An interview with Pendulum's DJ, El Hornet

An interview with Pendulum's DJ, El Hornet

19 April, 2012
by: Lowri

El Hornet on returning to his club roots.

El Hornet – aka Paul Harding – is the DJ from Pendulum, the massive drum and bass super-group who have toured virtually every festival on the planet. He is touching down at Cable this Saturday to perform a DJ set for Shogun Audio with MC Verse in tow. We caught up with him to talk drum and bass history and production heroes.

How did you hook up with Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen to form Pendulum?

I had been playing gigs for about 4 years in Perth when we met. I first met Gareth actually. He used to ask me to play this particular Kemal tune and the tech sound of drum and bass was really our thing at that point so I'd see him at gigs quite often. Rob and Gareth had been asked to play a live PA at a Perth producers showcase, which was at the drum and bass club I was a resident at and ended up helping run - The Drumclub. There was a meltdown in Rob's studio and he lost all the stuff on his project hard drive. They asked me to play the tunes they'd planned on playing that night, but in a DJ set. Armed with 3 CD's, I played a couple of tunes I'd made, a couple Rob had made and like 4 tracks Gareth had done on his own.

I guess at that point I knew I was on the same page as them and we decided to work on some music, 'Vault' was created shortly afterwards. I say shortly, because 10 years later it all seems like a bit of a blur, but I remember Rob had spent about 1,000 hours making the sickest Reese bassline known to man, which became the basis for our first few tracks. Neither of them were like anyone I'd encountered in the Perth scene and from the start we seemed to share a lot of the same ideas about what direction we wanted the project to go in. We just wanted to make each track better than the last and take the thing as far as it could possibly go.

You see a whole range of people at your gigs - they often unite rock and metal fans with ravers - do you think the cultural gap between metal and dance music is closing?

I am not so sure. I think drum and bass successfully bridged that gap musically a few times throughout its existence but dubstep, I'm not so sure.  That said, it seems the newer generations of music audiences are approaching things with a much broader mindset. Music has also changed quite considerably of late. I think electronic music in part has been hugely influenced by rock to the point where rock music simply doesn't often have the same impact as dance music does now because it doesn’t have the polished production and sonic values of dance music.

Shogun Audio is renowned for being an underground drum & bass event.  Will you change things up for your set?

Definitely. I am a guest at this night, and as a fan of the label I'll definitely play a set that respects the great music it has released through the last 8 years. I've got my work cut out for me though. I started preparing for this set when I bought my first 12" in 1998. Those who expect a set full of Pendulum music - this isn't the time or the place for that. My heart lies first and foremost within Pendulum and the music we made together, but I'm as much a 'head' as anyone at a Shogun night and this set will be a good representation of my love for all elements of drum and bass music.

'Bass' music has been getting heavier and heavier, with the likes of Skrillex, Bare Noise etc. Do you think it's going to get heavier still? What do you think is next?

Where is there left to go? I'm not talking just musically, but sonically too. It's not physically possible to really go any louder than people are currently. Even some of the guys responsible for the tear-out sound have to take a step back periodically. The next step of progression as demonstrated throughout the evolution of hardcore, jungle and drum and bass is for it to increase in tempo. So if suddenly all these dubstep producers find themselves bored by 140bpm I'd love to hear what they can do at 174.

DJ and production influences? Inspirations?

DJ-wise I've always been hugely inspired by Carl Cox, Jeff Mills, Andy C, Craze, Randall, Greg Packer, Friction amongst others. I think I'm finding it harder and harder to find anything impressive about current day DJs though. I feel the music, but rarely do I see it delivered in any way that is impressive. A whole hour worth of huge, smashing tunes with super short intros that really don't require any mixing doesn't excite me.  A DJ I've never heard of who is just going to play an hour of tear-out dubstep thinking its going to get him famous doesn't excite me. I miss the skill set of actual DJing and the apprenticeship you had to complete to actually qualify to be on the decks. My favourite DJs all learnt their craft when record-buying, crate-digging and dubplate-cutting was the only way you could play a set of music.

Production influences change weekly. There are always people you can rely on for a consistent output, and then there's that 16-year-old kid that appeared last week with a mixdown so insane it blows away anything else you've heard in the last year. I like being surprised and with the ease of producing simply on a laptop that seems to happen more and more often now.

Last DJ set/act you completely lost it to?

I played at Future Music Festival recently in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in a huge tent filled with around 7,000 locals going mental. Straight after me was The Chemical Brothers who I am a huge fan of so I was stoked to see them play. I wasn't ready for how incredible the next hour was going to be though! They turned off all the stage lights, all the strobes, pretty much most of the lights inside the tent and within the space of maybe 2 tunes they transformed that place into something reminiscent of a massive warehouse rave. I hadn't felt a vibe like that forever and was just so blown away! To their credit they are amazing DJs and were even playing vinyl at some points in the set. Huge acid lines, some pure headfuck techno and breaks. Truly amazing. And the first part of the set was off vinyl too!

We run a feature called Dancefloor Bombs every Friday - what is your fail-safe tune to smash up a dancefloor?

It really depends where I am and who's in the club but I've been guilty of drawing the High Contrast remix of 'Show Me Love' by Robin S. If the place is full of girls. Or if we're in Ibiza. Or at a festival. I can't deny that tune! Apart from that even though we made it almost 7 years ago our track 'Tarantula' never fails to make people lose it.

Catch El Hornet performing a Pendulum DJ set at Cable on Saturday night for Shogun Audio.

Lowri