I must admit, it’s pretty amazing what and who you can find on myspace and for that matter who can find you. I listen at least once to everyone that sends me a friend request and they have some type of music that is possible to hear. I mean who am I to judge, we here at Scheme are on the same level as many of these artists and we are asking for a chance to e heard just as they are. Well these cats out of Europe who call themselves the Head and Neck Sessions are dope, them finding me was like a crate digger placing the original song to Common’s Nag Champa in my lap. Before you judge just check these cats out and give them a listen. You may be surprised with some of their answers as to who and what are their inspirations and why they make this music.

Scheme: How did you guys come together as a group?

Alex: When we got together we had the idea that we were going to make a track in a night to see if we could come up with something and then 12-12 just happened. I’d just bought some recording gear, so I was getting to grips with that and that’s kind of why it ended up on tape. We only meet up during university vacations so once I had mixed the track I put it on myspace to let the others hear it. We were all really surprised when it started to attract some attention, so next time we had the chance we recorded another track and we just went on from there.

James: James: We only get a few weeks every few months to play because we all live in different parts of the country. I’m always looking forward to the next time I get to play with Matt and Alex.

“There’s so many scenes, I have no idea what everyone’s listening to, I think everyone’s listening to everything. Kids are listening to mobile phones on the bus.”

Scheme: Where do you get your inspiration to create your music?

People I listen to/am inspired by – Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Bill Frissell, John Coltrane, Dhafer Youssef , Nils Petter Molvaer, Eivind Aarset, Arild Andersen, more. I have been listening to mainly jazz for the last few years especially small group stuff – trios, quartets etc. – lots of guitar trio stuff at the mo. The current Scandinavian electronica-jazz scene really inspires me.

Alex: Head and Neck Sessions is kind of like the music in my head. I’m really happy to be playing this music at this time. I really like having so much creative input too, as a drummer you don’t always get that. It is amazing to be making music with people you know so well, we tell each other exactly what we think. I get ideas for drum beats all the time, I’m always listening to music I don’t necessarily like first time though to try and get something out of it. I’m trying to hear as much music as I possibly can. Living in London’s great for that.

Matt: From my point of view I think we all bring a lot of different styles to the table. We all listen to different styles of music, we all draw our influences from different places and eras – it changes what we want to be hearing and how each of us plays our instruments. For me, Alex makes the drums a very focal part of our tracks, allowing them to become an instrument rather than just a beat. Having James on board is like having every piano sample ever recorded at my finger tips, which means less time digging through the crates. I use an MPC and turntables but these days I try to steer clear of just straight up loops and scratches and aim for something more melodic.

The music usually comes about in one of two ways. Either, Alex and James will get together and jam for a while, then play me what they have come up with, or I’ll find a nice vocal sample or melody and bring it to them. From that point on we spend a while just improvising sections of the songs until we find parts that we like.

Scheme: Describe the scene in London musically, what people are predominantly listening to?

Alex: I live in London, there’s a lot of indie bands and club nights. A lot of over priced industry run gigs and then the real grassroots stuff. I went to a London Breakbeat Orchestra gig recently and came across a really young MC called Scoundrel who just ripped it up, he produces under the name Rawchestra. Grime’s big and there’s a lot of hip hop. There’s so many scenes, I have no idea what everyone’s listening to, I think everyone’s listening to everything. Kids are listening to mobile phones on the bus.

Matt: A lot of people are listening to dubstep, it’s one of those genres of music that’s fairly confined to the UK as far as I can tell. That, and Nu-Rave. The hip hop scene in the UK is really strong at the moment. We’ve got guys like Klashnekoff, Jehst and Taskforce who have been making moves around here for a long time, and new crews like Foreign Beggars really tearing up shows at the moment. I live in Bristol; there’s some incredible music coming out of there.

Scheme: How many albums have you currently made?

Alex: None, we made a five track EP. We made it ourselves from recording to putting together the packaging; that was harder than I thought, but it came out just how it was meant to. You can only get it from us, so email us at headandneckmusic@gmail.com if you want one!

