Granted you’ve heard of Drumsound and Bassline Smith’s label ‘Technique’. Granted you’ve heard of Critical Music, And granted Im Writing this with 2 hours kip. You can be assured that Peter ‘Technicolour’ Rogers is a busy busy bee in the Drum and Bass community. Undoubtedly the man to put the soul into ‘Technique’ Pete’s been making some seriously skilled pieces of music. Sample fans will be shouting out the samples of each track as if it was some intense game of Charades! (Or catchphrase).  After catching up with Soul:R’s Newest posse  we thought here @ Example we’d get some Q&A’s from Technicolour.

EXAMPLE: Once again thanks for taking the time out to do some Questions. Firstly care to share a little bit about Technicolour?

TECHNICOLOUR: Erm, my real name is Peter, I live in south west London, I own a cat called Derek and my favourite typeface is ITC Avant Garde.

EXAMPLE: What style would you categorize yourself?

TECHNICOLOUR:I guess if you want to categorize it you could call it liquid funk. For me I just make musical drum & bass.

EXAMPLE: What are your main influences? And Do you have any Cheeky musical vices?

TECHNICOLOUR: Main influences are mostly your old jazz and funk guys - Herbie Hancock, Lonnie Liston Smith, Freddie Hubbard etc. But to be honest I’m a complete vinyl junkie so I’ll gladly reference stuff from folk, early 80s electronica and anything else that turns up on my regular vinyl hunting trips. My current fascination is with privately issued New Age LPs from the 70s. Stuff like Michael Stearns, JD Emmanuel, Bill Reddie. Really cool proto-ambient stuff… If you’re looking for guilty pleasures, I truly believe that ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears is one of the greatest songs ever written.

EXAMPLE: Your notoriously known for putting the soul into Technique recordings. How did that relationship come about?

TECHNICOLOUR: I spend too much time on Drum & Bass Arena in the production forum - it’s how I waste time at work. Simon ‘Bassline’ Smith posted a thread on there saying he was looking for demos. I sent him a couple of tracks - ‘Good News Green’ and ‘Empty. Knowing the style Technique is generally known for, I wasn’t expecting to hear anything, but Simon got back to me really quickly and things just went from there, really.

EXAMPLE: How long have you been at the production game? And what setup do you work on?

TECHNICOLOUR: I have been trying to make drum & bass since 2002 - that was when I got some money together and finally bought a computer. I use Reason 3.0 almost exclusively, with just a basic version of Cubase to samples records with.

EXAMPLE: Where can you see Drum and bass in the future?

TECHNICOLOUR: Good question! I think it’s in pretty good shape at the moment, with Sub Focus and Chase & Status showing you can take it into the mainstream, and at the other end of the spectrum the likes of Instra:mental and Stray questioning exactly what constitutes d&b. There’s something for everyone, really. I’d like to hear a bit more creative sampling again - synths have taken over quite recently, and the era around 2004-2005 when High Contrast was doing ‘High Society’ and Calibre was flinging out a 12” every month was an amazing time for sample-based music. Apart from that, I’m sure it will morph into something we can’t possibly imagine right now. The naysayers always seem to think there’s nowhere else for d&b to go, but it always finds a way to develop somehow…

EXAMPLE: You’ve just had a massive release with Komatic. Any other Colab’s happening?

TECHNICOLOUR: Andy Komatic and I are working on lots of other material. We’ve struck up a good working, and alcohol-based releationship, so you can expect to see many more tracks from us in the future.

EXAMPLE: Whats set for you in the forthcoming months?

TECHNICOLOUR: I have just put the finishing touches to my debut album, which will be released on Technique at the end of the year. There’s be a single sampler from that around November I think, and me and Andy have a couple of exciting things in the pipeline which people will learn about in due course! I have also just started a radio show on the leading online d&b station Bassdrive, and that’s really exciting. You can catch the ‘Stolen Hours’ show every fourth Monday of the month at 6-8pm GMT. Plenty of Technicolour exclusives to be heard…

EXAMPLE: would you rather have no eyes or no ears?

TECHNICOLOUR: This is a question that has regularly come up, post-club, with mates. Obviously being a producer, losing your ears would be a bit of a drawback, and Stevie Wonder has done pretty well for himself over the years. Have you seen the women he’s dated? Ears are inherantly ugly, though, so are you saying I could lose my ears, but still hear through the little hole that would be left on the side of your head? I need clarification. If you had no eyes, you could wear sunglasses all day and get away with it, which immediately increases your cool-as-fuck credentials, or you could even rock a double eye-patch like some crazed pirate. I think I’m erring on the side of keeping my ears…