{"id":6481,"date":"2014-11-13T14:38:03","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T13:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deephouselondon.com\/?p=6481"},"modified":"2015-05-14T14:06:26","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T12:06:26","slug":"promoter-interview-spilt-milk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/promoter-interview-spilt-milk\/","title":{"rendered":"Promoter Interview: Spilt Milk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spilt Milk is one of London’s best-loved soirees, run by the one and only Tred Bendict – a jovial, enigmatic character who has established the party over a number of years without relying on the hype machine to raise their profile. Together with his partner in crime Paul ……… he has been working on launching a record label attached to the event, which incorporates all the elements that have made his party such a success. With the first release hitting the streets recently, we caught up with both men over a pint to talk about the story so far.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What do you guys both do to pay the bills?<\/strong>
\nPaul:<\/strong> I work in marketing.<\/p>\n

Tred:<\/strong> I work in marketing too. I basically give away free stuff from big brands. But once it hits 5pm that\u2019s it, off the clock and back on music.<\/p>\n

So your careers are in marketing\u2026<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> \u2026I suppose so yeah.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> I think career is a strong word!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s your bread and butter then.<\/strong>
\n P:<\/strong> It pays the bills.<\/p>\n

T:<\/strong> Yeah it pays for records and bills.<\/p>\n

I guess music has always been a part of your lives, but when did it become something you wanted to invest more time and energy into?<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been a DJ for 12 years and been through garage, drum n bass, house, minimal techno\u2026 When it really started to cross over was around 2008 when I first picked up a pay cheque and that\u2019s when it changed. My first party was \u2018Don\u2019t Techno Shit\u2019 \u2013 it was very serious around that time, but our whole thing was to try and lighten the mood. We had Mister Miyaghi and the Karate Kid on one of the flyers, Captain Kirk\u2026 we even had Jessica Fletcher on one of them. In 2010 we started Spilt Milk, at an amazing venue, the Paper Mill, nice outdoor vibes \u2013 outdoor venues are so hard to come by these days so it was a dream. We\u2019ve had three venue changes since then, loads of amazing guests\u2026 we\u2019ve had some good\u2019uns.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve known each other a while then?<\/strong>
\n P:<\/strong> Yeah, I don\u2019t know when we crossed swords.<\/p>\n

T:<\/strong> Oh we\u2019ve never crossed swords!<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> I met Tred for the first time at one of the \u2018Don\u2019t Techno Shit\u2019 parties. As he said everything was so serious at the time, it was nice to be somewhere where everyone was having fun \u2013 I got talking to him as I was putting my own parties back in Essex called \u2018We Love Dust\u2019, we were trying to replicate what they were doing up in London. I booked Tred because I thought he was a great DJ and it snowballed from there.<\/p>\n

T:<\/strong> It\u2019s funny because a lot of the people we\u2019re close to now were at those parties but we didn\u2019t know each other and it\u2019s escalated, and there are people we see now, week in, week out, who we\u2019ve known for five or six years. It\u2019s a really nice thing, and we\u2019ve got a good core following of true friends.<\/p>\n

[youtube id=”IH7FDxumwQg” width=”620″ height=”360″]<\/p>\n

Was the intention always to have the parties outside?<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> Spilt Milk is set to be outdoors. Our first time at Sonar everything was outdoors. It\u2019s just a completely different vibe \u2013 we have a hard time going up against the great British summer, it\u2019s always a bit of a gamble. Everyone always wants to do parties outside and I was lucky enough to have hit it off with the owner of the venue. A lot of people asked to do it there and he always said no, so we were very fortunate. It\u2019s just a shame now that it\u2019s getting harder and harder to do stuff like that in London \u2013 you look at Europe and they embrace it almost everywhere.<\/p>\n

Yeah it is a shame. How do you guys manage to juggle your 9-5s with putting on the parties, because events are a hell of a lot of work\u2026?<\/strong>
\n P:<\/strong> It depends how you treat. The stage we\u2019re at with Spilt Milk, it\u2019s almost like a second career \u2013 you just have to be stay aware of the fact that it\u2019s something you enjoy and something you want to do rather than getting stressed and treating it like a proper job.<\/p>\n

T:<\/strong> It\u2019s quite hard for me because my job involves being on the phone a lot and I don\u2019t usually come round [after their parties] until Wednesday! But it\u2019s just knowing when to say stop, and when I find out how to do that I\u2019ll let you know.<\/p>\n

Why after four years have you now decided to launch a Spilt Milk label?<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> It\u2019s definitely been the big talk around the camp fire for a while now, we\u2019ve spoken a lot about doing it, as a lot of people do but we\u2019ve really got an incentive so now it\u2019s really happening. It\u2019s a completely different thing; from saying you\u2019re going to do it to \u2018fuck, it\u2019s really happening\u2019.<\/p>\n

