Loco & Jam Interview

Loco & Jams' 'Twisted Minds' EP, released last week, is already up in the Beatport techno Top 10 thanks to the pair's golden touch for muscular, techy grooves. With Northern Irish duo Lloyd Reid and James Peoples behind the moniker, they have a busy summer ahead including a forthcoming remix of Green Velvet anthem 'Flash' and a release on Hot Since 82's much hyped Knee Deep In Sound label. 

Catching them at the peak of this wave is Sabajaq, where Loco & Jam appear on Saturday June 25th alongside D-Unity, Alberto Ruiz, Vinicius Honorio and more. Buy tickets here. We caught up to Lloyd before this to find out more about the Northern Irish scene, the story behind their breakthrough track 'Medusa' and whether they really do like jam... 

You're from Northern Ireland. Where did you grow up and are the Irish as mad for it as their reputation suggest? We're assuming that's how you got the Loco in your name... 

“We grew up in a small town called Limavady and a village called Ballykelly in Co. Derry. The Irish love to party. Over here what we call 'social drinking' is known in other countries as alcoholism! “On a serious note, how the name Loco came about was that back in 2004 I spent the season as a worker and wanna be DJ in Ibiza. One of the apartments I shared was with a Spanish guy. To cut a long story short, I partied a little harder than I should have the whole season and he ended up calling me Mr Loco!” 

In such a small country, was there much going on locally when you were starting out or were your sights always set further afield? How does playing to a home crowd differ to elsewhere? 

“When we started out the club scene was quite small. In Northern Ireland you had only two clubs playing techno, which were Shine and The Stiff Kitten in Belfast. Unfortunately we still haven’t had the chance to play Shine, but we have played The Stiff Kitten three times and have to say the atmosphere and sound in there are amazing! It closed its doors a few years back. 

"At the start we put on a lot of our own parties in small venues and bars. Apart from playing Lush in Portrush on NYE just past, we don’t get the chance to play in Northern Ireland as much as we would like. All our shows tend to be international, or some in Dublin in the South. When we do get the chance to play here in front of our own friends, family etc. it's a special feeling that you can’t get anywhere else.” 

Can you tell us the story behind 'Medusa', which seems to have been your breakout track. Did you realise you had such a big hit on your hands when you wrote it? Why the mythical reference? 

“Wow, 'Medusa' is a track we wrote many years ago. It's a funny one because we sat on it for months not sending it to labels as we felt it wasn’t finished.. We felt there wasn’t enough happening in it and it was under produced! We always wanted to do more work to it until we let Fergie hear it in its original state! He immediately said this track is a hit and so we signed it to his label Rekluse! It stayed in the Beatport charts for over six months and got us a lot of recognition and our first of many international gigs!” 

Your latest track is on Tronic. How did you link up with Christian? 

“We first met Christian back in 2010/11 in Slovenia! We played Umek’s festival Dan Elektronike together. Funny story about that one actually….. I was standing talking to Christian backstage and he had a bottle of I think whisky in his hand! He offered me a drink. James thought he was a waiter and asked him to go back to the bar with a separate order! We hadn’t actually been in touch with him after that until a few months back were we sent him some promos for Tronic and he signed two releases…” 

What does twist your minds most in life? 

“To be honest, I’m the one who gets stressed about stuff really quick and James is so relaxed! Two things really stress and twist my mind. One is having an unproductive studio day.. One of those days where just nothing is working and coming together, and this happens more than the successful days! Another is turning up to a club with a shit sound system. I don’t care about pretty lights and decor. If the sound is shit then so is the party! Give me a big sound system in a black room all day!” 

You've got the likes of Green Velvet and Hot Since 82 after you. Can you tell us some of the things you have coming up. 

“Green Velvet actually PMed me on Twitter a few months back asking us to remix him and Carl Craig’s track 'So What'. We did and it stayed in the Beatport charts for three months! Probably one his most famous tracks is 'Flash', and it's a track we have been playing for many years, even back to our vinyl days! It was actually our idea to reach out to him to remix him and he loved the idea. It's gonna be released on his label Relief Records, hopefully in the summer, so keep an ear out! 

"In regards to Daley, aka Hot Since 82, we got a personal email from him a few weeks back saying he’s a big fan of our stuff and wants us to send him some stuff for his label Knee Deep In Sound, so that's what we have penciled in for the end of June!” 

Do you actually like jam? If you're not genuine jam lovers, what is your spread of choice? 

“Yes, we both like jam a lot! But it ain't the spread of our choice! That would be a close call between Nutella or peanut butter.” 

What are three tracks that sum up what we can expect from your set at Egg? 

“What makes a Loco & Jam set that little different is you never know what your gonna expect! We don’t start slow and continually build up the pass, we like to take it up and down mixing in all style of techno! We like to keep you guessing! I'm just gonna list three tracks of ours with different styles that you might or might not hear on the night, but you will have an idea of how open our sound is!”