did it as a chat.  Hope you like it, and thanks to Rusko for his time.  Shouts out also to Czech dubstep crew Ans and Side9000 !

- So, good set? Enjoy it?

- Yeah - I'm tired and I'm hot, but yeah, good reception.  The crowd was crazy.

- Yeah, I was playing before you, and there were a bunch of guys down the front all through my set going "Rusko!  Rusko!  Rusko!"

- "Ah, I hate it!  I hate that, I feel bad when that happens!

- Yeah, I was like, 'don't worry, I 'll be going away soon...'

- Naah!  Cos, you know, they're here to hear your tunes and shit...

- Welll, yeah, but no.  They're not really.

- Sometimes when I'm doing the live show, I have to set up 5 minutes before my set, and there's all these people down the front shouting my name, wanting to chat and stuff, and I'm like 'Wait a minute!  Check out this DJ first!'  I feel bad!

- Nah but fuck it.  You're the headliner after all...

- Yeah, so people knew all the new tunes, and the old tunes.   Which I like.

- What was that track, the indie tune that goes into a trance breakdown?  It was the cheesiest thing ever by the way.

- Ah, that was a Calvin Harris remix by a guy from Leeds, called Doorley.  The one that goes GRRR-WAGAGA-DIBIBI-

- Yeah, that one!   And what was the one just after, it was like a folk tune?

- That's a Stenchman re-fix.  It's a funny one, but I like the funny ones -  they're always crowd pleasers.  People like them, definitely.  I like being able to smoke in the clubs here, too - loving that so much over here.   Smoking during your set and stuff.

- Right, look at this <bent headphone jack, that Rusko had earlier destroyed by attempting to pass through a headphone cable and failing>

- Oh gosh

- This is the first time I've ever brought a spare headphone jack to a club.

- I never ever have!

- The only reason I brought it, is because I got paranoid and thought 'maybe I haven't got a headphone jack on my cans, I'll take this one just in case' and stuck it in my pocket.  And as it happens, you plough through my headphone cable and bend the jack about 20 degrees!

- I can't believe that!  Sorry!  It's so dark on stage though sometimes, I always end up knocking stuff over.  I mean I'm clumsy when it's light, I'm clumsy in the daytime, so when it's dark and I've had a drink, it's just murder.  I'm forever knocking things over.  I'm just lucky I haven't spilt a drink on my laptop yet.

- Yeah, I nearly spilt a drink on your laptop!  Cos it was just at knee height, I nearly tripped over it!

- I do try to keep it out of the way....

- I thought that was cool actually - is that a deliberate thing?  Keeping it off stage, so you're not peering at it too much?

- Yeah, I don't like the typical laptop DJ thing <makes a dorkish face, prods imaginary mouse>  - I know what tune I want to play next, so I'm not scrolling through lists going 'Which one is it?'   - I've got all the shortcuts set up on the F keys and stuff.  I used to play dubplates, but my record bag got stolen last July, and I moved over to Traktor because I had so many gigs and no time to cut more dubs.  And I could at least still play vinyl.  But yeah, I try to keep the laptop either under the decks or by the side, cos I hate to see DJs scrolling through lists of tracks or whatever.

- Yeah that works actually - I was down the front for some of your set, and the effect is basically the same as when you dig down for a record - you disappear for a minute, then pop up with a track.

- Yeah it's the same.  It started when I first went to laptop, I just used to balance it on top of my record bag, I had one of those UDG big square bags.  But then I thought it was actually a good idea - it keeps it a bit more visual, more interaction with the crowd or whatever.

-  You do jump around a lot...

- Yeah, that's why I always bring a spare t-shirt and a pair of jeans!

- Do you ever have to try and get yourself hyped for it?  If you're not really in the mood?

- Yeah a little bit.  I can't drink beer, that makes me sleep.  I don't know why, it just does.  I drink it on planes though!  But yeah, I usually have a few vodka and red bulls before I play.  Now and again I'll be really ill, or tired, you just have one of those days - everyone has one of those days occasionally.  But it's cool, I like to get out there, give it some - do my stretches so I don't pull a muscle...

- Yeah by the end you were headbanging to DnB - I thought you were gonna do yourself an injury!

- I know!  There's one or two drum and bass remixes of tracks on the album, so I've been finishing my sets with a big of DnB lately.  It's good in a dubstep rave cos it makes a break from dubstep for a bit, so when the next DJ comes on, it's a bit refreshing.

- So, the album then - it's gonna be on Mad Decent?

- Yeah, Mad Decent Downtown.  Downtown are gonna be doing it in the US, some of Europe.  They did a Justice record, Gnarls Barkely...

- Cool!  So, have you finished it?

- I've done all the music, we're just finishing the vocals now.  We've got Flo Rida, Santogold, Chali 2na, Estelle, Kid Sister... the link is Downtown, they sorted out the Estelle and Flo Rida stuff.  So yeah, got a few big vocals for the CD release, the vinyl's gonna be more of the DJ tracks and that.

- So is it a fully dubstep album?

- Yeah!   Pretty much.  There's gonna be a couple of 130bpm tracks, a couple of hip-hop skweee kind of tracks... The Flo Rida track is like a really wonky 130bpm  house track.  But mostly it's dubstep, but there's some reggae and dub on there, the Santogold track is just straight up dubwise, so it works with the live bass thing.  So, actually, it's kind of across the board really.  But when people listen to stuff on their ipods, they don't just listen to dubstep, so I wanted to make it quite a listenable thing.  Not too much craziness...

