InnerSoul Music is an D&B event based in London U.K.
InnerSoul provide you D&B heads with a diverse line-up at their frequent events and make sure you go home with one big happy smile on your face,memories are made!
No bad attitude just full on love for Drum and Bass.
Venues are shutting down in London & promotors are being hit hard but you will never see the innerSoul Music family giving up.
Hey Nicky Beltran (InnerSoul),
How do you keep going/pushing your night forward?
Without sounding clichéd about it… we just love putting on these events.
We love the genre.
We love the people that come to our events.
We love the artists that we book (well most of them).
If that ever changes, if the love disappears, we would probably pack it in but that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
All for the love!
What was the first ever line-up & were you testing the waters or diving in at the deep end?
I think we were just testing waters back then.
Our first event was back in 2011 in Plan B’s Basement. We had V Records very own Bryan G headlining. We also had Mr Joseph, Jordan V & LSB.
Even though some of us had run events prior to innerSoul, we literally started from a blank canvas and booked DJs we wanted to hear (subject to budget of course).
We had no idea how the event would go.
Honestly we just wanted to throw a party for our mates.
I think it would have been naive to try and book the likes of Calibre or the Marky for our first event.
Firstly the ‘agents’ would have never allowed that to happen and secondly we needed to build a following; get the innerSoul name out there and I think now we are starting to achieve that.
Would you say that you have been affected by venue changes?
No I don’t think we have. We were at Plan B for three and half years, whilst other promoters/label nights came and went we stayed at Plan B.
We wanted to build up a good relationship with the venue and our crowd and I think we would have struggled to do that if we decided to move venues earlier.
If Plan B were still open we would have probably still been there; certainly until the end of the year.
It was by coincidence and circumstance we had a meeting with Lightbox and soon after that Plan B announced its closure so it worked out well timing wise.
In hindsight it was probably good time to move on.
We are very grateful the guys at Lightbox have put faith in us and we hope to carry on with the same quality of nights that we had at Plan B.
I must say, even though clubs have been closing down over the last few years, there are still some very cool venues out there in London so even if we didn’t have the opportunity to establish ourselves at Lightbox, I’m sure we would of found another great venue.
Would you be open to host innerSoul nights in & around Europe?
Of course… we would love to take innerSoul on tour.
It’s almost happened on a couple of occasions unfortunately is hasn’t never quite worked out. I personally think now it’s our duty to spread the innerSoul word!
I feel we have a responsibility to carry on supporting artists within the music scene. We want to bring the line-ups that we book in the UK to countries like Spain, Italy, Poland and Croatia etc.
However, we have learnt that there are many variables to overcome when trying to organise something like this.
We have to fully respect everyone involved and if it doesn’t work out it is a big disappointment however that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
You need the right support behind you and everyone has to be fully committed to the cause.
As I said, we would love to bring innerSoul to Europe. If there were anyone out there that would like to talk to us about it then please get in touch.
Let’s make it happen!
Have you got a favourite event from the past few years?
There have been I can’t speak for the other innerSoul members however my favourite was our last event at Plan B.
Maybe because it was our last event at Plan B and it was all a bit emotional but I had such a great time.
Alongside d-Bridge and Lenzman, we wanted to try something a bit different so we went for a live theme and booked Jenna & The G’s.
I’ll be honest I was quite nervous because I didn’t know how the live aspect would go down at a club night however… put it this way… I have not heard 400+ people all singing along with Jenna G before. She was brilliant, the band was brilliant, the crowd was brilliant and so were all the other DJs on the night.
We even had surprise guest Vanessa Freeman laying down some vocals whilst A-Sides was on the decks. It was a very special night.
As the saying goes… ‘You had to be there!’
The next event you will be hosting a DJ competition..
What’s the story behind this?
Are there any specific reasons?
When we do our events we obviously try to book the DJs and MCs people want to see as we have got bigger, we have been able to book legends like the dBridges and Marcus Intalex’s of our scene and it’s been great!
So as long as we carry on we will try to bring the best DJs and Live acts we can to play at innerSoul.
However, after 4 years of putting on events we have got to meet many talented DJ’s and Producers. Artists that struggle to break through because let’s face it, unless you are associated with a big label or promotion there are not many opportunities to DJ within the scene.
We always get requests from DJs, asking us for slots at our events.
As my mum would say… If you don’t ask, you don’t get!
We actually feel quite honoured that a lot of DJs want to play at our nights.
However in the real world most of the times we have to say no.
Nothing personal, we just simply can’t accommodate it because of the line-ups we put on.
So this DJ competition is simply to give back to all the up and coming DJs out there.
It’s a chance for the winner to DJ at Lightbox and at future innerSoul events.
It’s all about creating opportunities and after 4 years we are now in a position to do that.
Let’s get one thing straight though… you will have to convince 6 members of innerSoul, A-Sides and Makoto that you can select good tunes and handle yourself on the decks; so good luck with that!
What are you planning for the last few months of 2015?
It’s our 4th Birthday in December so we plan to put on a big event.
I can’t say too much now, however, we are planning to bring some of the scenes legends to innerSoul; DJs that we have never been able to book before so watch this space.
Sorry I can’t tell you more than that but details will be released very soon.
Any final words?
Big shout out to you ladies at Drum & Basics and to everyone who come to our events, we hope to see you at our next event on the 2nd October 2015 @ Lightbox.
More info here – https://www.facebook.com/events/1607986702799730/
