Colin Steven Talks About Kmag 25 Years
Kmag was a huge resource for a lot of us in drum and bass. From 1994 – 2014 Knowledge magazine was the essential destination for the latest drum & bass news and features. Whether it was the latest output from Critical, interviews with Ram artists or the latest mix by Hospital Records, there’s no denying the impact it had on the drum & bass scene.
Colin Steven takes some time to talk to us about the new book and his career.
Thanks for talking to us, about Kmag, for those that don't know it was one of the main magazines for drum & bass and we all used to have it as content before the internet. Tell us about your childhood and music and growing up.
I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember. I’m showing my age but first of all I was into indie guitar music in the mid-80s and I used to go to see bands like New Order, The Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen, Sonic Youth, Jesus & Mary Chain, etc. I got into hip hop after seeing Schoolly D perform supporting Big Audio Dynamite at Barrowlands and after that I started going to clubs in Glasgow. This was about 1987 so the DJs played hip hop and rare groove mostly but by 1988 acid house started appearing.
You came from a house scene in Glasgow and Liverpool, was it London that captured your dnb and jungle love?
No, it was Bristol. I moved to Bristol in 1993. My old school friend Markee Ledge had moved there in about 1992 and I used to visit him. After I graduated from university in Liverpool I decided to move there as I didn’t really have anywhere better to go! Earlier in 1993 Markee had set up a jungle club called Ruffneck Ting with his flatmates DJ Dazee and Rachel Patey. When I first heard jungle / drum & bass in Liverpool I didn’t quite get it as I wasn’t hearing it in the right environment but after moving to Bristol the penny dropped.
Tell us about ID and the club magazines which shaped you as a writer?
I only wrote occasionally for i-D when I moved to university in Liverpool in 1990, mostly club reports in the city. I started writing for Generator in about 1994 when Knowledge was up and running. Because our circulation was so small and localised at the time I used to sell them features I had originally written for Knowledge. The mag that shaped me most as a writer was The List as it was a fortnightly and I was editor there for two years so that’s where I learned my trade.
What inspired you initially to set up Knowledge magazine?
A few things. Mainly that nobody else was writing about this music that we loved in our area. Big magazines like Mixmag looked down their noses at jungle at the time or only gave it token coverage. We used to go to London to AWOL at the Paradise club and I remember getting a copy of Atmosphere when I came out and it really inspired me to do Knowledge. We didn’t get Atmosphere in Bristol so I thought I could do an equivalent for the South West. I was a writer and Rachel had a sales background. Our mate Styv worked in a local printer so could get us a good deal and help out with design. We also used to visit local shops in the South West dropping off Ruffneck Ting flyers and tape packs and we were giving out flyers at events so we had our own distribution network. The final piece in the puzzle was an Apple Macintosh Classic computer. It was one of those all in ones with a mono display and 4MB RAM and 40MB hard drive but at least I could write all my features and reviews on it!
How did you feel the first issue came out?
Very proud even though it was only 12 pages, A5 and black and white. Also a bit stupid too as we had a feature that started in the back half that finished in the front half we were that green.
Donovan Badboy Smith shaped a lot of my first dnb moments, and he was the first interview and one of the first mix CDS right?
Yes, Donovan lived just up the road from us in Gloucester and was one of the biggest local DJs at the time. He’s always been a big supporter of Ruffneck Ting and Knowledge. He really knows his music and is still going strong. The ‘bad boy’ part of his name always makes me smile as he’s one of the nicest guys you could meet.
Love that, big up Donovan! Paul Rico at SRD helped a lot too with distro, tell us about that.
Yes, that was when we decided that to take it to the next level we had to start selling it. How do you charge for something that you’ve been giving away for years? I went for a meeting with Paul as they were the main drum & bass distributor at the time (still are!) and he said he would distribute Knowledge if we did a free CD with every issue. Free CDs with mags weren’t particularly new but the majority I heard were rubbish and I vowed to make ours as good as any compilation CD you’d buy in the shops. I had to convince labels to give us tracks for free but luckily they bought into the idea.
What have been your fondest memories of Kmag?
Travelling. I don’t DJ but I saw the world off the back of the magazine. Some favourite trips include Brazil, Puerto Rico, Iceland, Canada and America, particularly the Miami Winter Music Conferences between 1999 and 2002. The two awards ceremonies we promoted in 1999 and 2001 were really special too.
Was there a big team behind it, how many people and tell us about the peaks.
There was only ever two of us, myself and Rachel, but some of the most important freelancers were the writers. I was the only writer for the first few years. I’d come down to London for a few days and do loads of interviews but slowly I started getting other writers on board and I took more of a back seat being editor and publisher. Some issues we must have had about 15 to 20 writers contributing.
