Author: Bradley Martinez

The next guest to add to our Frequent Player Guest Mix series is none other than DJ Stresh, French champion of Red Bull 3Style and vice champion of France of DMC in 2016. Good reading and good listening!

Before taking to the decks, we manage to grab some words from Stresh.

Footpatrol: Salut DJ Stresh, merci de nous accorder un peu de ton temps. Pour ceux qui ne te connaissent pas, est-ce que tu peux te présenter ? 

DJ Stresh: Salut, je suis donc DJ Stresh, originaire de Paris, à la fois DJ et beatmaker. J’ai remporté l’édition 2016 du Red Bull 3Style en France et j’ai été vice-champion de France DMC la même année. J’ai également accompagné pas mal de rappeurs sur scène (Youssoupha, Ali, Rocé…) 

FP: Est-ce que tu te souviens du moment où tu t’es dit “je veux devenir DJ” ? 

DJ Stresh: Ouais, ça a été très jeune. J’ai commencé par la danse. Puis j’avais un ami, avec qui je m’entraînais au break, qui avait un grand frère DJ dont il me passait les cassettes. J’allais chez lui, je regardais le matos et ça a commencé à m’intéresser. Puis je me suis mis à faire, un peu comme tout le monde, des mixes avec le poste cassettes vers l’âge de 12 ans. Ensuite, j’ai vraiment appris à mixer vers 13 ans grâce à un atelier d’initiation à la MJC où j’ai appris à caler les disques. Puis il m’a fallu du temps pour acheter mon matériel parce que ça coûtait cher à l’époque ! J’ai acheté ma première platine à 15 ans, puis ensuite premier taf, t’achètes tout le reste, tu t’entraînes et c’est parti ! 

FP: Il y avait des artistes qui t’ont inspiré à l’époque et/ou qui t’inspirent aujourd’hui ? 

DJ Stresh: Bien sûr ! Et c’est souvent les mêmes aujourd’hui qu’à l’époque. Après forcément en cherchant un peu tu en découvres toujours plus. Mais j’ai grandi avec la génération Cut Killer, Q-Bert, les Skratch Piklz, les Beat Junkies, Jazzy Jeff… D’ailleurs je n’ai découvert qu’en 1993 que Jazzy Jeffe était DJ, quand est sorti “Boom, Shake the Room” avec the Fresh Prince (Will Smith), parce que je le connaissais de la série “Le Prince de Bel Air” et je pensais que c’était juste un personnage : Jazz. 

FP: Tu as plein de casquettes aujourd’hui : DJ de soirée, DJ de compétition, DJ de scène, Beatmaker, un peu Inventeur avec le développement de Phase, Responsable de DJ City France… Tu peux nous parler un peu de chaque expérience ? 

DJ Stresh: En fait quand j’étais jeune, les DJ que je regardais, les Cut Killer, les Funk Master Flex… c’était des DJ qui faisaient plein de choses à la fois : de la production, qui étaient des DJ techniques ET de soirée. C’était pas forcément une évidence à l’époque et donc de cette façon ils étaient fédérateurs. 

Je ne me suis jamais fermé de portes quant à la musique et au DJing et la pluralité des activités qui en découlent. Parce qu’en étant DJ, tu peux aussi bien mixer en soirée, mais aussi faire des productions, monter ton propre label, etc… J’ai toujours aimé la musique, donc toutes les opportunités que je peux avoir pour travailler avec la musique et faire de nouvelles choses sont toujours les bienvenues. 

FP: Il ya quand même deux casquettes qui ne sont pas de la musique directement : le développement de Phase et la gestion de DJ City France. Tu peux nous en dire plus ? 

DJ Stresh: Pour faire simple, Phase est un objet connecté qui permet aux DJ de jouer leurs vinyles sans utiliser le bras et le diamant de la platine. 

J’étais en contact avec MWM depuis un moment, puisque j’avais participé à la vidéo promo du Mix Fader. J’allais souvent dans leurs bureaux. Et l’expérience DJ de scène m’a fait prendre conscience que l’utilisation de platines vinyles en live est remplie de galères : le rumble (NDLR : vibrations dues aux basses qui impactent les platines), le matériel trop vieux et mal ou pas révisé qui fait que ça ne fonctionne pas comme tu le voudrais… En fait il y a trop de facteurs à gérer pour que ta performance soit bonne. Et je regardais les gars qui jouent sur des controlers, sur Ableton ou sur des platines CD, qui arrivent juste avec leur clé ou leur câble USB et ça fonctionne direct ! Je me disais donc que c’était dommage qu’en voulant utiliser des platines vinyles, tu sois confronté à tant de galères indépendantes de ta volonté et qui ont un véritable impact sur ta performance. On pense souvent que c’est le DJ qui s’est loupé, mais en fait c’est le matériel qui est capricieux. Et donc je me suis dit que ce serait bien d’avoir une cellule sans fil, sans bras, qui serait directement connectée à un boitier et à l’ordinateur pour le signal numérique. Et les seuls gens que je connais, qui sont capables d’avoir la technologie et l’ingénierie pour le faire c’est MWM parce qu’avec Mix fader ils avaient déjà réussi. Je leur ai donc soumis l’idée, en leur demandant si c’est faisable. Au même moment, ils développaient leur signal radio et ce sont dit “pourquoi pas !”. De là, un prototype a été fait, jusqu’à la commercialisation l’année dernière. 

FP: Et finalement d’entre toutes ces casquettes, laquelle tu préfères ? 

DJ Stresh: Ce serait celle de base, celle de DJ passionné, qui va chercher du son, mixer, s’entraîner chez lui, puisque c’est comme ça qu’on a tous commencé en fait. Et tu fais tout ça pour mixer en soirée, pour faire danser les gens et avoir une réaction. 

FP: En 2016 tu as été vice-champion de France DMC et champion de France Red Bull 3Style. Tu es allé disputer la finale monde du 3Style au Chili. Raconte nous un peu ces expériences. 

DJ Stresh: Le Red Bull 3Style est une compétition de DJ qui a 10 ans aujourd’hui, dont la première édition avait eu lieu en France et avait été remportée par un Français, Aleqs Notal, qui s’appelait Karve à l’époque. 

J’ai commencé à mixer en 1998, entre 98 et 2016, il s’est quand même passé beaucoup de temps ! J’avais déjà fait quelques battles, mais rien de national. Et je vois l’annonce sur Facebook qui dit qu’il reste encore quelques jours pour s’inscrire. Je me dis “allez tente ta chance, t’as jamais fait de battle national”. Parce qu’à l’époque t’avais la pression sur les battles, notamment le DMC, t’avais du niveau en France ! On avait des légendes : Pone, Crazy B, Netik, Trouble… des gros gros gros DJ ! Donc c’est difficile de faire sa place ! Je sais qu’on est beaucoup de DJ qui n’ont pas voulu oser. 

Du coup je me suis dit que je n’avais rien à perdre, si je gagnais tant mieux, si je ne gagnais pas, c’était toujours une bonne expérience à prendre. Mais j’étais curieux ! Donc j’ai envoyé ma démo et j’ai été sélectionné. Puis j’ai remporté la finale nationale. 

Pour la finale mondiale, c’était autre chose ! T’as le poids du pays en fait. T’as encore deux sets à préparer, un pour le tour de qualification et un pour la finale si tu passes. Manque de chance pour moi, le futur vainqueur était dans ma poule de qualification, donc je n’ai pas pu accéder à la finale. 

Mais ça reste une super expérience ! J’ai rencontré énormément de monde, ça m’a offert beaucoup d’opportunités et de visibilité pour la suite. Je suis DJ depuis longtemps, je l’ai été pour des artistes et groupes, mais cette compétition te met en avant en tant que DJ à part entière et en tant que personne. 

FP: Il y a quelque temps, tu as partagé un statut sur tes réseaux qui disait “j’ai arrêté de faire des beats/instrus, pour faire de la musique…”. Tu peux préciser le fond de ta pensée ? 