So tell me a little bit about the first release\u2026<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> Marc Ashken is a really, really good friend of mine. I actually met him four years ago at an after-party and it wasn\u2019t until we were leaving that he said he\u2019d like to stay in touch, so I asked his name and he said, \u2018Marc Ashken\u2019 and my and my mate were like, \u2018Surely not the Marc Ashken?!\u2019, as it turned it out he was and we\u2019ve been in touch ever since. I really like his music, and as soon as I heard his tracks, I wanted them for the label, he\u2019s a great producer, he\u2019s been around a long time and it made sense to go with his music.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> We\u2019ve been working on building this label for ages. We thought it would take a couple of weeks and it\u2019s been about six months, but I\u2019m really happy with this first release and the way it\u2019s all going.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really much about setting up a label\u2026<\/strong>
\nTogether:<\/strong> Neither do we!<\/p>\n

So I want to hear it from two guys who have experienced it first-hand.<\/strong>
\n P:<\/strong> I\u2019ve read all the articles. I read one which said, \u2018Just whack it all on a credit card and let it work itself out\u2019. I had some really good advice from someone\u2026 we thought we were doing really well, we were all ready to get it pressed, vinyl-only release etc\u2026 walk into the record shops and it all go smoothly. But we had someone who schooled us and said, \u2018Nah, it doesn\u2019t work like that\u2019.<\/p>\n

T:<\/strong> At the end of that meeting we both turned around to each other and went, \u2018Fuuuuck!!\u2019. It was a real learning curve, the main thing we found was that you get everything in order and then you can go one of two ways; you can either go the P&D (packaging and distribution) route or you can do it yourself. It\u2019s cheaper to do it the P&D way but we had a lot of ideas about how we wanted to do everything, we\u2019ve got a mad pressing company that\u2019s doing us some outrageous vinyl, coloured with splatters, heavyweight\u2026 there\u2019s a lot going on with it and, if we\u2019d have gone down the P&D route we wouldn\u2019t have had the freedom to do that. Like we say we spent four years talking about it and to get to a certain point and then let somebody else take charge of it just didn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> We always had strong ideas about what we wanted to do and that hasn\u2019t changed, and we\u2019ve stuck to that but obviously we\u2019ve allowed ourselves to bend slightly where necessary.<\/p>\n

[youtube id=”V-Q72yV4cew” width=”620″ height=”360″]<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the ethos, in terms of the music policy?<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> It\u2019s going to reflect the parties, so not just house, not just techno\u2026 there are people who already concentrate solely on those genres and do it well. I was at a party recently where it was \u2018deep house\u2019 all night and, I know it might sound like an amateur thing to say, but it was almost like they were the same record all night. We like to keep things interesting, if you want your party to go off it the mood needs to work accordingly; ups and downs, different styles to keep the crowd on their toes. It\u2019s not a case of, \u2018ah well, it\u2019s a daytime party, let\u2019s keep it deep all day\u2019. The vinyl will be solid, the full package from warm-up, to peak time and late night styles. It\u2019s not going to be a one-trick pony, every release will be different from the other.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> We always refer back to the party, it\u2019s important to translate the vibe of our events back into the music we\u2019re releasing.<\/p>\n

T:<\/strong> You can see that from the people we book too, Tiefschwarz, Adana Twins, Lauhaus\u2026 there\u2019s variation and it\u2019s not fixed on one particular style. It\u2019s a showcase of the people we\u2019re into, we build an element of trust with those people and create a strong relationship. Likewise, our punters trust us. You don\u2019t have to be a full-on music head to be able to have a good time and appreciate good music and that\u2019s what we instill in our events. The label will incorporate people who have played at our events, too.<\/p>\n

How do you feel about how the party has progressed and it\u2019s standing within the London party scene?<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> We started in a tiny courtyard that holds 350 people, the first year we grew slowly and it was amongst friends \u2013 it\u2019s progressed through word of mouth. We used flyers in the beginning but after a couple of parties we stopped using them. I think you can become a victim of your own success. When we left the Papermill we started doing parties at a place we called \u2018The Dairy\u2019, which was an evangelical church\u2026 yeah, we\u2019re all going to hell! It was the first one where we had Funktion-One system and we ran the bar, which made a massive difference.<\/p>\n

You mention the London scene, unfortunately it\u2019s diminishing. It\u2019s really sad when you look at the likes of Paris, which is huge now, Berlin\u2019s always been there \u2013 you look at the continent and they embrace it, they see it as part of the lure of their tourism but here it\u2019s based around tourists coming over, going for a meal and a West End show and then going back to their hotel, they\u2019re missing out on a massive market. We\u2019ve lost 10 clubs in the last few years and it makes things a lot harder for all of us.<\/p>\n

Paul, how did you get more involved with Spilt Milk?<\/strong>
\n P:<\/strong> One day Tred rang me up and said, \u2018You\u2019re a producer, why do we hook up and start making stuff?\u2019 So we met up the next week and started making records together, then I got married and, after I got married, I had loads more money because I wasn\u2019t saving up anymore! Tred then mentioned he wanted to set up a label and it was like a dream because I\u2019ve always supported the parties, some of the best things I\u2019ve been to in London have been Spilt Milk parties and it\u2019s great because I also get to work with Tred.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the deal with the production aspect of things, because you guys will be releasing on the label too I guess?<\/strong>
\n P:<\/strong> Tred\u2019s was going to be the first release, that was my idea\u2026 but Marc\u2019s thing happened but I\u2019m glad it did. We spent a while dicking around but the last month we\u2019ve really turned it around and it\u2019s thanks to that release I think.<\/p>\n

