Reuben Vaun Smith hadn’t intended to be a musician. He was supposed to be on the football pitch.
As a young football prodigy, he was signed to the Leeds United youth team as a rising talent. By 16 he’d been spotted and signed by Sevilla in Spain, and a professional sports career beckoned. But the dream was over before it really began.
At 18 years old he suffered a life-changing knee injury, catastrophically stopping his career in its tracks for good. With no back-up plan, Smith moved back to Yorkshire and contemplated what to do next.
Not long after, his grandfather bought him a MIDI keyboard – and despite never having had a music lesson or touched a keyboard in his life, Smith retreated to the shed at the end of his garden and started to teach himself music production.
His parents had a pub in Yorkshire which regularly featured live music and DJs, so he found himself exposed to and inspired by a wide range of music – including nights that his dad put on at a local art studio in Leeds called The Midnight Club. He recalls “all the old boys he new from back in the day were still collecting rare bits and I’d never heard anything like it.. Andy Pye of Balearic Social… more
credits
released August 21, 2020
Mastering by Lewis Hopkin at Star Delta
Artwork by Check Morris