Photography has always been an important aspect of Knowledge too. For the first few issues, we didn’t have a photographer and relied on artists to supply us with photos. Let’s just say some were better than others! In 1996, my friend DJ Clarkee introduced me to Courtney Hamilton, who not only loved drum & bass but also was a photographer who worked for Dazed & Confused. Around that time, I would travel from Bristol to London every few weeks to do interviews and Courtney would join me and take pics.
Using Courtney’s photos immediately made the magazine look much more professional, especially as Courtney also had access to the Dazed photo studio. Around the same time, Phil Rees from Azlan Design started designing the magazine, and the visual side of the magazine was totally transformed.
However, the photographer most associated with Knowledge is Cleveland Aaron. When we moved from Bristol to London in 2002, we made sure that Cleveland had a desk in our office with a photo studio downstairs. Cleveland had an incredible knack of putting people at ease, and the results were incredible.
Tell us about Rachel.
Rachel was my fellow promoter in Ruffneck Ting and she had a background in sales, insurance if I remember correctly so I approached her with the idea of the mag and we were equal partners. It was a good division of our skills, I would take care of all the editorials side of things and publishing (dealing with the printer and distributor, etc.) while she took care of the advertising sales and marketing. She was great at her job and is one of the main reasons we were so successful. I wanted Rachel to be a part in the new 25 Years of Knowledge book but unfortunately she was too busy.
What do you love about interviewing people and anything you dislike?
I always preferred interviewing people face to face as you really get a chance to know them. It’s your job to get insight into their lives and how they work and sometimes artists don’t always want to open up. I always loved meeting an artist and they were initially a bit suspicious but by the end of the interview you’ve earned their trust and it’s like a conversation with a friend. The only thing I ever disliked about interviewing was transcribing the text from the recording as it took hours!
So you applied to an editor of a magazine and you got your first job writing, tell us about that.
I was a trainee cost accountant at the time but they hardly gave me any work to do so I used to wander the streets of Glasgow! I used to go into newsagents and read magazines and there was a mag called The List which was a listings mag for Edinburgh and Glasgow. They had an ad in their classifieds section for a Glasgow clubs editor. I had no experience of journalism but I thought it would be a good way to get guest list for clubs. So I met the editor who was a posh guy from Edinburgh who didn’t have a clue about clubs and I totally blagged it!
So 1988 to 1990, tell us about those years.
It was great. There were so many great clubs in Glasgow at the time but my favourite was the Sub Club. It was a basement, 300/400 capacity I think and it used to get so hot you’d get totally drenched. I used to take a towel and a t-shirt with me in a backpack and put it in the cloakroom so I could get changed at the end! Sometimes me and my gang of friends would go every night from Thursday to Sunday it was that good. The Slam night was always my favourite. Glasgow clubs at that time used to close at 3.30am and 5am in 1990 as it was European City of Culture, I got a big shock when I moved to Liverpool and clubs shut at 2am.
Have you always been a creative person?
I always knew I wanted to be creative but it took me a long time to figure out what I was good at. Luckily I stumbled into journalism and found it.
So you have the book which is now out, which is doing really well, tell us about that and what inspired you?
Over the years people have told me I should bring it back but I’ve always resisted the temptation as I don’t want to revisit the past. I’ve brought it back because I feel we have unfinished business. Reaching 20 years in 2014 was such an important milestone but it was a bittersweet moment and I didn’t celebrate it at all because I knew the end was coming. About a year ago I realised that December 2019 was our 25th anniversary so I wanted to mark the occasion somehow. What better way than with one last issue? Thankfully the response has been overwhelming.
Buy the book here : https://kmag.co.uk/shop
Well all I can do is congratulate you and be in awe. Why should people go out and buy it, and why should people have a copy?
It’s not really a history of dnb to be honest. Knowledge was always about what’s happening now in drum & bass and although it would have been much easier and cheaper to do a compilation of our greatest hits I decided to get mostly new content. It’s not really like a normal magazine either. There’s no news, reviews or individual interviews with artists. My favourite features in the mag were always the long ones on a single subject with quotes from a range of artists so the whole book is like that. The main features in the book are four panels we did on women in drum & bass, record shops, club promotion and radio. It’s a beautiful product as well. We really pushed the boat out making sure it looks really special. So it’s 10” square, with a black material cover and debossed Kmag logo and 160 premium paper pages. You can buy it at https://kmag.co.uk/shop
What was the reason for the magazine stopping, what it the internet and people getting content online?
Yeah, people stopped buying it because they could now get the same content online for free and much quicker.
The physical format of CDs have gone, books are going replaced by websites and now it's MP3 and a very digital market, which to me doesn't have much moderating. What are your thoughts about it?