T:<\/strong> I think we\u2019d still be sat there going, \u2018I like the colour of this vinyl better\u2019!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you get to go out and check out other parties?<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> Yeah I\u2019m probably out too much\u2026 too much that I don\u2019t do enough production. It\u2019s about finding that balance. I check out a lot of stuff, I\u2019ve seen a lot of changes \u2013 Shoreditch for instance, I walked up Kingsland Road the other day and it\u2019s unrecognisable. Half of it was derelict years ago. I guess a lot of people kicked off when I arrived on the scene and now we\u2019re doing it! Essex has suddenly discovered that, at the end of the line there\u2019s another place. I\u2019m from there by the way, but I left a long time ago [laughs]. As I said, we\u2019ve lost so many clubs as well, my favourite was always The End \u2013 first club we went to was Turnmills, it was very good education but now there\u2019s not enough venues, too many parties and too many promoters. The bad thing is there are people who cut corners by hiring someone who says he\u2019s a DJ just because he or she will bring a load of their mates rather than someone who\u2019s a built a name for themselves on their skills, but it\u2019s just the way it is.<\/p>\n

How about the positives?<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> Ooo, I am sounding a bit negative aren\u2019t I?!<\/p>\n

Well, I think the same way but there are good things happening too.<\/strong>
\n P:<\/strong> London\u2019s a great city, hackney Wick has been a big positive, there\u2019s a lot happening there. There are promoters who are still trying to put on parties for the heads and not for the cash.<\/p>\n

T:<\/strong> We\u2019re restricted in being able to flourish. DJs come here and only get to play for two hours top, whereas in Berlin they get six hours \u2013 London\u2019s great, on the Saturday night, there\u2019s not a lot of places that can touch us. You get to 6am though and there\u2019s not a lot. We\u2019re distinctly lacking on the after-hours.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, from both sides of the fence, money is the issue; clubs are closing down because residential and commercial has more value to the authorities \u2013 on the other side, you\u2019ve got promoters who just want to make a quick buck.<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> Festivals have a lot to answer for too, there are so many in London, the UK and overseas that take away a lot of custom from the parties here in the city. Now, if you\u2019re looking to start an event and you haven\u2019t got a following it\u2019s tough \u2013 the first one will always go well because your mates will turn up, but the second and third ones will be hard. There\u2019s so much competition, it\u2019s saturated.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s your ultimate ambition with it all?<\/strong>
\n T:<\/strong> World domination. There are certain labels that, because of their hype and success that I won\u2019t actually listen to now, because\u2026 I\u2019m not being a snob here, but I know every chump who isn\u2019t even really a DJ will download their whole back catalogue and play it. I\u2019m not going to pretend it wouldn\u2019t be nice to sell thousands and thousands of records, but I\u2019d like us to be seen as a credible label that\u2019s different and doesn\u2019t follow trends.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> I want us to be one of those labels that, when you walk into a record shop, you pick up their latest release without even having to listen to it. I remember what it was like when I was a kid going to the record shop and I would ask for stuff from \u2018such and such\u2019 label straight away, I want us to have that kind of clout.<\/p>\n

I guess the ultimate dilemma is whether you want huge success or to be respected but maybe not make as much money.<\/strong>
\n P:<\/strong> I was talking about Steve Angello the other day, he was a good DJ, he was great and then\u2026 what do you do?<\/p>\n

T:<\/strong> Do you take the devil\u2019s coin? You\u2019re standing there behind the decks at 45 years of age, where do you go from there? You don\u2019t know until the carrot\u2019s dangling in front of you.<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> I\u2019ve never dangled a carrot in front of you. Maybe a chipolata sausage! Well, Tred\u2019s made it anyway he\u2019s got the Benedict burger here named after him.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve won already, sod the label!<\/strong>
\n P:<\/strong> You can go through life regretting not doing things or you can give it a go and see what happens. We\u2019re doing for the love and, if it does really well, then that\u2019s a bonus for us.<\/p>\n

T:<\/strong> Hopefully the people see that as well and it brings more exposure to what we\u2019re doing as well.<\/p>\n

The first Spilt Milk release, Marc Ashken’s ‘Lapine’ EP is out now, but it here<\/a>. And make sure you follow their Soundcloud page for new releases and mixes – click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spilt Milk is one of London’s best-loved soirees, run by the one and only Tred Bendict – a jovial, enigmatic character who has established the party over a number of years without relying on the hype machine to raise their profile. Together with his partner in crime Paul ……… he has been working on launching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":6482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3971],"tags":[4341,4342,4343],"class_list":["post-6481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-audio","has-post-thumbnail","category-interviews-london","tag-marc-ashken","tag-spilt-milk","tag-tred-benedict","post_format-post-format-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}