Leeroy Silk
Leeroy is a bit of a late starter to deejaying and music production. He started on the decks about 10 years ago and got into beat making about 5 years ago, so he’s a relative newcomer. He has always been a raver and was around when the jungle scene first began kicking off, travelling to London for nights out as well as being a regular patron of the legendary Beach Comber in his home city of Brighton. "I kind of just fell into deejaying" he says. "Deejaying back then wasn't really as common as it is now and out of all of my friends, only one had a set of decks, he showed me how to beat match and that was it, I never looked back". Leeroy kicked off his vinyl collection buying Old Skool Hardcore, eventually adding Jungle and Acid House to it. "I'm a huge music lover and I was brought up on a strict diet of Motown, Disco & Rare Groove. I remember in 1989 at the young age of 10 I got a deep heat 89 tape pack and found a music that I had never heard before, electronic music. I was blown away by the sounds I was hearing and at the time I thought it sounded so futuristic, Warehouse music was my first love and that seed was planted. This was the year I also discovered rap and the works of De La Soul, I then went on to broaden my horizon with many, many different genres of music". Today if you were to catch Mr Silk at home, you’d find him playing any kind of music from Reggae to Punk Rock, Classical to Drum N Bass and all things in between. Leeroy has had his hand in pushing and supporting local DJs and producers for a while now, at one point even running a pirate station with over 30 regular DJs of varying styles and musical backgrounds performing. Some of the DJs he attracted to the station were the likes of Ed Solo & JFB, Hizzle Guy & Chef, along with a whole host of MCs and local DJs. With the vast musical knowledge Leeroy gained from the radio, he set his mind on becoming a producer, feeling he couldn't really achieve much more from deejaying alone and needing a new challenge. "It was the next logical step to take" Leeroy says. "Having a family around this time and some personal issues to deal with kind of took the main focus in my life away from music, so I was held up by about 5 years, until I got the time to actually start learning how to make music, hence why I'm relatively late in getting into this side of things". One of Leeroy's best pals (DJ Disrupta) decided to team up with him and together they became Vital Link, Drum N Bass (crime fighting) duo rocking all styles of DnB. It was then on the advice of Placid (Playaz Recordings) & Ed Solo (Undiluted) that they start up their own label.
