London longtimer Trex is enjoying some well-deserved spotlight right about now.
Fresh from his most high profile release to date – Swamp Thing on Deadmau5’s Mau5trap imprint – so far this year he’s released on the likes of Dispatch, OCC, Sofa Sound, TReS-2b and, of course, Trust Audio, the label he runs with an old friend who started him on his rave journey in the first place.
Established 2016 and currently celebrating 50 releases, Trust Audio is a meaningful mission between two musical mates. The label comes from a different place to many other artist-run labels and is much more than a vehicle for self-promotion. In fact with a discog that sports names ranging from Madcap to Molecular, Teej to T>I, DLR to Dunk, Trex finds it hard to find his own spots on the schedule to release his own music.
Some has dropped recently though. The 50th release celebrations comprise three beefy missives: First came a danger doubler from the currently unavoidable SMG, complete with a remix of Trex & T>I’s Return To Sender.
A few weeks back came an even meatier four piece from Teej entitled Street Inheritance. One of Teej’s grizzliest collections so far, it too features a Trex cameo in the form of Optimist.
Rounding off the 50 trio this week is Sandworm and Mercy Mercy, two new link-ups between the bossman and T>I, a collaboration that we announced when we launched in June 2022 and has been flourishing ever since on labels like Trust, Metalheadz and Benny L’s TReS-2B.
Listen closely and you’ll hear them in this 100% Trust Audio mix Trex has made exclusively for 1 More Thing and read on as he tells us the story of Trust and flips the spotlight onto the future.
We’d also like to pause and raise our lighters for Randall. This interview was recorded and written prior to Randall’s passing last week but we wanted to highlight how influential he was on Trex’s career. One of the many talents to be mentored and nurtured by the jungle pioneer on his label Mac 2, Randall recognised Trex’s skills early doors, he embraced them and added a huge amount of fuel to the fire in the Trust Audio bossman that burns brighter than ever today. Rest in eternal peace.
So this is the story of Trust Audio. Let’s go back to the very beginning. It’s yourself and a man named Tommy Quest isn’t it?
Yeah, that’s right, my best pal Tommy who I’ve known for a very long time. I used to help out with raves in Plymouth right back in the day and I got sent down there by this promotion company when I was 19 to help to find out and find the local people. The first person they directed me towards was Tommy and straight away, we became mates through the music. He’s around seven or eight years older than me. He had all the vinyls for everything going back to acid house and all the old jungle tunes. I’d be there mixing all week. We hardly did any work! But yeah we put on raves down there for quite a long time.
I remember you saying before he was a bit like a kind of sensei for you really. He opened the doors for you…
He did yeah. And then as times gone on you know I’ve dipped in and out, as you do. I had a family, started a business, dabbled with making my own tunes and then, when I wanted to start my label, I was like straight away, ‘Tommy do you want to do it?’ Because he’s dedicated his life to this music but he’s never really left his mark in any way. And nor had I at that point when we started in 2016.
Go on that’s already that’s already more fulfilling than so many other labels. Most are just artists setting up label to put out their own music. This is about music reconnecting you with an old friend who is part of your foundation. The intention is very different.
Yeah and you can hear it in the music and the way we run the label. You know there’s a kind of vibe you can hear in the stuff that we signed. I do the A&Ring, I always run it by Tommy, but he does the kind of the other side of things. Some would say the boring side of things, but it’s not, it’s like it’s good because he wants to, he went up, he wanted to learn how to, to do it basically, it’s like a skill that he wanted to learn. The admin and paperwork and finance stuff. The stuff that needs to be done in order to run a respectable and professional label, but it takes the right brain to do it. I just want to make music, support artists and release the best music we can.
It’s a perfect combination. Was there a business plan or anything?
At the beginning we did not know what the fuck we were doing! Really we did not know for a good little while. Getting releases on like other labels and seeing how they do it was like ‘okay all right that’s how they’re doing that and you kind of learn as you go along don’t you?
So I picked up things from releasing on Sofa Sound, Mac II, AudioPorn and just seeing how all them boys did it and over time started to get more and more organized. I think it takes around 20 releases to really find your way and your sound. That’s how it was for us and it was running parallel with me developing my sound as Trex. So as I got better, the label was picking up as well and I could start to get other artists on board and get better tunes signed.
