Boy 8-Bit to tour

BOY 8-BIT
North American Tour with FAKE BLOOD
Plus Worldwide Release of 'The Keep' April 19th

TUE 3/9 - Hi Fi, CALGARY, AB
WED 3/10 - Fortune Sound Club, VANCOUVER, BC
THU 3/11 - Starlite Room, VANCOUVER, BC
FRI 3/12 - Mezzanine, SAN FRANCISCO, CA
SAT 3/13 - Hard 13 @ Nokia, LOS ANGELES, CA
SUN 3/14 - Voyeur, SAN DIEGO, CA
MON 3/15 - The Vault, EL PASO, TX
WED 3/17 - Republic Live, AUSTIN, TX
THU 3/18 - Beta, DENVER, CO
FRI 3/19 - Webster Hall, NEW YORK, NY
SAT 3/20 - Sound Academy, TORONTO, ON
THU 3/25 - Hard Pool Party, MIAMI, FL
FRI 3/26 - Ultra Festival, MIAMI, FL
SAT 3/27- SAT, MONTREAL, QC

“It’s true,” says David Morris AKA Boy 8-Bit “I grew up listening to Guns N Roses, Metallica and a lot of heavy metal and my first steps into dance music came when I discovered that there was a copy of The Prodigy’s first album ‘The Experience’ on the other side of a Slayer cassette I was given. Oddly, I found myself listening more to The Prodigy album and feeling somewhat guilty about it. But then I got into house and wanted to see how electronic music was made.

“Of course, I then went out and bought ‘Jilted’ – the first two Prodigy albums were a big influence early on. But in 1996 I bought my first album on vinyl,” he recalls. “It was a Shy FX album jump up album and that made me want to make jungle so I started working on my computer, an Amiga and I had Octamed. And I had an 8 bit sampling cartridge - which is where the name came from, and I started making music on that, 4 channels of 8 bit sound.”

Believe it or not, the Boy’s earliest recordings were jump-up jungle business.

“The tunes didn’t have names – they were just jump up!” he laughs.” I was using things like Public Enemy and movie samples and the riff from Warren G – ‘Regulate.’ Not massively inventive, but it was a start!”

But the real turning point came when Theo Keating – AKA Dj Touche and more recently Fake Blood – The Boy wasted no time in giving Keating a CD and to his delight “he got back to me saying he was into the stuff on it.” What was on that, we wonder?

“One track was a re-edit of Colonel Abrahams – ‘Trapped’ which he then put on his Essential Mix.” The breakthrough and recognition he was looking for had came at last. After that, Boy 8-Bit put out a couple of releases on Theo’s Body Clap label (‘Turbo Loaded’/’Long Jenne Silver’). Remixes aplenty followed – including key reworks for Dave Clarke and Armand Van Helden’s ‘When The Lights Go Down’ – “but the one that got the attention was a remix of Black Ghosts called ‘Anyway’. Or to look at it from a slightly different and newly emerging perspective: “that was the first tune to be blogged!”

A slew of tracks soon followed. Now living in London, there was a release on Trouble and Bass called ‘Fog Bank’ in 2007, the mad Decent thing ‘The Suspense is Killing Me’ (by this point, Diplo was a fan) and then last year it was the mighty Essential New Tune ‘Baltic Pine’ on This Is Music that really cut through. But don’t even try and pigeonhole Boy 8-Bit – he’s way too esoteric.

“I have a set of influences and I try to encompass everything I like into dance music,” he says. “But ultimately I just make music I like. I listen to soundtracks, Tangerine Dream, eighties electronic scores, heavy metal, video game music sadly – but to put it broadly – everything.”

We can’t forget the key remixes Boy 8-Bit has delivered in the past 6 months either, with a razor-sharp electronic take on Florence’s ‘Drumming Song’ and a particularly rich, melodic electro-tech mix of La Roux’s ‘Quicksand’ finding favour with the likes of Annie Mac and Pete Tong. But it’s now 2010 and as a DJ and a producer, the year is ripe for the taking. Already championed by DJ Zinc, Andy George, Jack Beats and Ms. Mac for booming club tracks such as his next single ‘The Keep’ and ‘Restricted 18’, both bristling with deep Berlin energy and sound guaranteed to keep you coming back for more.