Biography
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Founded In
Auckland, Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
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Members
- Harley Rayner (2010 – present)
- Jesse Cooper
Jesse Cooper, known under the pseudonym Mt Eden (and formerly Mt Eden Dubstep and briefly Mt Eden DnB), is a New Zealander dubstep producer and DJ based in Auckland. The project started in 2009/2010 as a duo together with Harley Rayner, who left around 2017-2018. They started gaining popularity when their remix of Freshlyground's track "I'd Like" called "Sierra Leone", went viral on YouTube in 2009.
In 2008, Cooper decided to make dubstep music after he heard dubstep godfathers Benga and Skream, at the New Zealand music festivals Phat09 and Splore, saying that he had his "mind blown" by the young genre. He also started making drum and bass music around the same time, which was inspired by the Front Left Speaker Crew and Joe Hockley.
In 2008, Cooper's girlfriend's little brother suggested he make a YouTube page for himself to post music on. He called the page "MtEdenDnB08" because he lived in Mt Eden. That was when Cooper decided to release music under the pseudonym "Mt Eden Dubstep", later changing his name to simply "Mt Eden" in 2010, when Cooper recruited Rayner. Mt Eden released their first EP MEDS for digital download on 7 December 2010. Within months their total hit count was in the millions and rising - all of a sudden the bedroom producers and amateur DJs were staring down the barrel of international renown, and feeling appropriately blown away. Rayner says, "It felt like the weight was shifted when we put out MEDS, because we finally had a body of original work we could be proud of and that was well received."
Having first made their mark with the epic ‘Sierra Leone', Mt Eden have since remixed tracks by Ruby Frost, Six60 and legendary producer DJ Fresh, as well as many other incredible local and international artists - simultaneously building a large enough collection of their own material to warrant the recent release of their EP MEDS.
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