DJ Stresh: Je me répète un peu, mais j’ai été DJ pour pas mal de groupes et de rappeurs, et quand j’ai commencé à produire des beats, c’était pour les proposer à des rappeurs. Quand j’ai écrit ce statut, je voulais pointer du doigt que, souvent dans l’inconscient collectif, le beatmaker travaille pour un MC, mais il y a cet aspect “consommable” ou “support”. Ce côté “usine”, et je pense que ça parlera à pas mal de beatmakers, est parfois ingrat parce que tu n’as pas de reconnaissance. Par exemple, tu peux parfois envoyer 5-10 prods à un artiste, il peut maquetter dessus, mais à la fin son album sort et ton son n’est pas dessus, mais à aucun moment tu n’as été tenu au courant. C’est des expériences qui sont arrivées à tout le monde dans l’univers de la musique. 

Mais au-delà de ça, faire des prods, c’est l’aspect beatmaker, qui compose tout seul, et faire de la musique, c’est plus combiner le savoir des musiciens. Je suis aujourd’hui plus dans cette optique, je veux produire mais sans me limiter à ce que je sais faire. Si j’ai des musiciens autour de moi qui peuvent m’aider à arranger, produire et structurer un morceau, et inviter des artistes à collaborer, ce sera différent de la démarche habituelle, c’est ce qui fait la différence entre un beatmaker et un producteur. J’ai d’ailleurs toujours fait appel à des musiciens sur la plupart des morceaux que j’ai produit ! Ca peut être, à la fin, de la musique instrumentale comme on peut le voir ces dernières années avec par exemple Kaytranada, TroyBoi ou tout ce que fait Soulection. C’est un truc qui avait été délaissé, mais je trouve que c’est bien de vouloir faire ça pour la musique. Le message en gros est “Arrêtons d’être uniquement les faire-valoir d’autres artistes et faisons vivre notre propre musique par elle-même !”. 

FP: Est-ce que tu as des pépites actuelles à partager avec nous ? Des sons ou albums que tu aimes en ce moment. 

DJ Stresh: J’ai beaucoup aimé le dernier album de Kaytranada. J’aime bien aussi la scène des Pays-Bas : Jarreau Vandal, Jaël… 

En fait j’ai tellement de trucs en tête que j’ai du mal à te donner des noms ! Dreamville aussi j’aime beaucoup et notamment Lute et J.I.D. 

FP: On va s’éloigner un peu de la musique. Il me semble que tu n’es pas complètement insensible aux sneakers et aux fringues, je me trompe ? 

DJ Stresh: Tu ne te trompes pas du tout !! C’est même une faiblesse ! Je n’estime pas être un gros collectionneur mais clairement j’aime bien les paires et les sappes. Pour moi musique, sneakers et mode sont des éléments qui s’entre-mêlent, c’est des cultures qui ont été liées très tôt. Certains styles, certaines marques ou certains modèles de sneakers font partie de la culture, et donc de mon quotidien. J’ai été imprégné des marques que j’ai pu voir dans les années 90, comme Jordan, Ralph 

Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, FUBU, Fila… ce qui m’a amené à m’intéresser à la mode et donc à accumuler pas mal de paires et de fringues. On a tous grandit en voyant des paires qu’on voulait qu’on ne pouvait pas avoir. 

FP: Justement tu as une paire préférée ? 

DJ Stresh: Non, j’aime trop les sneakers ! Je ne peux pas t’en citer qu’une ! 

En revanche je peux te parler de la première paire que j’ai voulu très fort ! 

C’est la Air Jordan XIII. Quand elle est sortie, j’ai le souvenir que beaucoup de monde l’avait. C’était la paire qui était sur la pochette de l’album de Busta Flex. Je me demandais ce que c’était parce que ce modèle est très discret niveau branding. Il y a juste le logo sur la languette et sur la bulle holographique sur le côté. La paire était plutôt futuriste à l’époque mais je la trouvais mortelle. 

FP: Retour à la musique ! Parle nous un peu du mix que tu nous as préparé. 

DJ Stresh: Alors c’est un mix qui sort un peu de ce que j’ai l’habitude de jouer. Je mixe toujours plein de styles de musique différents, là c’est un mix influencé de vibes brésiliennes et de futur Beats… Il y a mon remix de Jamiroquai dedans aussi et plein d’autres choses. 

FP: A propos de ce remix de Jamiroquai, Jazzy Jeff l’a joué dans un live récemment après te l’avoir demandé directement. Qu’est ce que ça fait qu’un artiste que tu admires depuis que tu es très jeune te demande un morceau que tu as fait et le joue derrière ? 

DJ Stresh: C’est bizarre, c’est trop bizarre ! Je réalise même pas vraiment en fait ! C’est presque pas réél. Je pense qu’il faut le vivre pour le comprendre. 

Pour la petite histoire, il m’a demandé le track il y a un an environ et l’a joué lors de son premier live fait en quarantaine. 

Un jour, je me réveille et je vois que j’ai reçu un message de Jazzy Jeff avec la photo d’un écran d’un DJ en train de jouer mon remix à Londres, en me demandant “C’est toi qui a fait ca ? Envoie le moi stp !”. J’étais super flatté qu’il me le demande et encore plus qu’il le joue ! Parce que je me dis qu’il doit avoir tellement de musique en stock ! 

FP: Si on veut en écouter un peu plus de toi ou connaître ton actualité, comment on fait ? 

DJ Stresh: Alors pour la musique, c’est sur Soundcloud et pour tout ce qui est vidéos et actualités, c’est sur Instagram. 

FP: Le mot de la fin ? 

DJ Stresh: Je viens tout juste de sortir un nouveau remix du morceau « Talk » de Khalid, il est disponible sur mon Soundcloud. Merci à Footpatrol pour l’invitation et j’espère que le mix vous plaira.

Footpatrol: Hey DJ Stresh, thanks for taking a minute with us. Can you introduce yourself for those who don’t know you ?

DJ Stresh: Hi, I’m DJ Stresh, from Paris, I’m both DJ and beatmaker. I won the 2016 edition of the Red Bull 3Style France and I was France vice champion of the DMC the same year. I’ve also been stage DJ for some rappers (Youssoupha, Ali, Rocé…).

FP: Do you remember the moment you decided you wanted to be a DJ ? 

DJ Stresh: Yeah, I was really young. I started with break dancing. I used to train with a friend whose brother was a DJ and we listened to his tapes. I went to his crib, I was looking at his material and I started being into it. Then, like everybody, I started doing mixtapes with my cassette deck when I was about 12. I really started learning to mix when I was 13, at a community center workshop. It took me some time to buy my material because it was very expensive at the time. I bought my first turntable at 15, and then used my first pay check to buy the whole package. I practiced and it was on ! 

FP: Were there any artitsts who inspired you and/or inspire you now ? 

DJ Stresh: Of course ! And most of them are the same from the first day. When you dig a bit, you obvisouly discover some new ones. But I grew up with Cut Killer, Q-Bert, the Skratch Piklz, the Beat Junkies, Jazzy Jeff… By the way, I only discovered that Jazzy Jeff was a DJ in 93, when they released “Boom, Shake the Room” with the Fresh Prince (Will Smith). Before that I only knew him as Jazz from the “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”.

FP: Today, you have multiple roles : party DJ, competition DJ , stage DJ, Beatmaker, a bit inventor with the development of Phase, Head of DJ City France… Can you tell us more about each experience ?

DJ Stresh: Actually, when I was young, I was looking at DJ’s like Cut Killer and Funk Master Flex who were at the same time party and technical DJ’s, but also beatmakers. It was not necessarily obvious at the time, and that made them special. 

I never closed doors when it comes to music, DJind and everything that goes with it. Because as a DJ, you can play in parties, make beats, found you own label… I’ve always loved music, so any opportunity to work with music and do new things are welcome.

FP: There are two roles which are not music related only :  developing Phase and being at the head of  DJ City France. Can you telle us more ? 

