“Only when I’m drunk, when the tequila comes out,” he laughs. I wonder out loud if George can still breakdance now. Winston ‘Forgemasters’ Hazel and A Guy Called Gerald, we were all body-poppers, all bachelors, all from the same ilk. “Those days were also about representing your breakdance crew and beating other crews. “I was with Steve Beckett at Christmas, and we were remembering testing tunes in the clubs,” recalls George. Back then, young Mr Evelyn was a dancer in Leeds whose vision was slightly less enlightened: he wanted nothing more than to get his tunes played in the local clubs – and to win a dance-off. The label’s early reputation reverberated to the renegade acid of 1989’s ‘Dextrous’ and the steely soul of ‘Aftermath’. George Evelyn, otherwise known as DJ E.A.S.E., is Warp Records’ longest-serving artist. But we can’t talk about the future without looking at the past. His new album is very much fixed on that horizon: tracks like ‘Tell My Vision’ fire confetti cannons at the future with phrases like “Come on world, what are you waiting for?”. When he became a father, he quit Leeds and moved to the sunny climes of Ibiza to run DJ residencies and beach parties. Here’s a guy who played a foundational role in modern UK techno, who then widened his sound to find longevity. He talks like a guru, and in one sense, his life seems heavenly. With nuclear buttons getting bandied around on Twitter as politicians lurch from one plot of ‘The Thick Of It’ to the next, George’s vision is truly enlightening. I’m talking about a revolution in consciousness that starts with yourself, then your family, then your neighbourhood.” But instead of that, how about visualising our future and the kind of world we actually want to live in? That’s better than complaining about how shit things are. The media wants to feed us this idea that everything is bad. “If you were to get a bunch of children in a room who have not been affected by religion or politics,” says George, “and you asked them how they see the future, I pretty much guarantee that 99.9 per cent of them would have a positive outlook. You join us as he’s proposing a thought experiment involving a gaggle of kids locked away from the outside world.
With its release imminent, he’s shooting little bubbles of philosophy into the air with Electronic Sound. That’s because his eighth album, ‘Shape The Future’, is not only complete, but it sounds great.
I could tell him “Nightmares On Wax” is an anagram of “Waxier man’s thong” and he’d remain completely zen.
As I catch up with Nightmares On Wax’s George Evelyn, a Leeds emigrant to the Balearic islands, his disposition is all blue skies and beautiful horizons. Other than that, everyone who lives in the world’s carefree clubbing capital is on cloud nine, right?Īctually, it does seem like it. A few untidy tourists, not enough absinthe in your sangria, sand in your underpants, perhaps. In the sand-specked sunshine of Ibiza, you’d think there would be little to complain about. How so? Living in Ibiza for 10 years sure helps Taking a lead from the title of his latest album, Nightmares On Wax’s George Evelyn sees a more positive world if we aim to ‘Shape The Future’.
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