biography
The first track Scambler laid down was programmed in Basic on a 32K BBC B. He was nine at the time and would probably like to tell everyone that it was something seriously funky. It was however the Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G major reproduced as a series of electronic beeps. It was an early start in digital music composition.
During the eighties when Scambler was in his early teens he never really got into mainstream popular music, but was initially influenced by Big Country, the Police and Nik Kershaw (with ABBA, Glen Campbell, Boney M and Status Quo regularly played by his parents). As a result of watching too many Pink Panther cartoons and seventies TV cop shows, the seed for a later interest in jazzy lounge music and up beat funky disco was planted (confirmed by the release of “Taylor’s lounge” and “Too ‘king funky” in 2006).
By the age of fourteen Scambler had acquired an Amiga and started using OctaMED sequencing software to write music. The first version of OctaMED only allowed for four channels worth of music samples, which could total no more than 512K (and that included the operating system and the sequencing software). Friends said the music sounded like "builders working" or “music being dragged through wire” but Scambler could only hear the potential.
After the release of Bon Jovi’s “Living on a prayer”, Europe’s “The final countdown” and Def Leppard’s “Pour some sugar on me” Scambler’s taste in music broadened and went down two quite distinct routes. One direction led to the powerfully grungy sounds of Faith No More, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, Senser, Metallica and the more industrial sounds of Nine Inch Nails (“What the f... ” an example of these grunge influences). At the same time Scambler also began listening to lighter guitar-based music, such as Counting Crows, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Eagle Eye Cherry and The Four of Us.
After going to university Scambler became involved in the club scene and mid-nineties dance and rap got under his skin. At the age of nineteen Scambler decided to invested in some more serious music hardware, starting off with a couple of Korg keyboards, a Yamaha drum machine and a new version of OctaMED that allowed for a whopping 32 channels of sound. During this period Scambler also got into DJing and began mixing vinyl; something which totally altered his perspective on music composition and remixing. Particular influences during this time included the Beastie Boys, Snoop Doggy Dog, BT, Leftfield, the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers (hearing them live on Pete Tong’s Radio 1 show was a seminal moment)...
