Jungle Confessions: “It’s against all odds, and it’s fabulous”
It’s the 4th day of the Jungle calendar, and it belongs to the one and only dj Drop – born on April 4th so a real 4/4 kind of guy.
Drop ran the monthly DNBZone club nights in Copenhagen from 2005 to 2009, booking everything and everyone from Future Prophecies and Rolodex to Vicious Circle, Temper D and EBK.
Apart from having awesome mixing skills, Drop is also the friendliest dj in the known universe. As you will all realize after reading this interview, the secret to being that level of Super Friendly is dedicating your life to dark music genres and all the struggles that come with it.
Welcome to: The Hard Times of Dj Drop
Wilcks sucks some friendliness out of Drop’s head and feels the buzz.
Drop! 🙂 I can’t even say your dj name without smiling. Tell us: When did you become a junglist?
I’m from Jutland so I didn’t have access to all the goings-on in Copenhagen, so my first rave was at the Roskilde Festival, in 1996 I think, where Bukem was hosting DeeDay for an entire night. I was a hiphop dj back then and I liked listening to drum’n’bass. But what made me a drum’n’bass-dj was Bad Company’s The Pulse. I was shopping for hiphop records on the internet and stumbled upon it. And I just had to own it. That record started everything. If it hadn’t been for The Pulse, you wouldn’t be talking to me today. We wouldnt even have met.
Phew. Lucky day on the internet. Let’s give it up for Bad Company then. Thank you, Bad Company!
Why do you love jungle?
First and foremost it’s the energy of the music. My love for heavy metal plays a part in it as well. And I used to be a drummer, so the rhythm thing means a lot to me, too. And jungle used to be so diverse. Back in the day everything was mixed. Darkside tunes mixed with liquid funk in one set. I liked that. There was so much life in the genre. Especially in the 90s. Now it’s split up so that you get one particular sound from one record company, and that’s it. It’s much harder to make an anthem today. All the dj’s are bombarded with tracks from their own camp.
Dj Drop and Chriszka the Time Traveller sharing a deepfelt ‘we love jungle’ moment at The Jungle Hut. This is totally our friendship photo, Drop!
How are you spreading the jungle gospel?
I’m from Ålborg, so I didn’t have access to all the parties in Copenhagen. If I wanted to hear the music, I had to create the parties myself. So I started doing monthly parties called 9000 Massive at Tusindfryd in Ålborg. And I booked all the dj’s from Copenhagen: Pyro, Nico, Vitus, Casparados and many more. I moved to Copenhagen in about 2004 and started doing the DNBZone parties. Primarily at Culture Box with free events on places like Stereo Bar, Riga and Nadsat as well – to lure new people in and get them to join us at Culture Box. DNBZone was running for four years, from 2005 til 2009, but then I threw in the towel. I got myself a drum’n’bass depression. Doing monthly drum’n’bass parties in Copenhagen was way too ambitious. People got completely saturated. I found it to be a hopeless project.
Pretty strong work running a hopeless project for four years, Drop. We salute you.
Well, if you want to survive with a club night in Copenhagen, do it 3 or 4 times a year, is my advice.
A picture of Drop running a hopeless project at Culture Box.
What’s the best thing that happened this year?
The jungle revival in Copenhagen! – kicked off by the first All Jungle party. The oldschool feeling is back, and it has hit Copenhagen, too. It’s beautiful! There were so many of the old crew at the All Jungle parties, and a lot of new faces, too, and then there’s the jungle stuff going on at Bolsjefabrikken, on top. To me, all this was completely unexpected. My faith in a healthy, thriving drum’n’bass scene in Copenhagen took a serious blow after giving up on DNBZone, so I’m really happy to se it. It’s against all odds, and it’s fabulous.
Drop in the middle of things at the legendary dj Hype party by Ohoi! at Stengade 2005.
What’s your favourite jungle tune?
Can I pick two?
Yes, you can, Drop, because it’s you.
There are two tracks that I keep returning to. One is Doc Scott: Tokyo Dawn, and the other is Source Direct: The Crane.
They both have such an attitude and such an outer space vibe. I never play them at parties, though. They’re sitting in my record bag, but they’re not really crowd-pleasing tracks. There are no sirens or ragga vocals to keep the energy up. They go deep and only work if you’re in a trance. …Well, maybe I’m just too nervous that people will get bored on the dancefloor. We finally have this jungle revival going on and then I assume that people are not ready for it yet or just want full power stuff. But I do play them at radio shows and such.
Drop winning the Weird Face competition in the JUngLE calendar’s Weird Faces Special.
What’s your favourite heavy metal tune, then?
Difficult question. I have engaged in just about everything the genre has to offer, from Mötley Crüe over Pantera to Behemoth. At the moment my favourite is Ghost. It’s a Swedish occult rock troupe. The identity of the band members is a secret, but it consists of Papa Emeritus and Nameless Ghouls. Visually they look like death metal, but musically it’s more like grandiose pop rock, and all their lyrics are about Satan. My favourite tune is by Behemoth, though: Blow Your Trumpets, Gabriel. The lead singer almost died of leukaemia, survives an operation and writes the masterpiece The Satanist, opening with this track. Pure evilness through and through, musically and visually.
What’s your best party moment ever?
My first time at Fabric in London. It was in 2002 or 2003 I think. It was a True Playaz night with Hype, Zinc, Pascal and so on. But we ended up standing in line for four hours outside the club. I lost sight of all my friends and didn’t make it inside until 30 minutes before the last set. So I basically missed the entire thing. But then Andy C goes on the decks and tears off the roof. I waited in line for four hours to rave at Fabric for one hour, and it was the best thing ever. It was the first time I heard Andy C, too.
Thank you, Drop! ❤
If you want to know what the weird face in the above picture is about, jump back to Blasts from the Past: The Birthday Bash Edition (it’s a time portal thriller!)
If you want more Drop, his finger prints are ALL OVER the JUngLE calendar, because the DNBZone parties are so heavily represented in all the selections of pictures. You could start out with our collection of pics from the DNBZone Temper D party: Blasts from the Past: Temper D or read my recommendation of his EBK party on AOK.dk, where I geek out (a bit more than usual).
You could also have some scrolling fun with Jungle Feelings: The Weird Faces Special or Jungle Feelings: The Group Hug Special.
Did you miss a day of JUngLE? Do not despair! Everything has been collected for you here: JUngLEkalenderen
Christina Majcher 
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