So I guess that is to say...I know of the when the term was first applied, and to whom...but I don't actually know the answer to your question :|
I typically feel it was just someone taking the piss out of genre titles...
...but given that a lot of drill n' bass artists had backgrounds in jungle, and jungle became drum n' bass, I can see these weird techno proto-junglists evolving their own music into it's own drum n' bass derivative, "drill n' bass". I can only neckbeardedly speculate and propose that drills are oft associated not just for their annoying sound, but their propensity and function to "wind up", much in the way intense beat repeating and programming does in drill n' bass. Well, my mind makes that fundamental connection...but would I have called it drill n' bass at the time? Had I been one of the purveyors? I don't think so, so I can't say where the "drill" part really comes from.
"23 laughing foxes serenading lobsters" - cody
From: coda27@hotmail.com
To: idm@hyperreal.org
Subject: RE: IDM List archives
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 20:29:46 -0700
common knowledge (?), but Plug's Drum and Bass for Papa EP is typically considered the first "drill n' bass" album. As to whether or not the term originated around this time/coincided specifically with this release, or was applied at a later date to that album and subsequent artists, I do not know.
"23 laughing foxes serenading lobsters" - cody
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 19:55:28 -0500
Subject: IDM List archives
From: anthony.papavassiliou@gmail.com
To: idm@hyperreal.org
Hello list,
I'm trying to access to old IDM List archives on
http://web.archive.org/, but only some of the topics will open.
Do you know where we can browse the entire archives ? If its not done yet, I really think that having a dump somewhere would be great for science :)As an example, I'm trying to find when the first(s) occurence(s) of drill and drill'n'bass appeared.
I can reach a 1997 topic by Styrolene VaT
http://web.archive.org/web/20071118222100/http://elists.resynthesize.com/idm/1997/01/442429/
But i can not read most of the post that could contain some uses of the word or expression before or after this date.
I also found topics with the names "anti-drills" and "drills", later in 1997, but could not read what is inside :(
Also, if you have any other information/source from inside or outside the IDM List about the word "drill" from the drill'n'bass, feel free to message me :)
A. Papavassiliou