DJ Stresh: To make it simple, Phase is a connected object that allows DJ’s to play with their encoded vinyls without using the arm or the styli for the turntable.

I’ve been in contact with MWM for a while, as I took part to the Mix fader promo video. I used to visit them often at their office. The  stage DJ experience made me realize that the use of turntables in live is full of hassles : the rumble (editor’s note : vibrations due to basses that impact the turntables), the material is too old and not or not correctly revised so that it doesn’t work like it should… In fact there are too many things to handle so that your performance is successful. I was watching the guys who play on controlers, or Ableton or CD turntables, who just come with their USB key or cable and it’s on ! With vinyl turntables, you can sometimes think the DJ messed up, but it’s actually the hardware which is capricious. So I thought it would be great to have a wireless cartridge, with no arm, that would be directly connected to the computer for the radio signal. The only people I knew who could have the technology and engineering to do it were MWM, as they did it with the Mix Fader. At the same time, they were developing their own radio signal so they said “why not !”. From then a prototype was made and the commercialization started last year.

FP: And at the end, which is your favorite hat ?

DJ Stresh: That would be the original one, being a passionate DJ, who digs for new music, mixes, trains at home, as it’s the way we all started. And you do all that to mix in parties, make people dance and generate reactions. 

FP: In 2016 you were vice champion of the French DMC and national champion of the Red Bull 3Style. You competed in the World Finals of the 3Style in Chile. Tell us about the experience.

DJ Stresh: The Red Bull 3Style is a DJ competition that started 10 years ago. The first edition took place in France and the first winner was French, Karve, who changed his name to Aleqs Notal now. 

I started DJing in 1998. Between 98 and 2016, it’s been a long time ! I had participated to some battles, but never on the national level. And some day, I see the announce on FB saying there are a few days left to register. I told myself “try your chance”. Back in the days, you had a lot of pressure on battles, especially the DMC which was the main one, because you had a crazy level in France !! We had legends like Pone, Crazy B, Netik, Trouble… huge huge huge DJs ! So it was tough to emerge ! I know we are quite a few DJ’s who didn’t dare to do it. 

So I had nothing to lose, if I win, great, if I don’t it would still be a great experience. But I was curious ! So i sent my demo, was selected and ended up winning the national title. 

For the World Finals, it was another story ! You carry the weight of the counrty on your shoulders ! You still have two sets to prepare, one for the qualification round and one for the finals if you go through. Lack of luck for me, the future world champ was in my leg, so I couldn’t male it to the Finals. 

But it remains an amazing experience ! I’ve met a lot of people and it offered me great opportunities and good visibility. This competition puts you in the lights as a DJ per se, and as a person. 

FP: A while ago, you shared this quote on your socials : “I stopped making beats, to start making music…”. Can you develop what was on your mind ? 

DJ Stresh: I might repeat myself a bit, but I’ve been stage DJ for quite a few artists, and when I started making beats, it was to submit to rappers. When I wrote that quote, I wanted to point out that, in people’s mind, a beatmaker works for a MC, but it often has that “disposable” aspect. This “factory” facet, and I think lots of beatmakers will relate, is sometimes ungrateful because you’re don’t get any recognition. For example, you can send 5-10 beats to an artist, he could do a demo on it, but at the end your track is not even on his album, but you had no clue.  Everybody in the music biz has lived this. 

But besides that, doing beats, it’s the beatmaker’s thing, who works on his own, when making music is more combining the musicians’ knowledge. I’m more in that state of mind, I wanna make music, but don’t want to stay in my comfort zone. If there are musicians around me who can help to arrange, produce and structure a track, and why not invite other artists to collaborate, that would be different from the usual pattern, this is the difference between a beatmaker and a producer. I’ve always called out musicians on most of the tracks I produced ! At the end it can come up as instrumentral music, like we’ve had in the last few years with artists like Kaytranada, TroyBoi or all that Soulection does. This is something that was kinda neglected, but I think it’s good for music to do it.The message is roughly “Let’s stop being only a foil to other artists and let’s make our music live by itself !”.

FP: Are there any tracks or artists of the moment that you would like to share with us ?

DJ Stresh: I really liked Kaytranada’s last album. I also like the Dutch scene : Jarreau Vandal, Jaël…

Actually, I have so many things in mind, I don’t even manage to give you any names !

Dreamville too ! I like them a lot, especially Lute and J.I.D.

FP: Let’s get away from music for a minute. You’re not absolutely unsensitive to sneakers and clothes, are you ? 

DJ Stresh: Absolutely not !! I would even say it’s a weakness ! I don’t consider myself a big collector, but I can’t deny it, I really love sneakers ans clothes. I think music, sneakers and fashion are elements that intertwine, these are cultures that have been linked very early. Some styles, some brands or some sneakers models are part of Hip Hop culture, thus of my everyday life. I’ve been soaked by brands that I saw in the 90S, like Jordan, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, FUBU, Fila… which made keep an eye on fashion and accumulate quite a lot pairs and clothes. We grew up seeing sneakers that we wanted but couldn’t have. 

FP: Speaking of it, do you have a favorite pair ?

DJ Stresh: No, I love sneakers too much ! I can’t pick only one !

But i can tell you about the very first pair that blew my mind !

It’s the Air Jordan XIII. When it came out, I remember that a lot of people had it. It was the one Busta Flex was wearing on his album cover. I was wondering what it was, because the branding on these is not so obvious, you only have the Jumpman on the tongue and the holographic bubble on the side. It was futuristic at the time, but I loved it !  

FP: Back to music ! Tell us more about the mix you prepared for us. 

DJ Stresh: I went out of my comfort zone for this one. I always play different styles of music, here it’s full of brazilian vibes and Futur Beats. My Jamiroquai remix is featured in it, along many other things.

FP: Speaking of this Jamiroquai remix, Jazzy Jeff played it in recently in a live, after he requested it directly from you. What is it like that someone, who you’ve been looking up to from your younger age, comes to you to request one of the track you produces and plays it after that ? 

DJ Stresh: It’s weird man, it’s so weird ! I don’t even realize ! It’s almost unreal. You have to live it to get it I think.

For the record, Jazzy Jeff asked me for the track about a year ago and he played it in his first quarantine live show. 

One day, I wake up and see a message from Jazzy Jeff including a picture of a DJ’s computer screen playing my track in London, and asking me “It’s your track ? Please send it to me !”. I was gassed that he asked for it and even more that he played it ! He must have so many tracks in his library ! 

FP: If we want to listen to your music or mixes and know about your agenda, how do we do ? 

DJ Stresh: For the music, it’s on Soundcloud and for videos and agenda, you can go on Instagram.

FP: A final word ?

DJ Stresh: I just released a new remix to « Talk » by Khalid, it’s available on my Soundcloud. Thanks to Footpatrol for the invitation and I hope you’ll like the mix.

Recently we’ve found ourselves spending this time looking back at some of the projects we’ve been apart of and the agency’s that have worked alongside us and helped make these visions come to life. For this next edition, we’ve digitally sat down with James and Aldo from Midnight Club to get a detailed understanding into their processes and work.

Take a look through our interview with the duo below for a look into how Midnight Club works and of course, how they’re spending their time during this lockdown.

Footpatrol : Hey guys, how are you? Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today! We have worked together in the past and know all about you but for our audience can you give them a little insight into yourself and what it is you do?

JH: We work at The Midnight Club, a London agency that specialises in strategy and design for adidas. We both work together as concept leads, a role which allows us to work across multiple projects from the earliest stage, developing an idea through to production. This could be anything from designing a store installation, launch event or a visual toolkit for a sneaker release. And that’s how we met you last year, working on the Footpatrol windows for Notting Hill Carnival.

FP: What exactly does your job entail? 

AK: It really depends on adidas’s brand calendar. One day we could be working on a global launch event, the next designing windows for a key London retailer. It’s the rapid pace of the sneaker industry that really drives us. 

