365Mag Interview: Audiojack

[Cupe]

If your very first single sells over 10,000 copies, you know you're right on target. In just over 2 years, Audiojack has firmly established itself as a successful outfit in the field of beefy house beats. Their first single Robot skyrocketed the boys to worldwide praise, profiling the duo as 'one to watch' among dance freaks the world over.

With remixes and releases for the likes of Underworld, Renaissance and 2020Vision and gig at the infamous Fuji Rocks festival in Japan last year, Audiojack is without any doubt one of the fastest rising acts in the scene today. Next month sees the release of their long awaited album Radio on 2020Vision on which the outfit displays their unique sound of roof-raising beats, nifty percussion structures and dirty, dirty bass-lines (expect a review soon!). We recently teamed up with Audiojack's James Rial and Richard Burkinshaw for a little chit-chat on their album and their career thus far...

First of all, how's life?

Pretty cool thanks, we're just finishing some new tracks and getting ready to go on tour to Brazil at the moment which is always exciting in carnival season!

Can you tell us something about when and how you guys started?

We met in Ibiza where we were both hanging out for the summer in 2002. When we got back to England we ended up sharing a house together then started making music around 2004/5. We literally locked ourselves away in the studio for a year only seeing daylight to restock the fridge, until we got something we were happy with and that got signed, which was our first record Robot.

You're about to release your debut album Radio. How long have you been working on the album?

We started around December 2007 so it's taken us just over a year although because were touring almost every weekend it was made in stops and starts. We moved house and studio during this time which took us down for about 3 months until we got the acoustics right in the new place. We had a 2 week break from gigs and literally half the album was made in this time.

Can you tell us something about the production process? Do you handle a specific division of tasks in the studio?

We share all responsibilities and come together with ideas that we think will sound good. Of course there are certain aspects that one of us is better than the other at but we tend to use these to our advantage and both know our strengths and weaknesses. For our remixes we tend to take the sounds that have been provided by the original artist, chew them up and throw them back out in our own way but for the album tracks we've recorded lots of live automation using a midi keyboard so we can play the tracks live. Our live show is still very much in its infancy though and won't be ready for a while.

How would you define your sound?

We've always said we aim to make music to make people dance, although with the album we tried to produce something which could be enjoyed in a club, at home, in a car, on the beach etc. Our sound has changed a lot since we first started making music and hopefully will continue to do so as we learn and experience more but we'll always stick to our ethos that we want to make music that works on the dance floor.

What is your most favourite tool to use in the studio and why?

We've just bought a couple of new plugins that have some really nice live instrument sounds, so keyboard or sax solos can be played by midi keyboard over the top of a bass-line and sound really authentic.

In what way does your live act differ from the sound of your album?

We aren't ready to deliver our live act yet in terms of instruments, laptops and keyboards so when we perform out we do back to back DJ sets featuring a mixture of our own productions and those of other producers we like. They differ in some ways because the album was intended to be a piece of music which you can listen to from start to finish. Unfortunately in the digital world some people will undoubtedly pull out the tracks they want for their own DJ sets rather than listen to the album as a piece, which is the way it was made and intended. The album features lots of interludes and we also tried to join the tracks in interesting ways in the studio which makes the full piece more interesting to hear.

Our DJ sets feature some album tracks but because we tour across the world in different venues to different ears they can be completely different tracks from one week to the next. We still buy a lot of other peoples music spanning through house and techno and are more interested in which of the many tracks we've got will work best for 'this' specific crowd than what we necessarily want to play. If they're in our box we put them there so it's not really a musical compromise. The crowd definitely comes first.

Since 2006, you've been playing at some of the planet's most acclaimed festivals, released remixes on famed labels and played a whopping 250 gigs across 30 countries. After having achieved so much in such a short period of time, what other goals do you have?

Loads! We've already started work on some original productions for our next album, we'd like to do a remix album where we rework some of our favourite electronic tracks, there are still dozens of countries and amazing festivals we haven't played so although we've done a lot in 3 years we could still pack out another 10 years and have things we won't have done.

2020Vision claims that you have the potential to grow out to the size of acts such as Underworld and Daft Punk. A bold statement...

Yes, that is a bold statement and obviously very flattering. I think the key word there is 'grow'! Were both still in our 20s and although we've done a lot in a short space of time we are developing our sound at an equally rapid rate. Whether we can reach that kind of level won't really be known until we've got our live show together and seen it work on many a big stage. Also to attain that kind of level would probably involve some kind of commercialism which we're not bothered about. Daft Punk and Underworld are two of a very small handful of extremely talented music acts who have managed to hit those heights whilst retaining their credibility as electronic recording artists. Ask us again in 5 years!

What more can we expect from you this year?

Were working on more original productions at the moment along with a couple of remixes which should see light of day during the summer… we've got quite a heavy touring schedule until April with Brazil, USA, Mexico and Australia all in our agenda so we'll be focusing on keeping our DJ sets up to scratch through until then. We've just moved to Sasha's booking agency, Excession which we're excited about so hopefully we'll be getting involved in some of the big summer festivals. Studio wise were taking it month by month at the moment but were still spending most of our free time there and intend to all year so there should be plenty more output.

How do you see yourself in 20 years from now?

Get a time machine?!

What do you do to relax? Any hobbies?

Whenever were not in the studio or on tour we try to see our friends and family as much as possible, we've got a really close group of friends and it's always great to hangout when possible. Aside from that we both like cooking, watching comedy, trying to keep a bit fit etc.

Is there anything else that you want to say to our readers?

Well if they've got this far thanks for reading!