Interview: Zomboy Speaks on Dubstep, Pre-Planned Sets, and the Art of Making an Album

Thoughtful, humble, driven, and grounded are just a few of the ways you could describe Joshua Mellody, the 23-year-old producer better known as Zomboy. After bursting on to the scene in August of 2011 with his debut, Game Time, Zomboy found himself in the thick of EDM's biggest explosion yet. He's since released another EP, The Dead Symphonic, toured the world playing festivals everywhere, and he's only really beginning to heat up.

Despite all the success “Zom” has thus far avoided the pitfalls that often come with being a DJ. Staying after his shows to meet each and every fan, "Zom" listens to his fans tell him the same thing over and over as he heard it the night before in another city, candidly offering that his fame was "all a bit silly, really.” More than that, Zomboy travels light; no tour manager and no photographer, Zomboy operates as a one-man band. Just hearing Zomboy talk, it’s clear that he’s keenly aware of his position; a self-awareness often missing from today’s biggest stars.

He takes his craft seriously and treats it with professionalism, but at the same time he exhibits a sense of wisdom and laidback intensity. He’s a musician who’s worked hard and, with a bit of luck, he’s been able to turn it into a living. Air-scratching, womping, and head-banging as hard as his fans, Zomboy brings a bass-face mean as anyone and he puts on a show. But after the shows he's back to being Josh. He’s not an idol and doesn’t want to be treated as such. Quick to hit you with his spot-on Hank Hill impression ("damn it Bobby!") or giddily showing off his forays into iPhoneography, his smile widens as he shows the countless filtered pictures he's taken on his travels. Surely he has his label Never Say Die Records behind him, but at the end of the day he's the one making all the decisions and all the right moves.

"I started and it was sort of like an overnight thing. My background is engineering for bands and producing bands, but when I first moved to university, all of my flatmates started showing me all this new electronic music, and because I grew up in a small town, it hadn’t gotten all this electronic music filtered down to it. So it was all hardcore, metal for me.

"I used to listen to hip-hop when I was really young, my brother made me listen to it. I kind of liked it, but hip-hop was really the only kind of music out there I had heard of and I’ll just call it electronic music because it wasn’t like a band. Rap, hip-hop, and R&B was the only real exposure I had to electronic music, so I literally had no idea about it other than what you heard on the charts or radio, but I can’t tell you what I heard because I was so close-minded, and all I wanted to listen to was metal, so I’d tell people off saying ‘I just want to listen to metal’ [laughs loudly]

"I was definitely the cliché metal head, musically speaking, I was so narrow-minded."

"I had literally never ever even looked at or considered being a DJ in my life. I started with the S4 because I had one week to learn how to DJ. So I was just like well I haven’t got enough time to learn how to use CDJs or certainly not vinyl.’ So I did a bit of research and thought ‘right Traktor, which means I’ve got sync buttons if I need to fall back on it from time to time.’

"But then obviously I released my first EP and my label [the SKisM-founded Never Say Die Records] was just like ‘alright you’ve got your first show in a week!’ and I was just like ‘[gasps for air]’ [laughs] and it was at Ministry of Sound in London as well.

"Anytime I have an issue, I go to SKisM and get advice from him and he’s always got my back, which is great, having him behind me. And he has to help me! He’s my boss, so it’s even in his best interest as well. It’s not like I’m going to some other random DJ who’s not affiliated with me and begging for help! So it’s good having him there."

"Controllers are awesome. I’ve found comfort in it because it’s easy to use and I picked it up straight away, but now I just feel like it’s a comfort zone more than anything. I want to spread out on CDJs but I haven’t had the time to properly pick them up and do what I do live with the S4 but on CDJs, which I technically can now with the whole HID control and I can literally map CDJ-2000s out to work exactly like the S4, because you can use all of them as MIDI mappings and control everything in Traktor through it as well. So it’s just going on to a bigger console and not having to take the S4 around. It’s also getting used to a bigger setup and getting comfortable. I just need a decent enough break from touring to just get on with it and be able pick it up.

"All that said, I use it more for sample decks and sometimes even a triple mix, but never four. I’d never go into four like SKisM and his four CDJs, but I do utilize it's options. I tend to keep it semi-basic, just because that gives me all the time to get the energy and things right because the main thing that put me off to going on to standalone CDJs was the fact that it does take a lot of time to get everything into the mix, make sure everything is perfect and always keeping track of things and it takes the time away, so it looks like we’re just standing there a lot and it takes away from the performance aspect. If you can just shove it in straight away and then work the crowd and play with them, it works so much better."