FP: What were you doing prior? Was it a creative job or something completely different?

AK: We were both working in different areas of the fashion industry when we met. I was in product design and James worked for a luxury shoe brand. The collaboration really started in 2015 when we both linked up to work on NEUBA, a menswear brand specialising in handwoven fabrics.

JH: We sold the brand to almost 60 stores across Japan, including Dover Street Market and United Arrows before closing shop to join TMC in 2017. When I think back on it, we were lucky to visit so many of the world’s most exciting stores – this really inspired us to start designing experiences and installations for brands.

FP: What we would like to know is how you get from concept to reality. Would you be able to choose ONE project that you have worked on and summarise into 4 steps the process from the client’s initial email to what the consumer sees?

I guess a good example would be the re-launch of the adidas Nite Jogger, one of the biggest shoes to drop last year. The lead time on this was tricky, somebody worked out we had 15 working days to design, build and execute our concept – with Christmas and New Year in the middle. 

1.11th December: we received the brief from adidas. A one night global launch event in London for the Nite Jogger ‘19. The Nite Jogger is a modern remake of the original 70’s sneaker, the first of its kind to feature reflective panels.

2. Present the creative direction to the adidas global team: a 24/7 Peckham high street celebrating the creativity that thrives in the city after dark. Align on the art direction, guest experiences and line-up of talent and collaborators.

3. Find a South London location to bring the entire concept to life in 5 days. This was really tough, but together with a team of 15 carpenters, 8 lighting technicians, 6 scenic painters, 4 sound technicians, 2 event producers, 3 junior producers, 2 graphic designers, 4 runners and 17 event staff – we managed to pull it off.

4. 11th Jan. Launch night for 600 guests; a petrol station with convenience store, mechanics garage, custom spray-shop and photography darkroom, late night cyber cafe, Morley’s Fried Chicken shop,

with a dynamic schedule of product drops, live sets and performances off the back of a lorry. 

FP: Would you have any advice that you could share with our readers? 

JH: Try and find somebody that you can collaborate with creatively, ideally with a different set of skills to yours. Like Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre.

AK: Exactly. We share the same taste in design, but will often arrive at a concept from very different reference points, anything from contemporary art and spatial design to youth culture and music. 

FP: How are you coping with the current lockdown? Is there anything particular that’s keeping you going?

JH: Succession on HBO. The Preme vs RZA battle on IG live. My veg box delivery. 

The ‘No Problemo’ car radio sessions from @ramdane everyday at 5pm.

AK: Homeland (yes I’m very late to the party). Honing my cocktail game.

Dave Portnoy (if you don’t already follow @stoolpresidente) reviews all the pizza joints in New York, but since we’ve been in lockdown has been forced to review only frozen pizzas.

FP: And finally as it was trainers that brought all us together originally – what would you say is your staple go to for the following:

JH:

Working out – adizero Takumi Ren 3’s for all of those long runs I don’t go on.

Casual everyday – Garwen Spezial for Union LA. Instant classic. 

Impressing someone – I recently got the midnight cowboy loafers by Toga Virilis. I think it’s impressive how little they go with anything. 

Staying at home – adidas ATP tennis sneakers from 1993. Cracked leather and yellow glue stains!

AK: 

Working out – adidas Ultra Boost Uncaged Triple Black

Casual everyday – I rotate both the all white pair and all black pairs of Yohji Yamamoto Superstars

Impressing someone – Tricky one, but I’ve got a pair of the Hender Scheme Superstars

Staying at home – My North Face tent slippers

Thank you, stay safe!

To grab a free copy of The Midnight Club’s latest book release, DM @the_midnight_club

Someone we’ve been watching for a while, DJ and producer Shy One has stepped up and created our next instalment for our Frequent Players Guest Mix series.

Bringing her unique taste of music to the forefront, this latest mix manages to touch most bases for everyone to enjoy.

Footpatrol: Shy One, thanks for being here and spending time with us! For all those people who may not know who you are, can you share with us a bit of your backstory? 

SHY ONE: I’m a DJ and producer originally from Harrow but based in South London. Started out in 03 playing, collecting and making grime and have since then incorporated more styles into my sets and productions. I’m just as passionate about radio as I am club DJ’ing and have held down shows on numerous stations over the last 14 years. 

FP: Jumping straight into it! You have been Djing/producing for quite a while. I read you got your first pirate radio gig at 14, how did you find yourself getting into all of this at such a young age? 

SHY ONE: That was actually a community station based in my youth club in West London but I did eventually get a show on pirate 3 years later with a mate who was the son of a singer. Our parents knew the guy who ran the station from all being musicians/DJs and my mum worked at the youth club which was also were I learned to DJ. I never went out of my way to get involved, having these musical relatives and connections meant everything as there. 

FP: Is there a genre you’ve always liked to play when you DJ or are you pretty open to everything? 

SHY ONE: I’ve gone through different phases and tried to be a more specialist DJ but I realised that’s not me, I can’t stick to one genre and so I feel like the way I play now is an amalgamation of most of my musical phases over the years. 

FP: Moving into your production side, have you been doing that for as long as you have been DJing or did you get into it further down the line in your career? 

SHY ONE: I started making beats a year after I’d learned the DJ basics so about 16 years ago. 

FP: Tough question but have you ever thought to yourself which you prefer more, Djing or Producing? I can imagine they both have their positives and negatives. 

SHY ONE: Ooooh very very hard but DJ’ing wins. I’m a fan first. Other peoples music will always mean so much more to me than my own. Cliché I know but my music is an outlet, a way for me to express myself. 

FP: Moving on to sneakers! Are you much of an enthusiast when it comes to shoes? 

SHY ONE: I used to be really into sneakers, dedicated my 18th birthday to going to NYC to visit all the shops I’d obsessed over from online cos it was a myth getting certain womens crep over here for me then. Over the years my ltitle feet and small pockets got frustrated though I still have a pretty big collection despite getting rid of at least 15 pairs recently. 

FP: Do you remember the first pair you bought with your own money? 

SHY ONE: I’m lucky to have a young steezy mum who’s into sneakers too so she kept me laced from a yute but I think my own pocket money stash might have afforded me a first pair of Huaraches. 

FP: Within your career have you seen much of a merge between footwear and music? 

SHY ONE: I think music and footwear share a history that predates my career. From artists singing about them, fans being identifiable to a particular group/scene because of them, brands using music and music using brands etc. 

FP: Little side track from shoes, I also read that you are part of BBZ, could you tell us a little bit more about what BBZ is and how you got involved? 

SHY ONE: BBZ is a curatorial and DJ collective that I was adopted into a couple years back after being booked to play. We’re a crew of queer black womxn and non binary people who prioritise the experience of LBTQIABPOC. I would do us a disservice to try and speak on more of what we do/ have done. Look us up 😉 

FP: Shy One thanks for spending time with us! Before we let you go we are asking people what they are doing during the lockdown to keep creative, active or whatever they want to do to stay productive. Have you got any inspiration for the Footpatrol followers? 

SHY ONE: My priority in this lockdown has been my own peace. I haven’t tried to force any creativity, I think it’s important to give us time to acclimatise and process what’s actually happening. Only once I gave myself time to do that have I had a desire to create. Take it slow, have a beer.

After introducing us to the 700 MNVN silhouette earlier in the year in two unique colour ways for regional exclusives, adidas and YEEZY and back once again with the same formula.

This latest arrival see’s the introduction of ‘Phosphor’ and ‘Bone’ colour ways which sticks to previous traditions of the offering of one tonal Colourway which is then contrasted by the second. Previously, this worked in the form of a solid all black silhouette which was contrasted to the vibrant orange.

The 700 MNVN takes the traditional 700 mould and strips it back to its bare bones utilising a change in materials. The upper has been reconstructed using a lightweight polyester featuring zero sewn overlays, creating a more simplistic silhouette. 

With this new style, moves the 700 into a more performance style. The traditional lacing has also been removed and instead sits a bungee lace system allowing for an easier on and off, daily wear.

