Eddie Def

Eddie Def

Eddie Def has been scratching/producing since the early 1980's, producing solo records under his own name, and as Eddie Def The Last Kreep. With DJ's Quest, Cue and Marz, he performed as The Bullet Proof Scratch Hamsters (since 1991), and has worked on a variety of other projects as well, including HempLords, The Good Scratching Record and DMT, to name just a few.

All Music Guide calls him a turntablist pioneer. He's released at least five of his own records and continues to work with The Bullet Proof Scratch Hamsters, under their new name, The Space Travelers. Now a five piece, the group features DJ Quest, Eddie K, Eddie Def, DJ Marz and DJ Cue. The group have about a half dozen releases, to date.

Eddie Def has made several appearances on turntablist compilations, including two of the Deep Concentration releases, Return of The DJ Volume 3 and the Scratch movie soundtrack. He was one of many DJs to be featured in that excellent 2001 documentary. The film features interviews with hip hop producers, scratch DJs and turntablists of all kinds, talking about the history and development of several different DJ styles, and the nature and creative potential of vinyl records. Check it out HERE.

Eddie Def and DJ Passion produce the "K.I.T.T.Y Radio Show," podcast as well, which can be found at bulletproofscratch.com. You can also check them out at their Myspace page HERE.

Without further ado, here's this week's Q&A with Eddie Def...


*Name: Eddie Def

*Are there any additional names used to describe this project: Eddie Def The Last Kreep.

*Members: The Bullet Proof Scratch Hamsters were Eddie Def, DJ Quest, DJ Cue and DJ Marz.

*Do you use a pseudonym? (yes)

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: I don’t use computers at all, for music. I use a lot of keyboards and drum machines and effects pedals and stuff like that. I use a multi-track mixer, a Roland 1880. I do a lot of bouncing tracks, overdubs and stuff like that. I prefer to just be called an artist, because if you call yourself a turntablist, you’re kind of limited to scratching. I kind of outgrew that. I still do it, but you kind of get bored of doing the same stuff. So, you venture out and do different stuff.

*Is there a story behind your name? It’s just an old school name. I’m 37, so I started a long time ago. I guess back then, those were the kind of names that were out, you know like Mikey Fresh or Funky Bob… something like that. I used to abbreviate it, like D. E. F., to make it like Eddie “Does Everything Funky.”

*Location: Oroville, California

*Original Location: San Francisco, California

*What is your creative/artistic background: I started out being a DJ, getting into hip hop, like any other kid, tagging and graffiti and the whole breaking scene, and rapping, and I guess I just adapted to the DJ more. Then I met Quest and Cue, then we did the first break record of its kind. You know, the first strictly scratch centered DJ record. We did that, and then I started working with Buckethead. Then I did a lot of that Last Kreep stuff, which is Trip Hop music, to try to separate the styles. I got into turntablism in the early ‘80s. I think I started DJing when I was like 12, scratching at home and then joining mobile mixing disc jockey companies.

*History: We were the Bullet Proof Scratch Hamsters (Eddie Def, DJ Quest, DJ Cue, DJ Marz) at first, and that came from a corny comic book background… like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We wanted a name that was far-out like that. We became the Bullet Proof Scratch Hamsters, and then the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, they kind of jumped on the bandwagon of silly names, and then we wanted to change it, and we just changed it to Space Travelers. I grew up around Qbert, and that whole scene. Everybody grew up together. The whole Bay Area was like me, Quest, Qbert, Mix Master Mike, Disk, Shortcut. From this neighborhood to that neighborhood, everybody just kind of grew up scratching. Me and Marz released a solo break record called Sound Pollution, in 2008.

*Born: San Francisco, 1972

*Motivations: My motivation is always to try to give other people the first buzz that I got. Out of everything that I do, I love to do megamixes (mashups and stuff like that) to just bounce like nine tracks at the same time, with a bunch of mixing going on. I’m making music for everybody else, but I’m also really just trying to satisfy my personal urge, musically. So, I would say that I’m trying to give people that buzz, like “damn, I want to do that…” That’s probably why I do what I do – to get those reactions out of people.

*Philosophy: As an artist, just as a musical guy, just to always have integrity. Your own kind of style, you know? Always do it the way you want to do it. Don’t let a guy from a record label tell you like, you should put a little glitter on it, or add more base, or make it sound like Little John. You know what I mean? That’s the kind of stuff I hate. You’ve got your own s**t, you’re doing your own stuff, and then you get brainwashed by the business and you kind of lose your true sense. You know, your music starts getting stripped down, you just kind of end up sounding like a clone. I would say integrity. Musical integrity.

*How would you like to be remembered: That guy was, not to sound cliché, but like a true guy, a real motherf****r, who handled his business and his profession. That’s probably about it.

*Web address: http://www.myspace.com/djpassionandeddiedef


www.some-assembly-required.net