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Shaun Escoffery Interview
Updated 31 October
 East-Londoner Shaun Escoffery - the man behind club favorites 'Space Rider' and 'Days Like This' - performed four tracks on Gilles Peterson's One Live In Nottingham show at The Bomb. We met up with Shaun just before he took to the stage, to find out more about his music and his new album, 'Into The Blue'.
See photos from the show
What can we expect from your performance on Gilles' show?
I'm doing 4 songs from the album, which is out on 4th November. It's an acoustic thing, so it's slightly off what the original stuff sounds like, but we're just going to go there and kick it up. It's all different flavours - some kind of mellowy latiny things, just to give a different interpretation, but it's quite up in your face, I'm looking forward to it.
You've been picked up by the 'tastemakers' at Radio 1 - Gilles, Trevor Nelson, The Dreem Teem - how do you feel about that?
I love it. At the beginning, just hearing my music on the radio, I thought, my gosh, they're playing my stuff! But they've been really supportive, and really understading of where I'm coming from, so it's encouraging.
 You've had lots of critical acclaim with singles 'Space Rider' and 'Days Like This' - what have you been up to recently?
I've been touring with Beverly Knight, and I've played with Erykah Badu and Angie Stone. It's going at a really nice pace - not too fast. People are starting to grow with me and discover what I'm doing with my music, not just over here, but in America. I've been going to New York doing stuff with Louie Vega. There's a DJ Spinna mix for 'Days Like This' out there, and Louie Vega started playing in, loved it, and made it No.1 in his club chart for ages. He came over here to do Gatecrasher, and said I'd love you to come down and do a little spot on my set, and it started off from there really. I went to New York, France, Amsterdam and because he's been going all over the place, basically everyone knows it. It's exciting times.
You've been picked up by so many different kinds of scenes - house, garage, rnb - where do you see yourself fitting in?
I've never really wanted to fit in any kind of genre of music. I look at it, and I think I'd be cutting myself short in a way. I just want to make music. It turns out that I've made these tunes that fit into certain niches, but not in any one thing in particular. So seeing these DJs that are into the garage thing, the house thing, who champion the track, it's what I set out to do.
 Who've you been working on the album with?
Jonny Bull - he's in a band called Rialto, he produced some stuff on there, 4 Hero, Geoffrey Williams... it's quite eclectic. Breakbeats, some organic elements, broken beats, ambient sounds, but underlying soulfulness going through the whole thing. I love strong melodies, and songs that actually mean something, it's not just 'Baby, baby, baby, I love you...', it's slightly deeper than that, but not too deep that people lose it. Making this album, I wanted to be as honest as I could be with myself, not just how the tracks turn out, but lyrical content, emotional content. So when I'm performing, it's coming from somewhere real, and the audience can see that, and I can draw them in a bit more. It's not just a performance, I'm really giving something off.
Have you got any plans to go on tour?
It's going to be early on next year. I did a few gigs to launch the album, which were really well-received, but it's mostly going to be next year now.
What are you listening to at the moment?
I've just bought the new Me'Shell N'DegeOcello album, 'Anthropology Of MixTapes' - it's mad, it's just a wicked album. I love her albums. I'm also listening to St. Germain, and Rae & Christian. I'm actually doing a remix album too. Jazzanova are getting involved in that, Koop, St. Germain, Cam - a good European thing going on there. They've all picked the tunes they want to remix, so I'm going to go over there an re-vocal the stuff. It's going to be hot!
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