To enter the ONLINE raffle for ‘Phosphor’, CLICK HERE!

To enter the ONLINE raffle for ‘Bone’, CLICK HERE!

To enter, you’re required to sign up via the above forms, this WON’T be available in-store to sign up on. 

Online raffle winners will receive a special code in which they’ll have a limited time to purchase their raffle win via a unique link. The raffle is limited to one entry per household! Multiple entries will be cancelled! 

Continuing our discussions series, we now look to Germany and pay our attention to the brand with the three stripes. With a few Consortium collaborations under our belt, we sit down with George Griffin who is part of the Product Marketing division for adidas Consortium.

Footpatrol : George welcome! For the Footpatrol community could you start off telling us a bit about yourself and what you do for adidas?

George: Hi guys, Thanks for having me! I’m George originally from London, outside of working for adidas I’m a huge Arsenal fan, love to read comic books and listen to Disco and Soul Music.  I now live in Herzogenaurach, Germany and work for adidas Consortium on the product marketing team! I’ve been with the brand for just over 3 and a half years now but anyone who knows me from my London days know that I was always in a pair of adi. 

FP: What does your role with the brand entail exactly? It sure looks like a lot of fun from your Instagram!

G: I’m lucky enough to have a job where the day to day is pretty varied so that’s why it might look fun on Instagram 😉 Varying from a lot of emails to planning the seasonal silhouettes and stories for Consortium with the team, Looking through the archives and brand history for new and untold stories, reviewing samples with design and development, and then working with the collaborators on bringing their stories to life- I’m super lucky!

FP: Have you always been a big footwear enthusiast?

G: Prior to Sneakers I was always into the latest Football boots as I played a lot of football as a kid. I played in Predator consistently from an early age as I’m sure they made me play better, and then I had some pretty crazy choices of the F50 Tunits that had the see through heel too so tried to be expressive on the pitch- I guess that career path was pretty short-lived… 

I would say I became more actively engaged in sneakers when I started to have a bit more disposable income from working in retail whilst I was at University. Prior to that I ogled online at a lot of releases that I couldn’t get or afford. My first collab shoe that I actually owned was the AZX ZX 9000 x Crooked Tongues from 2009 which I bought off of a friend. Not really having anything else in the rotation back then meant that they are now pretty much on their last legs, however it completely opened my eyes to the world of sneaker boutiques and collaborations so I guess it’s kind of fitting that I get to work on some of these collaborations now!

FP: You have been able to work on some seriously exciting projects one of which was the ZX10000 which I think is safe to say was a great addition into the ZX range. What was it like being able to work on something like that and how did it come about?

G: That was definitely a fun one to work on with a super passionate and driven team, A lot of our ideas come very naturally just from kind of casual conversations / geeking out around trainers and I remember vividly the first conversations we had around the shoe. It started off with myself and the team just taking a look at ZX thousands series models from 1989 where it ended and then (unofficially) transitioned into 1^st Generation Equipment models from 1991 (all of which carried the performance benefits of Cushion, Support and Guidance) 

Myself, Charles Lovett and Aurelien Longo, the two designers of the shoe always thought that it was such a shame that ZX ended at 9000 and the legacy never continued numerically after that. Knowing that the late 80s and early 90s all shoes were presented in catalogues and not digitally. We were messing around with the concept that ‘what if there were catalogues and shoes that had never been seen from our history?’ and then that these ‘Lost pages’ from the archive were discovered today from 1990 with the ‘missing link’ ‘ZX 10,000’ between ZX and Equipment.  

We were also working on the Overkill collaborations at the same time as developing the silhouette, which added pressure as Marc has a lot of love for ZX of course- and to be honest the 1^st sample arrived at the office and we were super worried that we had ruined ZX! Colour, shape and material were all wrong so we had to go back to the drawing board! But we knew we were on the right path as soon as myself and Charles saw the next sample come in to the factory- we couldn’t stop looking at it! Was a really proud moment. Lastly, we knew we were onto a winner when Gary Aspden was in Herzo for a Spezial meeting and he saw the shoes on the rack and was super excited about them, which was very validating for us. 

FP: How important was it to have input from the original ZX designer Jacques Chassaing on the design process?

G: It was of course super important to have Jacques’ buy in on the project and we really wanted to make sure we made an authentic product that fit within the ZX moniker. He was a bit apprehensive at first but when we told him that we didn’t just want to aesthetically pay homage to the ZX series and that we wanted to do something that maybe wasn’t possible back then that served a functional/ cultural reason to exist he was more than on board!

FP: Out of the releases, campaigns, projects you have been able to work on during your time at adidas has there been one that stood out for you?

G: There have been a lot of highlights in my time at adidas so far including the aforementioned ZX 10,000, one of which being adidas Gardening Club which we released last October. It was an extremely fun project from start to finish with a super passionate team; the concept lent itself to some really unique footwear and apparel. The campaign imagery by Trippin was amazing as well as the adidas comms team being able to get Alhan and Alan Titchmarsh in the same room for the photo shoot was a real highlight. 

FP: Moving away from your role and more about you and your personal collection, what’s your current stay at home rotation looking like?

G: My current stay at home rotation is pretty minimal! Round the apartment I’m pretty boring and just in adilettes all day to be honest. And then for my supermarket trips or walks I try to switch it up quite regularly. I’m wearing the Response Hoverturf triple black we released a couple of weeks back A LOT right now as well as the Reebok x Nepenthes Workout plus.

FP: For people who have seen your instagram you seem to be a big fan of some of the most obscure adi models! Could you tell us your Top3 most obscure pairs?

G: I’ve always been into some of the weirder models from the archive even before working for the brand and since having the adidas archive and catalogues at my disposal at work it has become super handy and useful when looking for those more obscure models. I love looking at the more recent stuff that people didn’t look at necessarily in a streetwear setting back when they released that maybe were ahead of their time. Top 3 is tough so I’m going to cheat and give you five of my favourite/ pairs that I wear the most. 

Adistar walk, Adizero F50 Runner, Response Cushion W, Cairo, Adistar Revolt

FP: George thanks for spending time with us! Before we let you go we are asking people what they are doing during the lockdown to keep creative, active or whatever they want to do to stay productive. Have you got any inspiration for the Footpatrol followers?

G: Thank you for having me! 

I’m sure there are way more qualified people than me to talk about staying inspired but I would say that as we may not get another situation like this in our lifetime (fingers crossed) use it wisely, there’s no one thing I would recommend as everyone handles situations very differently, but whether that be picking up a new hobby be like running or art, reading that book you’ve been putting off, or even catching up on that program on Netflix, or just taking this time to relax and reflect, then that’s also fine! 

For me it’s business as usual with work so I try to stay sane and relaxed whilst listening to podcasts whilst working, (the Rewatchables is great for anyone who hasn’t listened to it and also the Complex Sneakers podcast) and trying to get regular exercise (trying being the optimal word). I’m also of course trying to stay more connected to my family back in the UK by playing board games over Whatsapp group chat which has been interesting to say the least… 

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Footpatrol: Bienvenue George ! Pour la communauté Footpatrol, tu peux commencer par nous parler un peu de toi et de ce que tu fais pour adidas ? 

George: Salut les gars. Merci de me recevoir ! Je m’appelle George, je suis originaire de Londres et à part travailler pour adidas, je suis un grand fan d’Arsenal, j’aime lire des comics et écouter du Disco et de la Soul. Je vis maintenant à Herzogenaurach en Allemagne et je travaille pour la gamme adidas Consortium au sein de l’équipe marketing produit. Je travaille pour la marque depuis 3 ans et demi maintenant mais tous ceux qui me connaissent de Londres savent que j’ai toujours une paire d’adidas aux pieds. 

FP: En quoi consiste ton rôle chez adidas ? Ça a l’air d’être très amusant vu ton compte Instragram ! 

