Proper Juicy

It is said that there’s a fine line between madness and genius. Pete Cannon and Dirty Dike walk that thin line with elegance and skill. Both wield inquisitive minds driven by a desire for excellence in their respective fields that makes them a powerhouse of creativity when they combine forces. Following a rich history of making sweet, sweet music together they’ve decided to take things a step further and build a record label. Nothing too unusual there, you might think? Well then you clearly haven’t been paying attention. I grabbed my tinfoil hat and went down the rabbit hole to get the goods on what they’re up to this time!

So, what’s the story behind the name Melonskin Records?

‘It was 2005 and I was at the Strawberry Fair’ explains James. ‘I was on lots of LSD and I bought this melon and scooped out the inside. I spent the day walking around slapping people with the remains shouting “MELON SKIN” and someone started calling me Mr Melonskin and I put it in a verse on my very first album and the rest is history.’

‘See, I didn’t even know that.’ Pete looks delighted. ‘There you go. I thought it was just because you know, twisting your melon, using your melon.’

James - We were going to go for...

Pete -Daiquiri Records!

‘What happened to Daiquiri Records?’ I enquire.

‘There is a Spanish house label called Daiquiri Records. Melonskin is better. And weirder.’ Replies James.

‘Going back to basics, how did you two meet?’

There’s a pause and some head scratching.

Pete - Fuckin’ hell

James - I know this!

Pete - Hmm, I don’t!

‘Years and years and years and years ago’ begins James, ‘we all lived in Brighton. Contact Play. We met Leaf Dog, BVA and DJ Filthy Fingers, otherwise known as The Three Amigos.

They had beats on their projects that were like, WHOA, what are these? Their production was much better than ours. We had quite crusty beats from our friend who didn’t really make hip hop from Cambridge. We would literally rap on anything back then, because we were like, “sick, is that a beat? Wicked! Can we rap on it?” Whereas, they had proper sounding shit. There was one producer called Naive, who went on to make Baxter’s first album, and the other guy was called Pete, they produced in this crew called Tactical Thinking. They had a particular sound and we fucking wanted it. So, we poached them.’

Pete clearly isn’t convinced by this answer ‘But when did we first meet? I can’t remember.’

James - It would have been a gig somewhere?

James - Beer and rap!

There’s a moment of triumph. But just a moment.

‘It wasn’t there though.’ James says, a little crestfallen. ‘Because I don’t think I’d been to many of them. Was the first time we met on the Return Of The Twat video shoot?’

You can tell there’s now some serious memory digging going on behind Pete’s eyes and it’s becoming clear that this particular bit of musical history might be lost to the winds of time.…. ‘I think it may have been.’

James - ‘I invited you down because I wanted you to get cream pied in the head.’

‘The first time I met him I took a fucking cream pie in the face.’ Pete confirms.

I can’t help but wonder how anyone could forget that.

‘And how long ago was that?’

‘2013.’ A concerned look crosses Pete’s face. ‘In fact, surely it was nights out in London with Dylan and the rest of Tactical Thinking freestyling on a bus.’

‘Yeah! We were with Stig and all that. Freestyles on a bus. And Syntax had just moved to London…And it was the ‘Chester P Five-Word Freestyle’ thing.’

It seems a consensus has been reached.

Pete looks excited, ‘You’ve got to check out the footage of James rapping in that freestyle. It’s very rowdy. Rowdy young James. It’s on YouTube’

‘Jump-Off filmed it. Stig hosted it. I was shagging people’s mums and all sorts in that freestyle.’ James laughs.

It’s all coming together now.

‘We began working on Return of the Twat.’ Says Pete.

‘I wanted one half of Return of the Twat produced by Pete and the other half by Naive. So the two super cheeses from Tactical Thinking produced half the record each.’

Pete grins ‘If you fancy a laugh at my expense, go and listen to the Tactical Thinking album as it has me rapping on it.’

Having escaped that brain maze I think it’s time to get what I originally came for.

‘What inspired you to set Melonskin up?’

‘An amalgamation of positive and negative experiences over the years inspired us to begin shaping a platform.

A vehicle for music. There were certain things that I found very restrictive; we all made hip hop but it all became very UK hip hop and Pete and I make much, much more than that.’

‘There’s a lot of music that Pete and I make that isn’t and wouldn’t fit into the demographic that we’ve kind of created for ourselves. The trouble is, labels often become pigeonholed because the content becomes too similar. I also knew there were certain things we could do to make the process more ‘friendly’ for artists, the first thing being to offer up greater freedom in a label setting. Our aim is to facilitate the individual needs of each artist. That comes first in every conversation we have, the label comes second.’

