I was chatting on the phone with Krafty Kuts’ partner in crime, the incredibly talented Adam Mills, aka A.Skillz. He was chilling in bed and having coffee brought to him by Melbourne’s Nick Thayer, who was staying with him working on a track in his studio. “It’s very early; it’s 9:20 in the morning!” he exclaims, “I didn’t have a big one last night so I’m travelling pretty good. Sometimes I have lunchtime lie in and recoup from the night before,” he chuckles

Mills started as a drummer, but exchanged sticks for decks after messing about playing records. “I grew up playing drums and always though that would be my career because that’s what I spent my time studying, and then I started DJing for a hobby and started making beats,” Mills says. “I actually had a music program to record the band, and I thought why not have a bash at making something with that. I made Trickatechnology, and I took it to Brighton to Krafty Kuts’ shop and he really liked it and asked if he could cut a dub plate and play it out. Naturally I said ‘alright’ and from there on I got more and more into DJing and it snowballed really. I started getting gigs and having clashes between DJing and the band, and in the end I had to leave the band because it wasn’t fair they’d miss out because I had a DJ gig.”

Apart from having Nick Thayer over, working on a track, Mills’ has been busy making mix CDs, gigging and trying to concentrate on his eagerly awaited first solo album. “This will be the first one that I’ve done totally by myself. I’m really in the middle of it and aiming to finish it by the end of the year, with a release next year.” No doubt he’ll get some help from Krafty, and he’s been working vocalists such as Curtis Santiago from Canada, who won the Galaxie Rising Stars Award from the CBC a few years ago, and is making waves on the hiphop / funk scene over there.

“I’ve been fitting that around doing a lot of other things, doing the odd remix here and there,” adds Mills. “I’ve just put out another bootleg, called Money Banger and Hotdog, part of the Insane Bangers series, which is something me and Krafty started”. He’s also been on tour in the USA, Canada and recently Australia. “Canada was quite similar to Australia in terms of the scenes there. I’m not strictly a Breaks DJ, although I’m somewhere in that bracket, and they’re really into it and I was really well received, with clubs of about 500 people really going for it, but the American leg of the tour was a very different story. I was playing to smaller bars, and I’m not as well known and don’t have the exposure I do in Canada. But all the shows were good, it was just like starting from the beginning again. There’s a few people over there doing what I do – Fort Knox Five, All Good Funk Alliance, Malente. It’s a small scene, but America’s so big that thier small scene is actually quite big.”

Whilst a lot of DJs including Krafty Kuts are getting into the harder sound of breaks, A Skillz is doggedly a funk fiend and plays the funky side of breaks. I asked him his opinion of the harder stuff, and he is a fan but more philosophical about the whole scene. “With really hard stuff, when a tune is new or unreleased, that’s when it’s having its day, but by the time it’s released it’s got about a month before it’s old news when the next heavy tune comes out. You’ve got to have the new stuff all the time. But with the funky, more musical stuff that’s got more of a hook, and got that melody you really enjoy listening to, it has a longer shelf life, even 2 years down the line. You might find an old tune and think ‘I’ve always wanted to buy this tune’, but if you find an old drum and bass or hard breaks tune you wouldn’t really consider buying it. I think the funkier, soulful stuff has a longer shelf life.”

Talk shifts to his latest mix CDs, namely FreshTrax on the Finger Lickin’ label. “When I did the FreshTrax mix I was slightly frustrated because it was purely Finger Lickin’ material. When you’re quite limited in what you’re allowed to use it is a little frustrating. I did a ‘BoxFresh’ (clothing label) mix with Krafty, and because there was no limit to what we could use – there were no licensing issue or anything because it was a give away – we could use anything. I think when you’ve got unlimited choice in music it becomes really fun! The FreshTrax was at the opposite end of the scale, it was a lot harder to put together. But it’s a showcase of Finger Lickin’ rather than me as a DJ. The one I’ve just finished called Export 2 (due on Finger Lickin’ soon) but I had a lot more choice, and I really had a lot of fun with that too. I haven’t really done a lot of mixes on my own, I’ve done so many with Krafty that it’s not tedious at all!” he laughs.