The Qemists Join The Q
Want to make it big in the record biz? Then become a teaboy at your favourite label. Everyone from ’80s pop puppet Rick Astley, to Cassius’ recently departed Philippe Zdar, started by brewing cuppas before churning out hits. The thinking is, if you loiter around long enough, your break will come. Just ask The Qemists.
“It’s true,” says Liam Black. “I started out making the teas for Coldcut in their studio before getting our break. They needed a drum & bass remix and an engineer points to me and says, ‘Liam and his mates make drum & bass, ask him’. That was it. They gave us 24 hours to turn something in. We did, and they signed us for an album off the back of it, without hearing anymore!”
Liam, along with Dan Arnold and Leon Harris, gave Coldcut, and their legendary Ninja Tune label, the heaviest record they would ever release. Join The Q, which turned ten this year, mixed rock and metal guitar energy with cutting edge electronic science, redefining the modern sound of drum & bass in the process.
“Everyone was saying at the time