G: Je suis assez chanceux d’avoir un travail où les jours ne se ressemblent pas et c’est pour ça que ça a l’air amusant sur Instagram. Je passe de la lecture de plein de mails à la planification des silhouettes saisonnières et des histoires Consortium avec l’équipe, à la recherche dans les archives et l’histoire de la marque pour trouver des histoires inédites, à la vérification des prototypes avec l’équipe Design et Développement et ensuite travailler avec les collaborateurs pour donner vie à leurs histoires ! Je suis super chanceux ! 

FP: As-tu toujours été un grand amateur de chaussures ? 

G: Avant les sneakers, j’étais toujours à fond dans les dernières chaussures de foot vu que je jouais beaucoup quand j’étais petit. J’ai toujours joué en Predator, depuis tout petit parce que j’étais persuadé que ça me faisait mieux jouer. Et ensuite j’ai eu des modèles assez fous de la F50 Tunits qui avaient aussi le talon transparent, alors j’essayais d’être expressif sur le terrain. Je suppose que cette carrière a été particulièrement éphémère… 

Je dirais que j’ai été plus activement engagé dans le monde des sneakers quand j’ai commencé à gagner un peu mieux ma vie en travaillant en magasin en parallèle de mes études. Avant ça, je lorgnais en ligne beaucoup de sorties que je ne pouvais pas avoir ni m’offrir. La première collab que j’ai possédé c’était la AZX ZX9000 x Crooked Tongues de 2009 que j’ai rachetée à un ami. J’avais pas grand-chose d’autre en termes de rotation à l’époque, ce qui veut dire qu’elles sont maintenant en fin de vie… Et pourtant ça m’a complètement ouvert les yeux sur le monde des boutiques sneakers et des collaborations donc je pense que c’est assez logique que je travaille sur certaines de ces collaborations maintenant. 

FP: Tu as pu travailler sur pas mal de projets excitants et l’un d’eux, c’est la ZX10000, dont on peut dire, sans prendre trop de risques, que c’est un super complément à la gamme ZX. Comment c’était de pouvoir travailler sur quelque chose comme ça et comment c’est arrivé ? 

G: C’était vraiment très amusant de bosser sur la ZX10000 avec une équipe passionnée et motivée ! Beaucoup de nos idées sont venues naturellement au cours de simples discussions / 

délires autour des sneakers et je me rappelle très bien des premières discussions que nous avons eues autour de la chaussure. Avec l’équipe, on a simplement commencé en passant en revue les modèles de la série ZX, de 1000 à 9000, de 1989, quand la série s’est terminée et a (officieusement) fait la transition vers la première génération des modèles Equipment de 1991 (qui comportaient tous les caractéristiques techniques d’amorti, de support et de stabilité). 

Charles Lovett et Aurélien Longo, les deux designers de la chaussure, et moi-même, avons toujours pensé que c’était dommage que la ZX se termine à 9000 et que l’héritage ne continue pas numériquement après ça. Sachant qu’à la fin des années 80 et au début des années 90, les paires n’étaient pas présentées en digital, mais dans des catalogues. On s’amusait atour du concept qui dirait « Et s’il y avait des paires et des catalogues qui n’avaient jamais été vus de notre Histoire ? » et donc faire comme si ces pages perdues des archives des années 90 avaient été retrouvées aujourd’hui, avec ce lien manquant, la « ZX10000 » entre ZX et Equipment. 

On travaillait aussi sur les collaborations avec Overkill en même temps qu’on développait la silhouette, ce qui a ajouté un peu plus de pression parce que Marc aimait beaucoup les ZX évidemment. Et pour être honnête, quand le premier échantillon est arrivé au bureau on a eu très peur d’avoir ruiné la ZX ! La couleur, la forme et les matériaux, tout était raté, on a donc dû retourner à la planche à dessins ! Mais dès qu’on a vu le deuxième échantillon Charles et moi, on a su qu’on était sur la bonne voie. On n’arrêtait pas de le regarder, on était super fiers ! Finalement, on a su qu’on avait réussi quand Gary Aspden, de passage à Herzo pour un rendez-vous « Spezial », a vu la paire sur le rack et a tout de suite été super emballé, ce qui était une forme de validation pour nous. 

FP: À quel point était-ce important pour vous de bénéficier d’une contribution du designer originel de la ZX, Jacques Chassaing, dans le processus de création ? 

G: C’était bien sûr super important d’avoir l’approbation de Jacques sur le projet et on voulait vraiment s’assurer qu’on avait fabriqué un modèle fidèle aux ZX. Il appréhendait un peu au début, mais quand on lui a dit qu’on ne voulait pas seulement rendre hommage esthétiquement à la série ZX, mais qu’on voulait faire quelque chose qui n’avait peut-être pas été possible de faire à l’époque, mais ayant un réel fondement fonctionnel/culturel, il était plus que de la partie. 

FP: Parmi les sorties, les campagnes et les projets sur lesquels tu as pu travailler depuis que tu es chez adidas, lequel t’as le plus marqué ? 

G: Il y a eu beaucoup de faits marquants pour moi depuis que je suis chez adidas, comme les ZX 10000 dont nous avons parlé juste avant. Mais l’un de mes projets préférés et celui du adidas Gardening Club qui est sorti en octobre dernier. C’était un projet super amusant du début jusqu’à la fin, avec l’appui d’une équipe passionnée. Le concept se prêtait bien à la conception de chaussures et de textiles uniques. La campagne visuelle de Trippin était incroyable, tout comme le tour de force de l’équipe de communication adidas qui a réussi à avoir Alhan et Alan Titchmarsh dans la même pièce pour un shooting photo, un grand moment ! 

FP: Si on s’éloigne un peu de ton rôle et qu’on se concentre plus sur ta collection personnelle, à quoi ressemble ta « rotation » pour rester à la maison ? 

G: Ma rotation pour rester à la maison est assez minimale. Chez moi, rien d’extraordinaire, je suis en adilettes toute la journée pour être honnête. Et pour mes sorties au supermarché j’essaye de changer régulièrement. Je porte la Response Hoverturf triple black que nous avons sortie il y a quelques semaines, ainsi que la Reebok x Nepenthes Workout plus. 

FP: Pour ceux qui ont vu ton Instagram tu sembles être un grand fan de certaines des plus obscures modéls d’adidas ! Peux-tu partager le top 3 des paires les plus obscures ? 

G: J’ai toujours été intéressé par les modèles les plus bizarres venants des archives, avant même de travailler pour la marque et depuis que j’ai le catalogue et les archives adidas à disposition au travail, c’est devenu plus pratique et utile pour chercher ces modèles plus obscures. 

G: J’aime m’intéresser à ces choses plus récentes, qui n’intéressaient pas les gens d’un point de vu streetwear quand elles sont sorties, peut-être parce qu’elles étaient trop en avance sur leur temps. Un top 3 c’est difficile alors que je vais tricher et te donner un TOP 5 des mes paires favorites, celles que je porte le plus : 

Adistar walk, Adizero F50 Runner, Response Cushion W, Cairo & Adistar Revolt.

FP: George merci d’avoir passé du temps avec nous ! Avant qu’on te laisse partir, on demande aux gens de nous dire ce qu’ils font durant le confinement pour rester créatif, actif ou n’importe quoi qui leur permette de rester productif. As-tu des inspirations pour les followers de Footpatrol ? 

G: Merci de m’avoir reçu ! 

Je suis sûr qu’il y a des gens plus qualifiés que moi pour parler du fait de rester inspiré mais je dirais qu’étant donné qu’on ne revivra sûrement jamais cette situation dans nos vies (croisons les doigts), utilisez ça intelligemment, je ne recommanderai rien en particulier, vu que tout le monde n’appréhende pas la situation de la même façon. Mais ça pourrait être d’essayer quelque chose de nouveau, comme la course à pied ou l’art, lire ce livre que vous n’avez jamais fini, ou alors reprendre un programme sur Netflix, ou simplement prendre le temps de vous détendre et de réfléchir, tout cela est très bien ! 

