In advance of his appearance at the Hong Kong Red Bull Music Academy, UK garage heavyweight Zed Bias speaks with Patrick Brzeski about inspiring genres and raising babies

Over the course of his prolific 14-year career Zed Bias (real name Dave Jones) has seen UK dance music cycle through booms and busts. He was there at the heights of UK garage and at the very inception of dubstep. Since 2002 Bias has been regular lecturer at the annual Red Bull Music Academy events around the world. This year he touches down in Hong Kong to share his industry experience and hard-hitting garage sound.

You’re often credited with being integral to the advent of dubstep. How do you yourself assess your place in the genesis of the genre?
I was a small cog in a big machine. I suppose I was more a part of the start of the scene than the start of the actual music, because the sound came out of one club, called Forward, where I was playing as a resident from day one. The people who went on to create dubstep were the people going there as youngsters. So that was probably my role: providing the more experimental soundtrack that inspired them to go on and do what they did – people like Skream, Kode 9, and Benga. So yeah, it’s a nice thing for people to write, but sometimes it gets summarised into ridiculous statements that I don’t agree with – like that I’m the godfather of dubstep.

As a veteran record label owner, DJ, producer, and promoter, how do you divide your time these days and what inspires your most?
Well, I’m also a relatively new father. I’ve got a little boy who’s nearly two years old. So there’s a lot of juggling going on. I find that the thing that gets you through it is not sleeping very much. I find time that way. [Laughs]
I still have that hunger to get in the studio to create new music every day. When that goes, then maybe I will reassess my situation. But for now, I’m loving making and playing music. It’s a good time again. It reminds me of ten years ago in a way.

How’s that?
Ten years ago it was a very fresh time for music, as far as I was concerned. There was a lot of experimenting going on and a lot of new styles. I think through the last ten years there have been different periods when dance music has taken a dip in popularity, where bands were at the forefront of the industry. But now electronic music is coming back. It’s a good time for me to be prolific. I’m loving it.

How would you explain that comeback?
I think the taste of youngsters has changed. The kids coming through have grown up on a diet of rave. I think it’s possible that some of these kids’ parents were out raving when they were younger. My parents brought me up on Motown, which is a completely different mindset. I think it’s now acceptable to hear really gnarly music on the radio and in public during the daytime, in a way that never was in the past. Harder music is more palatable now, which is quite a good thing for UK dance music, because we’re known for our bass and our harder edged sounds. Everyone is getting onto dubstep. Even Britney Spears. The word is out.

Yeah, what do you think about that one?
I don’t know. [Sighs] It is what it is. In a sense, I see it as a massive compliment to UK music. It’s gratifying in a way. If people imitate your sound, that means they really love it, or they think that there’s value in it.

Often when a genre reaches that point of saturation where it pops up in the most plastic pop song out there, it means that the sound has already peaked in a way.
Nah, there’s a lot of dubstep left. The only place where it will die out is in the mainstream. It’s such an experimental scene.

Yeah, it’s a particularly hard genre to define.
Yeah, impossible to pin down. If you picked the top ten DJs across the genre and got them to play a set together, the sounds would be completely different. It would be like you’re taken on a journey through bass music. It’s not just quote-unquote dubstep, you know. In some of the best sets I’ve heard from dubstep DJs, they haven’t played what the mainstream would know as dubstep at all.

You said your parents brought you up on Motown and a lot of today’s DJs came up on rave music, so I wonder what you plan to bring your son up on. Is he listening to dubstep yet?
No, he’s listening to nursery rhymes. I’m going to let him be a little boy as long as he can be.

So dubstep would steal his innocence?
[Laughs] You know what, maybe not, but I don’t think I need to impose my music onto him. I’m going to be very careful not to indoctrinate my son. I want him to discover his own sound. But if one day he turns to me and says, you know what dad, play me some dubstep or play me some garage, I’ll play him the very best there is.