The Usual Suspects formed in 1998 when Carl Hovland, Chris Lavin and Lawrence Hughes formed over a mutual love of D&B and a collective endevour to further their production abilities. Carl and Lawrie met whilst studying Sound Engineering in Kingston, London; Lawrie had been keen to advance his skills following on from his time as a resident at Bournemouth;’s legendary Opera House, whilst Chris was already a rising DJ and a face on the local scene through being one of the stalwart staff at the legendary Slammin Vinyl store. They came together and there first tune was the biggest ever selling 12” on Renegade Hardware, the seminal Killa Bees, selling in excess of 14,000 copies. This instant success led to them DJ’ing all over the world and releasing tunes on Metalheadz, 31 Records, and Timeless to name just a few. They had a number of big tracks including Shrapnel, Sawn Off, and Ja Bless amongst many underground dancefloor smashers. Extremely successful on the DJ circuit the Suspects toured the world and still to this day have quite a following in the USA following a number of massive tours there.

The Usual Suspects have sort of gone there separate ways; Lawrie formed Universal Project along with Ruxspin, Scandal and Nitrox, and has gone on to a solo career as Keaton. Carl joined up with Klaus ‘Heavyweight’ Hill to form breakbeat outfit 2 Sinners and later released breaks on his own as One Sinner. Chris has continued to DJ under the Usual Suspects moniker and Chris and Carl have done a number of tracks and remixes in recent times.

Discography