international news _ 5th December, 2006
Riton & Cass’ Serious Business
Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
Hyper-hip London producer Henry Riton Smithson chatted to Skrufff this week
about his upcoming Kraut-rock flavoured single Hammer Of Thor and revealed
that he’s re-organising his life radically as he fast approaches 30.
“It’s definitely time to make the most of things, it’s definitely the age to
focus yourself and get rid of some old bad habits and start to shape up for
the rest of your life and to take things more seriously,” the 29 year old
producer declared.
“I’ve knocked smoking weed on the head, which I used to do a lot, I used to
smoke five or six joints a day every day for 15 years. I stopped about a
month ago and actually it was dead easy, I thought it wouldn’t have been but
it was,” he said.
Henry added he’s also considering settling down at some point with his long
term girlfriend Heidi (the Canadian co-owner of Phonica) though stressed
he’s not embracing clean living entirely.
“I’d still definitely smoke a joint again in the future but what I really
wanted to do was stop that thing of sitting there in the afternoon thinking
‘I’ll just smoke a joint’ then being stoned for the rest of the day, every
day,” he explained.
“I felt for a long time that I had to do that to make music, I felt I needed
to sit down and concentrate but it’s not the case at all. I don’t need to do
that.”
His newfound maturity matched that of UK progressive house turned
electro-house whizzkid Cass (of Cass & Slide and now Cass & Mangan fame) who
told Skrufff this week that the birth of his child forced him to
dramatically restructure his work-life approach..
“The pressure from having a baby comes from a need to be successful which
can be very inspirational in one way in that it gives you that framework,”
he said.
“If you’re self-employed you don’t have to get out of bed if you don’t want
to, but you need to have that drive to ensure that when you could be out
having a drink, instead you’re working all the time,” said Cass. Having a
baby really reinforces that need.”
The one time progressive house star enjoyed global success in the late 90s
and beyond through his Cass & Slide partnership with Pete ‘Slide’ Martin
(now one half of Coburn) though struggled after taking time out when his
father died.
“I cancelled loads of gigs and didn’t write any music and then wondered why
no-one wanted me to remix anything,” he recalled, “You can disappear very,
very quickly.”
Nowadays he’s thriving again with new collaborator Tom Mangan though
admitted that he nowadays equates his music career with gambling.
“It’s like playing cards, you sit down at the table, you’re playing cards
and your pile of chips is getting smaller and smaller and smaller,” said
Cass.
“Eventually most people will look at their chips and say ‘you know what, I
just can’t afford to gamble any more’ and they go and do something that
supplies them with a regular income. And they get up from the table. But as
soon as you get up from the table you can never win a hand. If you stay you
never know. Sometimes you can win with a pair of Aces. But you have to be
playing- ALL the time,” he added.
Riton’s new single 'Hammer Of Thor' is out on Tiefschwarz’ new label Souvenir.
in January
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