The UK’s Survival (AKA Steve Kielty) has been making a lot of noise on the D&B circuit of late. Out here to play Inbound and with an album coming out soon on D-Bridge’s label Exit Records, Survival answers some questions for Onion…

Can you tell us a little bit about the album coming out on Exit Records? I’ve always thought that my music suited the album market quite well, so I was really happy when D-Bridge asked me to do the LP for him. For me the chance to just write and not worry whether people will play the tunes in a club was really refreshing.

With the record, is this a collection of songs you’ve collected and recorded for a while or was it done in a burst of creativity? Ninety percent of the tunes on there will be new tunes I’ve done in the last nine months. There’s a couple of tracks that I did about three or four years ago that I went back and updated for the album.

This album will be your first full-length in 15 years in the industry, has it been in planning for a while, and why choose now to release it? It kinda came about out of the blue really. I’ve always wanted to do an album but have never been in the right place to do it. So, when D-Bridge asked me at the start of the year I thought why not? It’s been a lot harder than I thought it would be but I’m really happy with what I’ve got at the moment.

You re-emerged as a solo artist in 2005, what was the reason for the break and was this break needed? Yes - it was well needed! The reason is quite complicated, let’s just say I had ‘artistic differences’ with the other half of Banaczech and we went our separate ways.

You re-emerged with the name Survival; did this name have another meaning rather than surviving in this industry? Haha you know what? The reason I called myself Survival is a bit crap really. A few years I was doing a house project and we did a cover of an Earth Wind And Fire tune called System Of Survival. I said to the guys I was working with that would be a good name for the band. When I was sorting an AIM screen name I used Steve Survival and it’s stuck ever since. See I told you it’s a rubbish story!

On the upcoming Australian tour, are you the type of DJ that plays a lot of your own productions and remixes or do you keep the ‘producer’ Survival different from the ‘DJ’ Survival?
I’m a producer first man, so you’ll be hearing a fair few of my bits. DJing is something I’ve only learnt about three years ago!

David Knight
Survival plays Inbound at Channel Complex on Sun Oct 5.