"I had only a week to learn how to DJ. I did my research; first all the technical research and then actual DJ research and started watching all these videos of all these DJs performing live. I just noticed how fucking boring they all were and was just like ‘C’mon, people pay so much money to come out and see a show, at least give them a show! Don’t just stand there and play what someone could listen to on a mixtape at home.'

"It’s not like the the old days where you’re paying to see a DJ. You’re paying to see a producer/performer now [light laugh], and they’re there to hear the music. It’s definitely down to track choice as well, but simplistically, they’re pretty much there to get what they’re given as well. At the same time, you’ve got to give a performance, a show and give people a reason to come back to you!"

"My sets are quite anally planned out, actually.

"I’ve been using pretty much the same similar set for about the last six months, until now. I just completely revamped it and put in a lot more of my new stuff and loads of new stuff I’ve gotten on promo, so this will be the first time I’ll be playing out this particular new set. I go in this way because I like to have everything melodically matched and not just randomly choosing two songs that are in the same key, because I like to make sure the actual songs work together before I play them out. So I’ve pretty much got a pre-planned set, like a set list. I might stray off depending if something is just not going off, like say if I was playing some trap and people were just like ‘eh’ and so I’ll be like ‘alright, I’ve got to quickly get out of this’ but I pretty much normally just stick to quite a strict set.'

"People can know what they want, but to be clear I do change it up every set, it’s just a very good guideline for me. It’s an anal basic guideline [laughs]. I know a lot of DJs that will do partially what I’m doing and partially not. So it’ll be loads of pre-planned sections rather than one big set planned. They’ll have say a ten minute run of tunes planned that they can bring in whenever they want and then another set of fifteen minutes of a set and just rearrange it and they can change it depending on the crowd, but I pretend to. But I’m pretty prepared if worst comes to worst and people really just aren’t feeling it I can go off and do something quickly."

"I don’t drink, smoke weed or do drugs. I smoked loads of weed when I was 13-14 but gave it up because it didn’t add much and it ultimately slowed me down and eroded my ambition a bit. Never did a Class-A drug either (MDMA is in this category). Now I just smoke cigarettes and drink coffee. I find that they just slow me down and take away from what I’m trying to do.

"I find it really unprofessional when I see DJs getting absolutely smashed on stage or before a set. There are some DJs who can do that and then still put on a great set, but it’s like that’s not the point. It’s unprofessional."

"I’m always writing. Like my thing is that I’m always writing; on the road, in hotel rooms, planes, backstage, I never write at home in my studio anymore. I can’t find inspiration for it.

"I’m a bit more diverse than some others who might only stick to one genre and just pursue it until hopefully someone picks it up or they get known for that genre. Me, I’ve got no real dead-set passion on any particular genre and I just love writing music.

"I’ll see what’s going off and I might try some of that and then back and forth... haven’t actually written a dubstep track in ages. It’s all been electro recently, [as well as] drumstep, trap and more 110 BPM tunes. Well, I’ve written one dubstep track in the last two months, which is kind of weird considering that’s kind of what I got my name for, but that’s because I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time. When I released my first EP, Game Time, I had only been producing electronic for about two months, and the whole The Dead Symphonic EP was completely written, mixed and mastered from start to finish on my MacBook and Beats headphones. No one else touched this, so from start to the released final product it was just me."

"It's been around since the early 2000s, and over a decade later it’s made its ultimate, its highest peak. I think even if it dies down a bit, it’s still going to be huge for at least the next couple of years before it starts completely evolving.

"I think what people took from it was the ridiculous synthesis and creative engineering behind the dubstep genre itself rather than the format of it. I think everyone came to the realization that dubstep was slowly getting a bit boring and everyone was trying to do it, so they took the key basics of dubstep and put into other formats and genres. It’s basically that all these artists that are known for dubstep have gone into different things, so if you put their tracks on it’ll sound like a dubstep track, but it’s not necessarily 140 BPM.

"I feel like the engineering is all exactly the same, and it’s the same as what I would kind of do. They’ve got their signature sounds, but to a completely basic level, it’s just what BPM they put it at. It’s certainly not going to die out anytime soon as people still love it. Producers are just having a lot more fun experimenting around it. I mean, looking at the whole scheme of the whole electronic dance music; the heavy stuff actually takes up a quite small portion of it. Take trap, it’s more just groovy.

"I wouldn’t say trap is heavy at all… I mean there are people trying to make that cross over, but I don’t really agree with it. I think trap is trap and it shouldn’t be really mixed with, at least too much. But who am I to say, really? Someone could do it really well and it’d be awesome… but who am I to say? I think this heavy, tear-out stuff is the one with the shelf life."

