Gentleman's Dub Club on New Album 'Lost In Space'

Over the last couple months, Gentleman’s Dub Club have teased fans with two massive singles ‘Stardust’ and ‘Turning back’, released ahead of the drop of their eagerly anticipated album Lost in Space, set for a January 25th debut. Following up from their summer LP Pound for Pound, GDC are set to bless our ear drums with more dubby sounds, sick collaborations and concepts for thought. Beetz had the absolute pleasure of chatting to frontman and dance-raised rudeboy Johnny Scratchley about the concept of the upcoming album, the crazy year the band have had and what went down on their inter-galactic hunt for the ultimate bassline.

You guys represented for reggae music in 2018 - how do you mix up your sound and keep it relevant?

We wanted to make a UK sound as well as doing a decent bit of hip-hop in there. We also wanted to change up the tempos rather than doing something that’s more of a dub plate. But really for us the tunes and the styles just came really off the back of who we are and where we’re at and the tunes that we’ve listened to over the years. It’s not really a conscious decision - its all about just taking it slow and letting it develop naturally.

Totally, totally, and that’s what made you guys stand out for the past 10 years!

The collabs on Pound for Pound were phenomenal and the combination of artists captured the modern scene beautifully- Chali 2NA being one that had everyone talking. Can we expect more hip-hop names or influences from other genres on the new album?

We’ve got Million Stylez on ‘Turning Back’, that we put out last week. We’ve also got Winston Francis - I don’t know if you’re aware but he’s a big reggae guy - so he’s on one of the records. Apart from that it’s just us and we’ve done it all! One thing it’s important to know is that we really enjoyed working together on this one. We actually recorded this album before we started writing Pound for Pound.

The tracks on Pound for Pound have a message of bringing lightness in dark times, specifically in ‘Highs and Lows’ that mentions “the times that we’re in”. So, given all the darkness in the media and issues such as racism, do you think that your sound and specifically reggae is needed now more than ever?

Yeah, I really do, and thank you for putting that out there. The music that’s been on the radio has been a little bit pansy for a long time in terms of it being far too much about hedonism and throw-away subjects. So yeah, I really wanted to make this record a bit more conscious. I want to find a way of communicating that through music we can actually come together in a really unique way.

Your new album focuses on the concept of space, what is it that draws you to that concept? Is there a deeper meaning behind it? The concepts of the universe, our place and our unity within it?

The way that that’s developed is kind of like a story; A story about not finding inspiration in this planet and needing to go into this more sort of esoteric head space where we could find that inspiration, so we metaphorically we took this journey into space. Originally it was about trying to find the ultimate bassline, so we were like go and find this guy called ‘The Omnipressive Base Dictator’ who lives on an island off of one of Saturn’s Galilean Moons.

Okay… liking the sound of this

And yeah, and we went out there we went to find him, we found him, we got the ultimate bassline and the rest is history!

Well it’s good to have you back!

It’s good to be back, thank you!

You guys have had a HUGE year, specifically in the summer you played NASS, Bestival and Shambala. What has been your most memorable gig this year and what festivals/venues will you be returning to in 2019?

Erm, we’ve played some wicked shows, we played up in Manchester on the last tour, it was a really amazing gig because of the situation that surrounded it, but it was amazing, we played at the Ritz in Manchester. Then Shambala is always a great show, we want to go back there. Nass was pretty special we played just after the football. Next year we’re going to back to Outlook, and we’re going to go back to Boomtown.

For pre-orders and more info on the album visit http://lostinspace.gentlemansdubclub.com/