Bio

Bad Company was a British Drum & Bass group composed of four producers, Dan Stein (aka Fresh, DJ Fresh, Absolute Zero), Darren White (aka dBridge), Jason Maldini (aka Maldini) and Michael Wojcicki (aka Vegas) with activity from 1998 to 2005.

The group was renamed to Bad Company UK, after a possible lawsuit, to distinguish from the 70's Rock band of the same name.

Bad Company is also referred by their logo name )EIB( which is present on the album covers as an illustration where the letters BC are reflected in a mirror, it is also found to be written as EIB, eib, )EIB(, )eib(, )E|3(, )EI3(, )EIB(, )E|B( and probably many others variations.

Before Bad Company the four producers have worked together with mixed formation and different aliases, releasing singles under Renegade Hardware, Metro Recordings and Breakbeat Culture Records labels. Dan Stein, Darren White and Jason Maldini released as Absolute Zero & Subphonics. Dan Stein and Michael Wojcicki released as Fresh & Vegas.

The group was formed after the duo Future Forces Inc. composed of Darren White and Jason Maldini formed in 1996 at Renegade Hardware was dissolved and joined by Absolute Zero, Dan Stein.

Bad Company became known in the Drum & Bass scene in 1999 right after the release of their first single The Nine 06:00 / The Bridge 08:00 in 1998 which became number #1 at BBC Radio 1 UK. Consequently they released multiple singles and four albums, Inside The Machine, Digital Nation, Book of the Bad and Shot Down on Safari, always keeping the dark basslines, energetic breakbeats and massive nifty production which made them one of the most influential Drum & Bass groups in the history of the industry.

In 2003 Dan Stein and Darren White left the group to engage on solo projects. Jason Maldini and Michael Wojcicki kept on using the Bad Company UK name for events but no new releases were made by BC Recordings apart from compilations and unreleased tracks.

Dan Stein kept producing as Fresh or Dj Fresh under multiple labels such as RAM Records, Breakbeat Kaos, V Recordings and Valve.

Darren White also kept producing by himself as dBridge and started his own label the Exit Records.

Michael Wojcicki and Jason Maldini founded the Blokhe4d group which releases under Bad Taste Recordings and Hospital Records. They recently created the Unique Artists with many other Drum & Bass producers.

The text bellow is extracted from the original BC Recordings website and was written in 2001, after Inside The Machine but before Digital Nation and Shot Down on Safari therefore could not be found online no more. I own NO RIGHTS to the text but believe lots of people would like to read it.

BAD COMPANY

Known up until March 2000 as Bad Company Recordings, BC Recordings has enjoyed a very surprising welcome from the British and world press, having attracted interest as not just a Drum & Bass orientated dance label, but as a showpiece and home for the mysteriously anonymous collective so often mislabelled Bad Company.

"We are an anonymous collective misrepresented by an unpronounceable logo"

Having released their first 12" in December 1998 with The Nine 06:00 / The Bridge 08:00 which landed at no.1 in the BBC Radio 1 (U.K) Drum & Bass chart for some weeks, BC Recordings made a very fast and searing impact on the Drum & Bass scene, and their music has inspired many who previously found no such inspiration in the genre, causing an excited Mixmag (U.K) to describe them as: One of the brightest hopes for dance music in the next millennium.

Following the debut single, the artists continued to damage the fabric of Drum & Bass with releases on Prototype and Virus Recordings. The Pulse (Prototype U.K) was voted the best Drum & Bass track of 1999 by the listeners of BBC Radio 1, and their collaborative E.P with Optical and Rymetime on Virus Recordings found it's way into London's Soul and Dance Exchange chart at no.2 ahead of Diana Ross, Bob Marley and Mary J. Blige. Their next project The Fear E.P which sold out in it's first day in the shops was to confirm their inescapable presence to a sceptical press and it was from here that the artists were inundated with a series of remixes: Heart go Boom (Apollo 440), Something out there (Ray Keith), and the classic Champion Sound (Q Project) to name but a few, which further heightened their popularity and secured them work as DJ's the world over.

BC's latest excursion the Inside the Machine L.P has surpassed and shocked many with it's quality, diversity and underground drive, pushed by DJ's such as Andy C, Grooverider, Goldie, Roni Size, John Peel and Ed Rush & Optical as well as their equivalents in Europe, Japan and the United States. Having had strong favourable reaction from London publications such as The Face and N.M.E (The New Musical Express) and foreign publications as far afield as the New York Village Voice the album has enjoyed a large amount of exposure both on paper and dancefloors world-wide. The artists describe the album as a chance to revamp the tainted image often associated with Drum & Bass. Drum & Bass stormers such as Nitrous, a collaboration with tech-step pioneer DJ Trace, and Brain-Scan contrast with more musical experiments such as Colonies and the down-tempo The Flood, affording the album a wide scope and fan-base further illustrating the variety and diversity achievable by the mysterious gang.

The four artists who make up the Icon, the only name yet to release on BC, are: Darren "D-Bridge", Danny "Fresh", Jason "Maldini" and Michael "Midnight" Vegas. These four had enjoyed great popularity previous to their existence as the Icon on their newly formed label. Releases by D-Bridge and Maldini as Future Forces on Renegade Hardware, and by Fresh as Absolute-Zero on the same label, and by Fresh and Vegas on a variety of projects including a release on Metro Recordings, were building the notoriety of the four even up to their first early collaboration The Code as Absolute Zero & Subphonix on Renegade Hardware. The four shared a vision To make the underground bigger and To put the emphasis back on quality. Now they share the spotlight as one of Drum & Bass's most exciting new production teams and DJs, the hottest new production team on the block according to Dj Magazine.