Pete chimes in, ‘We are artists ourselves. We totally understand that side of the game, so our aim is to lean on that knowledge to give artists a platform, across a real spectrum of genres. There’s going to be a smorgasbord of genres on Melonskin.’

James - ‘I think that covers it. Where are my Rizlas?’

Pete states ‘There are a few artists that we’re looking at, that we want to bring through as we see real…’

‘…Potential.’ James finishes for him. This habit of finishing each other’s sentences is very endearing and demonstrates how in tune they are with each other. ‘We want to help artists develop. The journey I’ve experienced, I’ve learned so much through trial and error. People often don’t give their music the TLC it deserves and I think sometimes it takes somebody else to come in and say, hold back on that, that’s really good. If you do it in this way and don’t rush it, people will respect it more.’

Pete agrees. ‘We have a breadth of people around us; musicians, graphic designers, videographers, you name it. So we can seamlessly put someone in touch with the relevant creatives to best bring out the spark. It’s that spark that we’re looking for first, then we begin trying to find ways to amplify it. CONNECTING THE DOTS.’

James, ‘It’s also fucking fun to develop an artist.’

Alright, so, what role do you feel your record label plays in today’s music climate?

James - ‘It’s a label built by artists for artists. Most labels don’t put the artist first, whereas, we offer bespoke contracts for each artist that caters for their specific needs based on their profile. If your figures and numbers aren’t great, then we need to work on developing you as an artist. So you’ll be treated differently because you need that to grow. If you’re an established artist who already has their thing firmly in place, you just need someone to hold the label stuff down that you don’t want to have to think about. We can do that too!’

‘The first question we will always ask is; “how would you like to present yourself?” Not, “how are we going to make you a part of our label?”

It’s the beauty of a genreless model; we sit in the background and facilitate each artist individually and specifically on their journey rather than our journey.’

Pete - ‘You’re not part of our journey. We’re part of your journey. ‘Also, two in-house producers, right here, me and James.’

James - ‘Most labels outsource all that stuff. But we aim to handle all of that in-house, which I think sets us apart, that we can actually have a significant input in realising the sound that an artist actually wants to achieve.’

Tell us more about the hardware you both use to make your own music?

‘We’re both fans of new, old, interesting, innovative ways of making music.’ Starts Pete.

James - ‘If Pete finds a keyboard on the street, we’re both like, “let’s go back to the studio and see what it does?”

“Oh, my God, it doesn’t do anything! That’s why they dumped it on the street.”

It could be the shittiest kids’ keyboard ever. But if it makes any kind of noise, or there is any potential to include it in a song somewhere, then that’s interesting to us.

It’s also about idea development, not just final results. It’s the process of getting somewhere; the hows and whys. If you’re just dragging and dropping samples that you took off the Internet, then whatever. But when there’s a story behind the process, that is what we’re most passionate about.’

“Like, what the fuck is that sound that you’ve put on there?”

“Ah, do you know what, that’s actually a pan from underneath the sink that we used to cook pasta in.”

They’re both laughing now.

Pete ‘Ahahaha! You did that the other day.’

James, ‘We run a studio and those sorts of experiments happen every day. Let’s bang this lampshade with a spoon and chop it up…’

Pete - ‘Both are great examples. There is a sound on one of James’s tracks where we were literally banging a lampshade. As artists, we’re just interested in pushing the envelope and creating music in interesting ways.’

Are there any other artists that have inspired you to make music this way?

Pete - ‘Oh, yeah, they’re always the ones that pique the interest, but you know, there’s loads of jungle producers who still use Amigas and stuff, but I don’t see anyone really making much hip hop in that way.’

The Kount is a great example of a hip hop producer who does all of his stuff live on the Fender Rhodes and live drums. It captures people’s imagination when they see someone making actual music in front of them. We like to think we do a similar thing that transcribes to the end product, via the process.

Anyone who’s just taking something from the kitchen cupboard and creating a sound out of it, that’s art in my book. It’s like, oh, I wouldn’t have fucking thought about that and it becomes interesting from the source. Like, “I don’t know if it’s a modular synth or a kids keyboard or making a fucking banger with a set of shoes”. Whatever it is, it works.’

For any music lover this project is a seriously exciting event. If it was anyone else I might feel a bit circumspect about a label based on genreless pots and pans but if anyone can, these two can.

Curious? Keep up to date with releases here: @melonskinrecords