Pour moi, je travaille comme d’habitude donc j’essaye de rester sain et détendu tout en écoutant des podcasts en travaillant (Les « Rewatchables » sont top pour ceux qui ne les ont jamais écoutés tout comme le Complex Sneakers podcast) et j’essaye aussi de faire du sport régulièrement (“essaye” est vraiment le terme!)! Et j’essaye aussi bien sûr de rester plus en contact avec ma famille en Angleterre en jouant à des jeux de société sur un groupe WhatsApp, ce qui est en réalité plutôt intéressant…

Establishing themselves in 1947, Salomon has been one of the leading outdoor sportswear brands to have graced the market. With a passion for technical enhancements and craftsmanship Salomon product is used and made for the hardest terrains in the world. 

For the brands first time ever, they opened their doors and invited Footpatrol over to Annecy, France to Salomon HQ to meet some of the brands leading designers and visit their prototype workshop to find out exactly how Salomon has become one of the world’s leading Outdoor brands. 

Worlds away from the streets of Soho, London, we landed in Annecy, France and what greeted us was picturesque vision of perfection. For a brand like Salomon, you couldn’t have pictured a more perfect location to house a their design centre. With an almost glass like lake and mountains surrounding, it seemed like they had the perfect testing grounds on their doorstep.

We had the opportunity to meet Salomon Head of Service to Athletes, Patrick Leick who has worked at the brand for over 30 years. Patrick is the instigator and concept creator of the XT series, developed the Quick Lace and even designed Killian Jornet’s Mount Everest Climbing boot which help set the world record for the fast descent down the world largest peak. 

It doesn’t stop there! 

Salomon hasn’t gone unnoticed within the sneaker/lifestyle world with the new found success of the XT-6. With this success it was only right that we also sat down with Benjamin, Design Manager for Salomon and designer of the beloved Salomon S/Lab XT-6 to talk about his journey with the brand and his thought process behind the design. 

During the visit there was no evidence that Salomon showed any signs of slowing down within the lifestyle market,  who can blame them. With the growing success with the brands XT series, we are excited to see more from the brand in 2020!

Check out the video below to hear our interviews with both Patrick and Benjamin!

Click here to shop the latest Salomon styles available online now!

For our latest venture into our Frequent Players Guest Mix’s, we look to none other than Catching Flies – AKA George King.

After the release of his debut album back in 2019, ‘Silver Linings’, it became perfectly known as ‘a soundtrack for summertime’. For 2020 George is set to re-release the album only this time its been reimagined by a whole range of artists including Soundbwoy Killah, DJ Seinfeld and Andhim, just to name a few.

To celebrate the launch of this latest release, we sat down with George before he took to the decks to create our next Guest Mix, creating the soundtrack to your lockdown.

Footpatrol: Welcome! Catching Flies how are you? to kick things off could you give us a bit of backstory about yourself for the Footpatrol Community?

Catching Flies: I’m good thank you… looking out my studio window and it’s sunny – and I’m listening to ‘Fruits Of The Spirit’ by Jay Electronica. I am a producer/musician… I released my debut album ‘Silver Linings’ last year and then did a lot of touring, and also did some DJ shows with Bonobo in North America. 

FP: You are also quite a diverse musician, I can imagine it must be a lot of help to be able to do a lot of instrumentals in your tracks. Is there an instrument that you would either like to learn how to play or would like to use in your music

CF: I would love to learn how to play the Harp. But it’s not really the kind of instrument you can just pick up on a whim – especially given its cost. One day maybe!

FP: What about your artwork for your EPs and albums, is this something you do as well? There are some insane graphics on some of them.

CF: I don’t do any graphics myself but usually I’ll have quite a strong idea about what I want. Then I’ll send my rough ideas to very talented graphic designers! For the Silver Linings album (and Silver Linings Remixed), I worked with Jason Vaz (from The Mannequin Collective). He is a genius… He nailed everything he did for the project, and I can’t thank him enough. He’s actually just finished designing a limited run of Catching Flies T Shirts which will announced on my Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/catchingfliesmusic/) soon – watch this space!

FP: Now you have been working full steam ahead on your Silver Linings Remixed campaign, where did the idea for this project come from?

CF: The initial idea actually came about because when we sent out the DJ/Club promos for my debut album ‘Silver Linings,’ Ron Basejam hit me up and asked for the parts to ‘New Gods’ because he’d like to try doing a remix. I’ve been really into his productions for years (especially this classic remix of White Lamp’s ‘It’s You’ – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VyXuw66qw8). So I sent Ron the parts and he delivered a wicked remix. So I thought it’d be cool to hit up a few of my favourite artists at the moment to also do remixes. I got in touch with Jehst, Blu, Andhim, Grandbrothers, Laurence Guy and a couple of others. It’s been really fun hearing other people’s reinterpretations of my music!

FP: Now we have to talk about footwear! What your rotation like, do you have much of one or are you more of a one shoe type of guy?

CF: I tend to have a few on rotation. A pair of white Reebok classics is a staple. And a pair of the Nike Air Max 97s in ‘Smokey Mauve’ which I love. I’m finding the Nike Flyknit 2’s are great for running (I started since the lockdown!)… and they look less garish than a lot of running shoes.

FP: Catching Flies thanks for spending time with us! Before we let you go we are asking people what they are doing during the lockdown to keep creative, active or whatever they want to do to stay productive. Have you got any inspiration for the Footpatrol followers?

CF: I’m getting really into cooking. Have been using a book called ‘Bowls of Goodness’ by Nina Olsson. There’s some decent recipes in there. Trying to eat right and keep my body and mind healthy – and also make loads of music! 

During these times of lockdown, over at Footpatrol we’ve been looking back at past projects and the people that sat behind the scenes throughout these projects. Kicking off this new series, we wanted to look back at those agencies that we’ve had the pleasure of sharing these projects with and see what goes on behind the scene’s to bring these visions to reality.

First up in this series are our good friends over at Breaks Agency. Having worked with Footpatrol from the beginning, Breaks have been on hand to oversee a wide range of our projects here at Footpatrol, from our adidas EQT video, to the Nike Air Max 95 ‘110’.

To learn more about this process, we caught up with Tom, founder of Breaks Agency who sat down with us to run us through the process that comes with bringing these concepts, to reality.

Keep a look out for more of these interviews coming soon and make sure to check out more of Breaks work here!

Footpatrol: Hey Tom how are you? Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today! We have worked together in the past and know all about you but for our audience can you give them a little insight into yourself and what it is you do?

Tom: Of course! I founded Breaks, an independent creative agency based in London that I run with my brother. What started as me on my own working from a friends office has evolved into a trusted studio in the centre of Shoreditch that creates and delivers large-scale campaigns for the likes of Nike, Dr. Martens, Barbour, Champion, New Balance and ClassPass. 

A lot of our early work was with Footpatrol and we used to get to work on a lot of the collaborations you guys did. An early favourite of mine was the Karhu collaboration where we did a stop motion that involved slowly felling a tree in our mates studio. Took all day and made the place stink with petrol fumes. It never clicked with us that using a petrol chainsaw in a non-ventilated studio might be an issue. 

Basically, if you’re launching a new trainer or collection, we’re often the guys who are creating the launch campaign. 

FP: How did you go about starting the agency? And what difficulties did you have at the beginning?

Tom: The agency started just under 5 years ago officially, but it had been bubbling away in tandem a year or two prior alongside ‘Breaks Magazine’, an endeavour I ran at the time with the help of some friends. The magazine’s goal was to create wholly original content – mainly lengthy interviews – around music, street culture and skateboarding. It functioned in a magazine format – in issues – but released online without losing any of the user-friendly aesthetic of a blog. We featured a plethora of streetwear brand owners and were running parties with Red Bull to launch each issue, which is how our first ‘big’ project came about – working on the Converse x Footpatrol ‘Breakpoint’ release. 