-  Yeah I was at Reso's and he played me some stuff you'd done, it was like DJ Shadow-style chilled stuff.  I was impressed cos at that point I'd only ever heard your, uh, wobble stuff.

- Well, yeah, those are the tunes that get people hyped!  But I think you can always tell my stuff, it kind of has the same sound I suppose - I use a MicroKorg a lot and it has a distinctive sound.  But yeah, so the album's gonna drop at the start of September, so it's just a mad push on that right now.

- I can see!  I'd kill for your gig list...

- Yeah it is pretty crazy!  What with the DJing and the live set...

- The live set - is that just you on your own, or...?

- Well, it's me and Rod Azlan, but he's doing proper reggae style stuff rather than just MC'ing, and then there's the bass guitar, an MPC, the MicroKorg and a little 404 sampler.  The MPC does all the sequencing.  So yeah, I really wanted to make it a bit more visual, playable, I guess it's a bit more dubwise, but I switch between the synth basslines and the real basslines, dub it out a bit.... but it's enabled me to play different gigs, not just in clubs, cos it's a stage show.

- Like festivals?

- Yeah, I'm doing twice as many festivals this year as I did last year, so now I can do the club circuit, but some band gigs too, like I'm doing the Manchester Apollo next month...

- Seriously?  The Manchester Apollo?  Headlining?

- Yeah man!

- Fuck me!  Have you ever been to the Apollo?  It's massive!

- Yeah, I used to live in Leeds, so I used to go over to the Apollo to see bands and stuff...

- Like who?

- Oh, er, Incubus....

- Ha!  I saw them!  I used to go to more cheesy gigs though.  Like Green Day or the Foo Fighters.  Or Korn.

- Oh god yeah, the cheesy gigs.  I went to see Hundred Reasons, and the Youngblood Brass Band...

- Are you a rock kid at heart?  

- Um, nah, I don't think so.  I've always been about the dub, like I always used to play in reggae bands, ska bands and stuff when I was younger.

- Right, here's something I'd like to know - you've come up so fast lately...

- Yeah, it's been ridiculous.

- That Fabric album was what, 18 months ago?

- Something like.  Apparently it's still one of the best sellers - from January to April this year they said it was selling more than some of the ones that had just come out.  It's been nuts.  That and the Essential Mix, I think they were the two catalysts.

- So I guess they approached you, your singles had been doing quite well...

- Yeah, we'd been playing there a lot, they had published some of mine and Caspa's stuff, the Sub Soldiers and Dub Police stuff.  So we'd been working with those guys for quite a while.

- So, did you ever have any kind of Grand Plan?  Like a strategy, 'how I'm gonna make it' or whatever?

- No, no, not at all.  I suppose the only thing you could say, was that just before I put my first 12" out, I moved from Leeds to London.  I thought 'if I'm gonna do this, there's only one place to do it' cause back then it was just a London thing really.  I didn't even DJ at the time, I was just writing tunes.

- So, what, you started getting offers to play at club nights and thought 'shit, I'd better get on this'?

- Yeah, people were saying 'come and play at my night' and stuff.  So yeah, I figured if I was gonna do it properly, one; I should learn to DJ, and two, I should move to London.  So I did, and I did!

- Do you enjoy the DJing now?  It looks like it!

- Yeah, especially now I'm doing the live sets as well.  With the live set, there's loads to go wrong, it's an hour of concentration, cos if you fuck up, you fuck up big.  So I'll maybe have a beer, chill out, then drink after the set.  But with DJing, it's like 'wahey!' - you party from the start.   In the last week or so, I've done 3 live sets, I haven't DJed in a week and a half or so, and after a few live sets I'm gagging to to a DJ gig, I've got loads of new tunes to play out...

- Does it bother you, when you're travelling all the time, that's time out of the studio?

- At first it really really did, yeah.  But I've got better at working on my laptop recently, so it's not so bad.

- I heard that you had a gig in Finland recently, and you opened your set with a tune you wrote on the journey there?

- Yeah, that was Flow Festival in Helsinki! I started it on the plane and finished it off backstage.  Tune called Scorpio... I basically make sure I always use the same headphones, I've got these Audio Technica ones, and I'm used to them now so I can write with them a bit.  With that one, it was a three and a half hour flight, but my laptop battery only lasts two hours.  So I plugged in backstage... It's only a three minute tune - I built the bulk of it on the plane and finished it off later.  That's the only time I've done that though, but normally whenever I travel I'll make sure I have at least 4 or 5 ideas and projects with me that I can work on.  I do miss having a nice big MIDI keyboard to work with though.

- I find that on headphones it's hard to get excited about a track, you can't crank up the speakers and feel the energy levels.  You just hurt your ears!

- Yeah that's true.  Sometimes I have them so loud - I get on a plane, my ears pop, and I don't really notice, I just turn the headphones up.  I start getting some funny looks from people on the plane, they can just hear this one bass noise I'm working on... but yeah I've since touched up that tune I did in Finland.  Been playing it out lately, in fact.  Oh, what was that tune I was asking you about in your set?

- That was called Tongue Riddim, that's me and Baobinga under his dubstep alias.

-  What's his dubstep alias?  

- Skinnz - but he's only released one tune under that name so far.  It was ages ago, on Our Sound 1.

- Aaaaaaah!  Our Sound 1!  <misty eyed>  Sick album!  What was that Skream tune on there...something Cold?  Man.  That was the original shit...

.... <interview degenerates here into reminiscing about old tunes.....>

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i.d.