I’d say websites have replaced the newspaper and magazine experience but not books to be honest. Kindles and ebooks arrived about 15 years ago and people thought it was the end of books but people still want the superior physical experience of reading and owning a book. I published All Crews in 2004 and the majority of our sales have been physical. However, it is a very digital market now and magazines, labels and distributors were the gatekeepers who kept the quality control up. Now anyone can release anything and it’s just too much, it’s hard to get noticed because there are so many things competing for attention.
What do you think about www.jungledrumandbass.co.uk?
It’s great. I’m a big fan of anything that documents the music and culture we all love so much and you cover the whole spectrum of drum & bass too which is important.
Thank you, that means a lot to us and the team. Top 3 tracks ever?
That’s not a fair question! These aren’t my top three tracks ever as there are many more that I love just as much as these but off the top of my head…
Nuyorican Soul - I am The Black Gold of The Sun (4 Hero Remix):
Bad Company - The Nine:
Nasty Habits - Shadowboxing:
If you got stuck on a desert island, and could only take one track, what would it be and why?
I’m going to cheat and take an album. I’m going to take The Beatles’ White Album as it was the first album I go into when I was really young discovering music and I still listen to it today sometimes. I’ll skip Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da though.
Briliant. Well, I had a few things in Kmag, "Give Em Props" and a couple of women features, so KMAG has some very fond memories thank you so much - and to a lot of other people - does the fact your memory living on mean a lot to you?
Definitely, it’s nice to have been an important part of so many people’s lives. When I meet people who have been into drum & bass for a long time and they find out I’m the editor of Knowledge so many people tell me they still have their mags. They mean that much that they can’t bear to bin them, that means a lot to me.
I must admit I have a fair few. We treasure them, and treasure you. What's coming up for you over the next few months?
Well, first of all we have a big event at FOLD in London on Feb 21. Musically the night will explore the past, present and future of drum & bass with a diverse line-up of old favourites and rising stars. Headlining are a pair of special guests who we can’t announce, but we can say this – they’re two figureheads from Metalheadz doing their first-ever exclusive back-to-back set. It wouldn’t be 25 years of Knowledge without a special treat! Also on the line-up are Klute, Total Science, DJ Flight, Bryan Gee B2B L Side, SP:MC, Apey and Tenth Letter. It’s a really special venue too. State of the art with an amazing sound system, we’re actually the first drum & bass night there. Tickets start at only £10 and we’re also doing a special package deal of a ticket plus a copy of the book for only £30 if you collect the book on the night (the book normally costs £30 alone). The first 30 packages also include a free 25th-anniversary tote bag.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/25-years-of-kmag-at-fold-tickets-64660246538
We also have a few tour events happening around the country so look out for that. I also want to start a new series of monthly interviews where I interview artists in front of a small invited audience and record it for a podcast. So look out for that.
How exciting! What are your plans for the future?
I’ve actually started a book publishing company that’s separate to Knowledge. It’s called Velocity Press - https://velocitypress.uk/ - and it specialises in electronic music and club culture. Our first title came out in November and it’s called Join The Future. It’s the previously untold story of British dance music’s first sub-bass revolution, tracing the origins, development, impact and influence of bleep techno, and the subsequent musical styles it inspired, on UK club culture. Our second title, State of Bass is out in March and it’s a revised reissue of the acclaimed first-ever book-length investigation into the origins of jungle and drum & bass so should appeal to your users. Originally published in 1997, it explores the scene’s roots through its social, cultural and musical antecedents. After that, in June, it’s Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art which showcases the mastermind behind some of the most iconic rave flyers and record covers of the late 80s and early 90s.
Junior is such a legend. People need to check those books out. Well a little bird tells me the KMAG website may have some more features on it soon?
It already has. I've been writing the odd news story and feature and I've also got a new writer called Verity Raphael from the Rave Report blog contributing, she's really good. It's never going to be like it was, there probably will only be two or three bits of new content each week but it's such a great resource and it's just sat there, so why not use it?
Well I'll be checking it out! Lastly, thank you so much for your time. You really are an inspiration and a legend to us all, do you have any shouts and thanks?
Thanks for interviewing me, makes a nice change to be answering the questions instead of asking them! Thanks to the team who have helped me publish the book, James Rompani at Concrete PR, Miguel Estevez at Circles and Jake McDonald aka Tenth Letter. Also thanks to everyone who has bought the book, particularly the ones who bought it on pre-sale, we couldn't have done it without your support.
Colin and everyone involved, all the best for 2020 and beyond.
Buy the book here : https://kmag.co.uk/shop
Interview by Missrepresent February 2020