Five years ago in February, someone from Converse who came to our launch parties approached us to work on the Breakpoint project and produce the launch event for the shoe with Footpatrol. This is where I met you guys properly. From there, John [Brotherhood, head of Footpatrol] asked me to help you guys launch the Footpatrol ‘Hotstepper’ collaboration with Reebok, shooting the campaign and producing the launch party. 

I still had a full time job at this point and was doing both at once, but once the Reebok project came through in May 2015 I handed in my notice and started Breaks full time. I haven’t looked back since. I have to give John credit for this as he was an early supporter of ours and he was always on hand for advice and wisdom. I owe him a lot. 

The main difficulty in those days was money, we didn’t have any investment (and still don’t) so it got quite hand to mouth at points. Invoice to invoice. But you learn to weather it and you learn to make it work. Those were brilliant days, complete blind ignorance to the challenges that lay ahead, almost carefree. I loved it. 

FP: What were you doing prior? Was it a creative job? Freelance? Or something completely different? 

Tom: My CV is all sort of in the same vein; I worked for Red Bull in events during university and when I graduated I moved to London to work for a digital agency that had Red Bull as a client. I spent over four years there and in that time the agency got bought by a much larger global advertising agency called Leo Burnett and I got to see what working on huge campaigns was like and navigating large corporate worlds with loads of stakeholders and opinions on creativity. 

I hated the big agency part of it and my experience of that definitely motivated me to start Breaks in my own image; an independent creative agency that would be the ideal place of work for myself and my brother, for us to work on projects we were passionate about, rather than sat in all agency meetings discussing how a protein yoghurt would talk on social media (true story; that’s a real meeting I was in). 

FP: What we would like to know is how you get from concept to reality. Would you be able to choose ONE project that you have worked on and summarise into 5 steps the process from the client’s initial email to what the consumer sees?

Tom: Most projects are similar in how they play out so I can break it down into some steps here. These are mainly true for most with very little deviation, but it’s astonishing how some can play out wildly different to others. 

1. Receive the brief from the client. From here we’re pulling it apart in our team, batting ideas around and having fantastical ideas about what we could produce. My job is usually to rein people in, but often we’ve been allowed to run wild which is incredible to have that trust from clients. The aim here is to meet the brief (sell the product), but also try to do something you’ve never done before that stretches the limit of what we’d be allowed to do. Somewhere in the middle of that is the sweet spot. 

2. These ideas get written up and streamlined into a deck. Anyone not familiar with a deck it’s basically a PDF that lays out everything you plan to do. In advertising, everything ever is communicated in a deck. We create decks about decks. Decks haunt me in my sleep. 

3. They get presented to the client – always in person, never over the phone if you can help it. The client feeds back. We’ve either hit the brief or not, they have thoughts, we need to change bits. We repeat points 2 and 3 over and over again until both parties are happy or both of us go mad. Whichever comes first. 

4. Once we’re all in agreement, we go off and make it. Whether it’s a shoot, an animation, some design work, whatever it is, we go and bring it to life. We’re really lucky to work with some amazing creators who help us with this and we’ve built some really strong relationships over the years and travelled to some amazing places. 

5. We deliver the content, in whatever form that is. Depending on the project, this can be lengthy. We do a lot of our post-production in house and we’re often delivering our ‘hero’ image to the client in 45 different crops for email banners, digital retail screens, social media etc. It’s a big job! 

FP: Would you have any advice that you could share with our readers? 

Tom: Listen to as much advice as you can – you can never learn too much. You don’t have to act on any of it, but it will help shape your opinion on the problem at hand. Always do what’s right for you and always trust your gut. 

Also, don’t be a dick. It’s a really easy business mantra but you’d be surprised at the amount of people I’ve met along the way that can’t follow this simple rule. Keep your ego in check. 

FP: How you are coping with the current lockdown. Is there anything particular that’s keeping you going?

Tom: I’m relishing the time to either run or cycle every day, the serotonin from that is keeping me going. 

FP: And finally as it was trainers that brought all us together originally – what would you say is your staple go to for the following:

Tom: Working out – Usually an old pair of Nike Lunar Epic Flyknit 2’s but I’ve got some New balance 880s on the way to switch it up 

Casual every day – New Balance 860v2’s or Nike Vomero 5’s 

Impressing someone – Nike AM95 110’s, or Nike SB Infrared Dunk Low’s – both were impossible to get hold of this year. 

Staying at home – Now we’re on lockdown its Suicoke Moto-CAB’s or Birkenstock Bostons all day every day 

Thank you, stay safe!

For this next instalment of our Communi T project, we’ve teamed up with none other than Leicester based illustrator Nially Cat.

Leicester born and bred and with a stint in the big smoke behind him, Niall has managed to work with the likes of Nike and Vivienne Westwood whilst also taking his creativity to music videos.

Whilst designing this latest project, we managed to sit down with Niall to discuss his journey so far and where the ideas came from for this latest Communi T.

Footpatrol: Niall firstly welcome back! How have you been since the last time we spoke?

Niall: Chilling man drawing a lot been making a lot more recently too

FP: And what about your sneaker collection has that grown to?

Niall: Not really, I think I’ve grown out of a lot of it to be honest. I’ve invested in 2 pairs of each of the mint and pink 90s though I think I’ve found my crep for life now

FP: For those who didn’t know you’re a man who’s had his fingers in all the pies, you’ve done some work for Vivienne Westwood for the Africa Collection and even Nike’s Carnival Air Force 1 too, what was that like?

Niall: It was fun I enjoyed the projects, especially the Nike one. From a kid that was a really big goal for me and I’m pretty sure they changed the name to “peace love unity” if you google it so I slyly renamed it too.

FP: That Window Kid music video you told us about last time looked insane, do you still do a lot of work for the music scene or is stuff like this more as a bit of fun now?

Niall: The music videos are quite long I can’t lie, time consuming but the conclusion is fun. I like working on fun stuff, I don’t like boundaries or guidelines that are too strict, you need to try new things and innovate or I don’t feel you’re doing yourself justice creatively. I do a lot of covers and shorts and stuff. I think the best way to put it is shout me with something interesting and let’s work.

FP: Last time we spoke about Converse, but this time we are talking about something completely different. We are here to talk about your upcoming Communi T with Footpatrol. Is this the first time you have done an apparel collaboration before?

Niall: No I’ve done bits and pieces here and there. Best thing is to keep an eye on my Instagram and website. I’m no good at the 3rd person persona thing or the constant self promotion so if you miss it you miss it. 

FP: Tell us a bit about the design for the tee, what was the story behind it all?

Niall: It’s a line from an old Klashnekoff tune. The front graphic is me in a custom Footpatrol mask (I added glasses so I could see distance) and the back print is the Klashnekoff quote in the Niallycat font – Loud Pack 😎 

FP: Well we are super happy to have you a part of the Communi T project Niall and thanks again for spending some more time with us. Before we go is there anything you want to let the people know about that’s coming soon from yourself?

Niall: We got prints hitting the website, T-shirt’s, stickers, pin badges soon come, football shirt for summer. Just pre the website 

FP: And finally a question we like to ask all Communi T partners.. please describe Hotel Creative’s style in 3 words?

Niall: Tall, Dark and handsome

Easily the silhouette that gets the most attention, adidas and YEEZY are back with another new take on their 350 v2 silhouette. Though its simplistic shape and subtle details, the pair have always managed to create a mix of interesting new colour ways keeping the silhouette fresh each time.

This latest one, dubbed ‘LINEN’ features a more heavier off white across the upper whilst the monofilament stripe, that’s woven into the reengineered Primeknit has a slight silver colouring.

Not messing with a perfect formula, the 350 V2 retains its full length BOOST within the midsole, making this one of the most wearable daily’s out there.

To enter the ONLINE raffle, CLICK HERE!

To enter, you’re required to sign up via the above form, this WON’T be available in-store to sign up on. 

Online raffle winners will receive a special code in which they’ll have a limited time to purchase their raffle win via a unique link. The raffle is limited to one entry per household! Multiple entries will be cancelled!