The Disciples are widely considered to be the leading figures of the UK roots/dub reggae scene which has emerged in the past decade. First making their name via a collection of widely acclaimed dubplates for Jah Shaka sound, followed by a couple of albums for Shaka's label, they  have consistently led the field ever since. Never afraid to experiment, whilst still remaining true to the principle of original roots reggae, The Disciples have captured the imaginations of an audience beyond the reggae mainstream with their finely honed production skills on albums such as "Resonations", "Infinite Density Of Dub" & "For Those Who Understand." Here Jah Warrior asks Russ D about the history of The Disciples, his views on sound systems, dub, Jamaican music, and reggae in general. Read on! 

Q. How & when did you first get interested in reggae music? 
A. I got interested in reggae through my brother Lol (former Disciple) who is a few years older than me, he had heard bits of reggae from the early 70's, Bluebeat, Tighten up, Club Reggae kind of stuff, later he found out about artists like Doc Alimantado, Wailers etc and I used hear some of these records emanating from his room, we both went through the punk days but that was just for a couple of years, once the Pistols broke up that was it for punk, I remember going to Rough Trade one time and I said to my brother what's a couple of good reggae LP's to get, he pointed out 'Best Dressed Chicken' and 'African Dub Ch.3', I bought those and was hooked, that was around '78.

Q. Tell us about the early days of The Disciples - who was involved in it - when did you start making music - what happened with you & your brother in terms of him not being involved now - how did you become involved with your music being played by Shaka? 
A. Well I started experimenting with reggae music around '85, both my brother and me could play a little, he played guitar and I played bass, I remember seeing articles for cheap recording gear I think it must of been the early days of the 4 track cassette and cheapo drum machines, I bought a Tascam 244 and a Roland Drumatix, from that time I just started to learn how to make reggae, my first efforts were rubbish and of too much embarrassment to play to anyone now! But as time went by I started getting a little better and then my brother started taking an interest, we were really just doing versions of some of our favourite rhythms, but it was a learning process.  I eventually put some of the tracks on a dubplate, I played them to a couple of guys that worked in record shops and they suggested we take it to Shaka, at that time Shaka had an Arts & Craft Culture shop in New Cross so we made our way down there, we left the plate down at his shop and the guy working there said come back at the weekend, when we returned there was Shaka standing in the shop, all we was expecting was some opinion on what we were doing, then Shaka says to us he wants four mixes of each of the tracks on the plate and anything else we had made, then he said we should come to his next dance. Living in the suburbs and not knowing anybody else into reggae we had never attended one before but the following week we made our way down to Peckham Self Help Centre and witnessed this awesome spectacle of his sound system. After checking him out everything started to fall in place, we had an understanding about the music how it came across through  x amount of bass speakers & tweeter, how the b-line should drop & how a tune should move people.  For a few years my brother and me worked together building rhythms I would usually do all the engineering and mixing 'cause I knew the equipment, my brother though also had his family and lived a little way from the studio and found it hard to get round often, because of this I started to learn to play guitar and with all the midi gear I could do the music by myself and I just kept progressing eventually he just backed off making music and concentrated on his magazine. 

Q. Your early productions were quite orthodox in style - how did you make the change to a more modern sound? 
A. It started off orthodox partly through what we were listening to and partly due to the gear, originally we only used a drum machine the rest was all live playing, the thing that changed it all was seeing Shaka working in a studio in Brixton, it had a small programming room with about 6/7 Yamaha DX7's linked up to a sequencer and a couple of small Seck mixers, he was working with this guy he called Andy Mozart, and the rhythms that they were building sounded crisp and different more
machine like. I went home and started programming my drum machine (HR16) differently from then, away from sounding live and more into the machine mode, also at the time 'Dred and Fred' came on the scene with 'Warrior Stance' and I will always cite that record as an influence.  As time went by I started to upgrade my studio with more digital gear, these days though we are more into combining the sound of digital with live instruments, it's a progression.