"There’s got to be a bit of strategy behind it. I can’t just release free music all the time. I think it’s bad just churn out and just keep releasing all the time; it doesn’t give a feel of exclusivity or anything. Doing that feels like it’s more ‘oh that’ll do, check it out. Oh that’s cool, check it out.’ It’s good to make people wait a bit, there’s more anticipation. But also, playing that way is obviously hard because you might miss out on a trend or a big thing. I always have current ideas, but whether they’ll get released in the right time or at all, is a different matter altogether.

"It’s kind of worrying because you see something trending and then you think you should probably get on to that, and try to tie the trends in with a release date. But those are two completely different.

"Like trap is big right now, and I’ve written a trap track, but it probably won’t be released until the next EP, which will be another three months. And by that time, trap could have just died out again, like that whole kind of moombahton thing. It’s frustrating but at the same time it’s the sort of thing you’ve got to be prepared for and just move with it."

"It’s everywhere, especially in the States. The amount of commercials with dubstep tracks in them is quite a lot and it’s funny to me. But I don’t know, that’s a hard one. It’s hard thing to predict where these things are going, and there’s always these little subgenres battling it out.

"It’s crazy and I kind of like the fact that it’s unpredictable and you don’t know which way it’s going to go or what’s going to be the next big thing, and that’s the good part of it. No one really knows where it’s going to go, and that’s exciting to see where it’s going really. And there’s no point trying to predict it or condemn it or anything like that, so just go with it and see where it goes.

"It’s definitely getting hugely commercialized, and a lot more topliners and vocals coming in and people are following live acts. It almost feels like it’s just going to go back [full] circle and go back to the band, so people like Modestep might be looked upon [as] pioneers and while it might not be the thing right now, it’ll be like those guys were doing it from the start; they were the originators of it. It’ll go a lot back towards being based around a four-piece band experience, maybe with the whole crossover of electronic music. The main areas are like your Tiëstos, deadmau5s, and very light but feel good house music. I reckon house music in general will always be around.

"As for EDM as a whole, I’d probably give no more than three or four years, I think, before the next thing starts slowly emerging."

"Personally, I feel an album needs to have a full concept behind it, not just a collective. Which is why I love EPs. If it was my choice and it didn’t mean I had to progress on to albums, I’d just do EPs and singles forever. I mean there are people like NERO who absolutely killed it with their album and that’s just a beautiful piece of art. But they have that kind of freedom because they weren’t really listed as one kind of genre.

"I think I’m in the wrong kind of music, the wrong kind of class or genre to do an album.

"If you’re going to do an album the right way, there’s a lot of work. It’s not just a collective of ten tracks. An album to me has to have a concept; it has to be a piece. It has to be a piece of art, a creative statement. It’s not just a ‘I wrote ten tracks and here they are on one CD’ sort of thing. It has to have movement. It has to be relative and that’s a hard thing to do. A lot of people do the album thing wrong. I’ve seen it, and it’s just think ‘ugh’… it’s not like I’ve released two EPs and now it’s like ‘let’s do an album.’ I probably wouldn’t want to say anyone in particular, but there are definitely a couple of ones that have just felt that way. But I mean, if it works for them, it works."

"I'm looked upon basically as heavy dance music, and I think it’d pretty hard to break that. If it ever got to the point where I was just was like ‘this is bullshit and I want to just do this,' then I guess just I’d start a new side-project and re-invent myself and start something else. Everyone does it. I mean you’ve got SKisM (CTRL-Z), 12th Planet (Infiltrata), Kill the Noise (Ewun), Feed Me (Spor), a whole bunch. They started as one thing and reinvented as another, I mean anyone can do it. It’s just doing it at the right time. They all did it at the right time and I’m sure many others will do it again in the future at the right time.

"I’ve been getting into more experimental music and stuff like Gold Panda, Rustie, and people like that; the future bass, and that kind of stuff. It’s just awesome to hear a different take on electronic music. I’d like to do something on the side like that.

"That said, it's a bit too stripped back for Zomboy and it could potentially hurt the Zomboy brand. It just wouldn’t work and it’d be too much of a leap; and that’s doing an album and incorporating it like that, and that’s not something I’m thinking about right now. Perhaps in the future, but right now I’m more about just rinsing the harder stuff, basically while I still can.

"It’s something I’d maybe consider. I’m not saying Zomboy is ending anytime soon, but it’d be nice to go on to something else after it’s all died down a bit."