Scheme: What have been the struggles to create this album?

James: Recording lots of takes of tracks to make them just as we wanted them was a difficult thing to do. Choosing a take that we all agree is the sound we want, can get a bit tense too.

Alex: We all nearly went insane from not sleeping and spending a week in the same room. Mixing it was a massive challenge too. I learned so much from the process and I’d do little things differently next time, but that’s what it’s all about isn’t it.

Matt: Finding the time was the main problem and still is today. A lot of the issues we come across are ones that once we solve make us better at what we do. Like “how to I get this vocal sample to play in time with live drums?” or “how can we get that sound out of that instrument” – they’re all a challenge, but in the end they just give us more knowledge of what we’re doing.

James: Logistics. It’s not great. We all live so far away from each other these days, it’s difficult getting together to make music.

Scheme: How did you guys come up with the name, it sounds self explanatory but I want to hear from you guys?

Matt: James and Alex are both medical students. They were studying the anatomy of the head and neck and decided to take a break and have a jam. I got a call from them asking if I wanted to help them out on a track they had come up with and the Head and Neck Sessions was born. That track turned out to be 12-12 which we recorded over twelve hours between 12pm and 12am a couple of days later.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for hip hop. Hip hop made me want to start making my own music.”

Scheme: What is your opinion on music in general and how has hip hop influenced your music?

Alex: Hip hop drums sound amazing. I try and make my kit sound punchy and tight. I love the heavy rhythms you get, I try make the drums a feature in Head and Neck Sessions I suppose that comes from the hip hop I’ve listened to.

James: Music in general – sound and silence are both as important as each other. I like listening to music that can make me happy or sad.

Matt: Music in general? There’s so much that can be said. I mean, it amazes me that every day I can find a new artist or band that really makes me say “wow” – that’s the power of the internet I suppose; it allows everyone to get out there and get themselves heard.

I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for hip hop. Hip hop made me want to start making my own music. It was definitely the guys who spent all their lives digging, like Dilla or Madlib, that got me hooked on production. Once I discovered that they made all these track by using “other peoples music” I became interested in sampling and how to produce hip hop tracks. I’d been dabbling in scratching as well. Ricci Rucker and D Styles really turned the whole scratch thing on its head and stopped seeing how fast they could cut up “ahh” and “fresh” samples and instead began making whole tracks and albums using nothing but scratching – drums, melodies, the whole lot. That really made me realise how turntables could be used. Then, when I saw another UK act called Fingathing rock a whole crowd of people with live MPC drumming I knew I had to get myself one. The MPC and turntables belong very much to the world of hip hop and I would never have begun using them if it wasn’t for my love for that music.

I really loved making “Throttle”, a track featuring an MC from London called shortMAN. The UK scene is really strong at the moment and there’s a lot of really conscious, talented lyricists out there. These guys have to be something special to get anywhere with their music as UK hip hop doesn’t have the funding and support that you see over in the US, so contracts are mostly only gained by those artists that have genuine talent. Getting someone like shortMAN on board was great, and it let me do something that I had been hoping to do for a long time. The guy got nominated for an Urban Music Award and we’d made four tracks by that point so it was pretty exciting. “Throttle” fuses our style with traditional MC-based hip hop and I think something really special has come out of it.

Scheme: What does your music represent?

Alex: Music for music’s sake, there’s no ulterior motive.

James: It represents all of our different influences.

Matt: We’re finally starting to get somewhere with our music and people are starting to take notice. At the moment it feels like we’ve accomplished more than we ever planned to, but that’s only given us more ambition to pursue it. For me, it represents something that I’ve wanted to create for a long time, and have finally found a way of doing it.

Scheme: What is your goal in creating this music?

Creating music that people want to listen to without compromising what we want to play.

Scheme: What is your opinion on Tony Blair’s platform on the war in Iraq?

I reckon we know about one millionth of what’s actually gone on in Iraq over the last few years, so it’d be pointless to come out with some bold statement based on nothing. It’s clearly not good for people to be killing each other though.