Q. The roots sound system scene in England now is dominated by 3 sounds (ie Shaka, Shanti & Iration) - do you think there's a future for other sound systems here now? What advice would you give anyone new thinking of starting a roots sound in England now? 
A. Its hard to say if there's a future because these thing come in swings and roundabouts, it's had a good time for about 10 years but the last couple have been a bit low key, it could come around again anytime.  I feel sometimes the promoters are to blame as they tend only to go for those 3 sounds, maybe they are the 'best' around at the moment but how do any others come through if they can't get a dance. I haven't seen any other sound myself that I could say 'yeah they could break
through, they are doing something different that stands up against the other's but I don't get out to see other sounds too much, it doesn't take much really, a bit of originality, play the right kind of tunes, play for the people, entertain them. I've seen a few sounds and they seem to lack something, I've seen crews falling asleep next to their sound, I've heard micmen chat all night and say nothing, you gotta come with more, it's hard work though and sometimes when you're in it it's hard to see
what you should be doing.

Q. Tell us about Boomshackalacka magazine - were you involved at all or was it just your brother? What was the reason for it's demise? What do you think about the fact that here we have this so-called "UK dub scene" but there isn't one magazine here which even mentions it, let alone which is devoted to it. 
A. I wasn't involved too much, I'm not that much of a writer, haven't got a head for words! But Lol would test out his articles on me to see if he was waffling, see if things made sense. Initially he felt he had something to say on behalf of roots music which at the time was being overlooked by the more mainstream reggae writers in favour of dancehall and DJ, after 12 issues he felt he had said it all and that how many times can he keep saying 'listen to this music!!' through reasons like this and financial he stopped and hasn't felt the need or inclination to start it up again, although anyone that gets the Dub Vendor mail order list can find him writing some of the reviews for that now that he works at Vendors.  It's also interesting to note that when I've been to places like Germany or France we have journalists come and interview us, they show us the magazines they write for which usually come from the Hip Hop scene but diversify enough to include other forms of dance or
underground music along with things like fashion and politics, the mags are superbly made full size glossy, colour and extremely well produced, I don't understand why we don't get in magazines like that here in the UK, it's sometimes like we're too small for them to bother with, as for something even from within our own scene well it takes dedication and time to produce even a little A5 photocopied type 'zine, I know the amount of work that my brother used to have to put into producing
the BSL 'zine and to keep something up regularly is hard work, there is somebody at the moment trying to get something off the ground, we will have to wait and see how successful they are with it. 

Q. What do you think about the people who do dub mixes of basically non-reggae dance music tunes & refer to it as dub? Do you think music has to be reggae for it to be dub? 
A. For me reggae and dub are parts of the same thing, so these other forms of music that use the word dub use it out of context, that's not to say the music is bad but it's not dub, you could check music by the Beatles or Jimi Hendrix and hear reverbs and echo but you wouldn't call it 'dub', I've listened to House, Techno, Ambient, Trip Hop, Drum & Bass, I've bought some of the records, I've even experimented making different music myself but the feel of adding reverbs & echo is different, it's more thought out, planned where these effects come in, reggae is more spontaneous, you run a rhythm and then feel your way through its mix, that's why you can get so many mixes of the one rhythm, it's different every time, I know this can and probably has been done with these other musics but its not as obvious, but in the end 'dub' is just a word and if they want to use it for other music there's not really a big deal to fight it down, but it does seem that reggae doesn't get the same promotion, airplay or media attention, it has to struggle for recognition, and why is this since its one of THE most influential forms of music, with dub, with DJ and with version.
Everything these days seems to get pigeon holed, if you link the word 'reggae' with your music its only promoted to reggae people, when we done the album 'Resonations' we intentionally didn't use the words 'dub' or 'reggae', we wanted it to be listened to by everybody, people that listened to techno, house whatever, we wanted it to be not stuck just in the reggae sections of shops or reviewed in the reggae section of magazines and to an extent it worked. We sold over 5000 copies of
that album and as I remember got reviewed in three different sections of one particular music mag, and that's good for what comes out of our little underground scene, but then I also felt why shouldn't we call what we do 'reggae' or 'dub' that's where we come from and we should get recognition for the works we do, still for me I try and remain positive, I don't want to sit and make music I don't like just to make some money so I keep on with my music...reggae.