Aspirations for the new millenium include plans to begin a live show, featuring Apollo 440's drummer Paul Kodesh, who also drummed on Prodigy album Fat of the Land, and an as yet undiscovered front man, and also to continue building on the success of their previous material with a new spate of upbeat and daring releases on the label. The artists describe their sound as: Music for the people, by the people.

Dan Stein A.K.A Fresh / Absolute Zero

Danny Fresh was sucked into the Hardcore scene at an early age. Spending a great deal of time immersed in the absorbtion of 303 led basslines and screetching acid riffs.

It was this love for Hardcore that would lead to his playing on various inner London pirates and subsequently to his outings with the similarly minded MC Moose on Ron's Label Picasso.

Whilst pumping out the beatz on air, a friend introduced him to Clayton, label manager of Renegade Hardware who was to sway him to the mentality of the simply sick Hardware sound, being pushed by the emmerging Future Forces Maldini and the D-Bridge.

It was during this period, whilst still working with Moose (and solo) on Picasso, that Moose would introduce him to Micky Vegas. Vegas and Fresh decided to hook up and manufacture some tunes, the first of which would be Inferno/Shades of Sound on Breakbeat Culture. At the same time, Fresh under the guise Absolute-Zero wrote Colours in Noise for the Renegade Hardware album, and collaborated with Maldini (under the name Subphonix) and D-Bridge on the infamous Code/Fugitive 12". Heat-Wave was to be heard by Matrix abroad whilst touring with Fierce and Ed Rush, who was to track down the pair in order that they would release this and themescaped Otto's Way on Matrix's Label Metro. This hookup would later lead to the forthcoming collaboration between Bad Company and Matrix Jellyfish on the Fear E.P.

In the Summer of '98 the ever increasing familiarity, and like mindedness between Fresh, Vegas, Maldini and D-Bridge would lead them to set up Bad Company, in the hope of greatly hurting and confusing the Drum & Bass population in General with a spate of twisted sounds and frantic beats under their own collective banner.

Darren White A.K.A D-Bridge

Darren White first introduction into the scene was in 1992, when he formed Sewage Monsters with his older brother, now signed to MCA & Island records as Steve Spacek.

After releasing one 12" on their own label, they disbanded and Darren went on to work with Armshouse Krew of We are E fame... this was to last for a further two years.

In 1995 Darren met Jason Maldini through a mutual friend and was soon to be working alongside him at Trouble on Vinyl. In 1996 whilst experimenting with frequency and sonic manipulation the pair wrote their first release on Renegade Hardware, which had been set up purely as a result of this new symbiotic sound, this tune was Jeep Beats.

During this period, many such dark anthems were to emmerge including Dead by Dawn, Constant, a collabaration with the infinetely naughty Fierce, and The Germ, under the guise of Genoforce with fellow ex-Hardware artist Genotype.

It was during this period Fresh was beginning his apprenticeship in the camp, and similar ideas were leading to collaborations with the pair, the first and last of which to be released on Hardware was The Code and Fugitive before differences with the management over contracts etc. led all three to leave.

It was here that Darren and Jason met Vegas and Bad Company Recordings began in earnest.

Jason Maldini A.K.A Maldini

Led into the scene through the early days of Acid Hardcore, Maldini linked with similar minded friends and began experimenting with beats. Introduced to Clayton at Trouble on Vinyl by a mutual friend in early '94, Jason began his first outings as Maldini with the track Wake-up call. In late '95 Jason was to stumble upon the D-Bridge who had just met Clayton himself, and had released the infamous Flava E.P. They decided that TOV was in need of a harder outlet and persuaded Clayton to set up Renegade Hardware as an outlet for their harder experiments under the new monicker Future Forces inc.

To follow was a spate of disturbing joints as well as remixes for labels such as R&S, Moving Shadow and Creation. A few monsters raised their heads under the guise of Dead by Dawn and later The Germ, a collaboration with Genotype, which secure Maldini and D-Bridge a following even before the time of the Company Bad. Their final outing was their introduction to Fresh (forced against his will at the time to name himself Absolute Zero), when they wrote The Code as Absolute Zero and Subphonix.

The rest, as they say, is the Future, and it's Bad.

Bad meaning Good - Grooverider 1999 (Radio One,Birth of the pulse)

Michael Wojcicki A.K.A Vegas

Vegas was introduced to Hardcore by Sarah G down in South London's Bromley region, who in turn linked him with Untitled (Midnight's OB1) and started mixing it up in early '92 with Society. By '94 he realised production was the next step and started to forge beats with his hardcore pirate co-horts, whilst playing on Naked Fm.

In '95 Vegas made his way to Japan and hooked up with Spasm, a Japanese producer who was working for Avex and also into Drum & Bass. It was Spasm who would show him another side of studio production and help him set up Japanese Drum & Bass label Q Records.

Q Records was one of the first Japanese labels to bring over the London Jungle DJs to Japan.

It was at one of these parties Vegas brought over MC Moose who persuaded him to come back to London in '97, Where Moose introduced him to Fresh... the two were to find similar ground and hereforth wrote tracks for Breakbeat Culture and Metro, before Fresh introduced Vegas to Maldini and D-Bridge. The Four began to forge a friendship, where they found that their differing sounds and yet similar ideals would lead to a very constructive collaboration as the artists behind )EI3(.