It’s also attracting like-minded souls isn’t it? When you show consistency you magnetize towards each other. When I look through the list of people on the label, guys like Hexa, Chris Kastro. These are people known to me and I know that they’re cut from a similar cloth to you. They’re real.
Yeah I work with some really good artists. T>I of course. SMG is flying right now. Medic MC is killing it. He’s Goldie’s MC now. Digital, Jappa, Clearance, Portrait, DLR. Oli Lewis is a wild genius who sends me so much stuff. Also Dunk, Covert Garden, Missing, Madcap, Myth, Stokka, Molecula, Philth. I could go on and on. Some people are on the label for a while, some just for a remix, but we do have some amazing people working with us. It’s actually got to the point I was like, ‘Shit, I’ve got to start releasing some of my own music because I’m losing momentum!’
The endless juggle!
I wasn’t too concerned because I want my artists to do well, I want us to pay them on time and pay them what they deserve. Quite often we take the hit on the artwork because we know it will do better with that type of presentation. I gotta shout our art guys actually. They’ve really given us that extra edge and professional look. They also did the artwork for my Metalheadz release and my Mau5trap release.
Yes! Tell us about Swamp Thing!
Deadmau5 just started hitting me up and told me he was into my music! I was actually sitting with my daughter at the time. She was having a tantrum in my in my arms and I was chatting to him at the same time. It was quite surreal. She was kicking off but I wanted to keep on talking to him because you never know if you’ll get another chance to have that type of conversation. Then a few hours later he bigged me up on Instagram. My followers went up by about 900 in one day which was crazy. Then the next day someone from the label hit me up and asked me for any demos. I sent quite a few bits over and they took Swamp Thing.
That’s awesome. You get the vibe that Deadmau5 genuinely loves D&B and he’s had involvement in the game before working with guys like Spor/Feed Me. Some of the EDM attention on D&B isn’t authentic but I feel like it is with Deadmau5…
Yeah totally. He said in an interview about the craft, ‘I can tell instantly when I hear some music whether that artist has learned it the proper way and they’ve developed their own sound’. Like they’ve put in their 10,000 hours you know? He said he can tell within a minute. That was the moment I had full faith in him.
Flipping that back to Trust Audio. Do you think you can tell the real ones when you’re being sent demos now?
Yeah I think so. Oli Lewis is a prime example. Every time he sends stuff over it’s like ‘mate fucking hell!’ He’s actually a genius, I think.
Yeah I’ve got a lot of time for him too!
He’s got albums worth of material! It’s mad. And of course T>I. You can hear his stuff from a mile away. I would say SMG is finding a very distinct sound. Teej has got his own very minimalistic kind of take on things that I really like. He’s really coming into his own now, he’s got an old school sound as well.
I’m loving that Slick Rick tune!
Yeah that’s a vibe. It’s not very commercial drum & bass, not at the forefront right now, but it will come back.
I mean that’s what you’re looking for as a label boss, right? You’re looking for something that isn’t happening elsewhere in the scene. How would you say the sound of Trust has changed over the last eight years?
Well the quality of the mixes, especially my own mixdowns, now compared to the early releases, has obviously improved. I think generally though Trust Audio has always been stuff that I like regardless of style or whatever. If I don’t vibe to it, or it doesn’t make me move, then I’m not having it. Even with my own tunes you know? As long as it’s still got a funk to it, a flavour or a vibe then I’m listening.
I like that. So what comes up next now?
So there’s been three parts to the 50th release. First was SMG. Then T>I and me. Then Teej. After that, I’ve got some remixes coming in. I did a remix comp on Patreon with my old track Dopamine and there were some really good remixes. I’ve also got a Bennie remix and then a R3IDY one. We are also starting a new series of releases called Codes which will allow us to bring in more new talent and support more new music from the artists already established on the label including myself. So yeah, loads of things going on and I’m really enjoying it at the moment, you know. Let’s see if we can get to 100! The demos are still flying in, the labels got a good name for itself, we have amazing artists who want to release with us, so yeah we’ll just keep on going and keep it moving. Next stop, 10 years…
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