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Everyone here at Dank Radio loves it when our family and friends get involved with our creative processes. Not just with our music, the radio program, but this site as well. With that said, we will be featuring a piece from one of our trusted friends every so often [haven't worked out the schedule just yet]. To start us off, I would like to introduce you all to my good friend Nightfox. Here she is to explain how she managed to secure an interview with Sound of Stereo by the use of modern day technology.
Dank Radio: Here’s my not so recent interview with Sound of Stereo from their show at the Avalon on October 22. I had so many other questions I wanted to ask, but with the limited amount of time I had and the excitement of it, I found it hard to formulate coherent thoughts and focus long enough to create a through interview.
I was already in Hollywood that night to cover the wrap-up of LA Fashion Week, along with a fellow writer.
I didn’t even expect to interview them that night. But much to my surprise, the guys responded to my request to speak to them- via twitter. It’s a good thing Mando Fresko was spinning at the time so no one could hear me screaming my ass off.
I met up with the duo right next door at The Redbury hotel, the newly refurbished hotel adjacent to the Avalon. The duo was in the US for about two more weeks before heading back to the motherland (Belgium) to play the fifteenth annual I Love Techno Festival, the music event that kicked off the duo’s careers. In March they’ll be headed to Australia for Future Music Festival. Hopefully by then their album will be finished and they’ll head back to the states!
I want to note one of my favorite parts of the interview was when my forced partner Cherelle got up and started moving a coffee table around in their room, in order to get the voice recorder in prime position for picking up sound. It made me cringe when it happened (moving other people’s furniture around during an interview doesn’t exactly put the interviewee at ease) but I laugh at it now, and hope that Vincent and Jochen forgive me for that, haha.
Nightfox
Photo: Bick Narcelona
Nightfox: How different is the Belgian music scene compared to the music scene in the U.S., specifically Los Angeles?
Vincent: I don’t know, I think the European crowd is more used to having dance music around, so they’re more snobby about it, I think. So when we play in the U.S., it’s more fun, and we can do whatever we want.
Jochen: It’s not more fun then playing in Europe, it’s just different. It’s a bit more over the top, especially in L.A. It’s different, but it’s both a lot of fun.
Nightfox: What is the ideology behind your band’s name Sound of Stereo?
Vincent: Where did the name come from? I have no idea. We were thinking about changing it but we just kept it.
Jochen: I was making music, producing electronic music, and I was like, we need a name. And that was it. So there’s no real nice story to it.
Nightfox: As far as your sound goes, do you find your musical style still evolving, or have you pretty much found your voice?
Vincent: Oh no, it’s evolving like, everyday. We’re getting inspired all the time by different artists. If we pick up a CD from someone, well, I don’t know, it’s constant.
Jochen: That’s the cool thing about DJ’ing. When you play in a band it’d difficult to make rapid changes to the style you play. Playing so many different places and meeting so many different people it’s nice to pick up other stuff. Like, yesterday we met some people and today we got some tracks from them that were really cool so we may play them tonight.
Vincent: It’s all really instant.
Sound of Stereo - Metric by Sound of Stereo
Nightfox: I know you guys have been doing this a long time. Do you still get excited playing venues like Avalon and traveling? Do you still get that thrill?
Vincent: Absolutely.
Jochen: Sure.
Vincent: It’s cool to play all these different places all the time, yeah. It’s always exciting because every club is different, every crowd is different.
Jochen: Even every night in the same club is different.
Vincent: Yeah, we’re still excited as much as we were years ago. Years? Yeah years. Two years ago. (laughs)
Nightfox: How did you guys meet each other?
Vincent: Uh, I got some music from him through a friend and I was like, we have to meet up! We did a party together and after that it just took off.
Jochen: He was already DJ and I was already playing in rock bands before I started producing electronic music. He picked up a track that I did and then we kind of decided to work together.
Vincent: And it’s funny because we live really close [to each other].
Jochen: Yeah, we didn’t know and we live like, I don’t know, 5 kilometers from each other. And we say kilometers, it’s like 2 or 3 miles. Like 15 minutes.
Nightfox: What motivates you? Would you say one of your goals would to be to gain international stardom or do you just do it for the passion?
Vincent: You have to do it because you love the music.
Jochen: I hope it’s the second one. At this point, it still is.
Vincent: Definitely the second one. Yeah, if you don’t like it you’re not going to push yourself.
Jochen: Stardom is not something we pursue at all but it’s fun to be able to get rooms like this and talk to people like you. It’s just fun you know, and I don’t consider it stardom it’s just so much fun to be able to travel and do what you love.
Vincent: Yeah!
Jochen: It’s cheesy but that’s what it is.
Nightfox: So what have you guys been up to lately? Anything the fans should know?
Vincent: Album, album, album, right?
Jochen: Yeah. It’s all about the album at this moment.
Vincent: And trying to tour in between, playing gigs and just trying to combine both and get things moving. We are really trying to think about what we’re going to do with the album. It would be stupid to do all club bangers on an album because no one cares. We were trying to find a sound. I think now we found it, or kind of found it, so now the process has started.
Jochen: And like, playing wise, we’ve been in the states for three weeks now and we’ve got one more week playing shows. Then it’s every week somewhere else in Europe and then in March it’s Australia and probably U.S. again.
Vincent: By then the album should be wrapping up.
Nightfox: How do you feel about electronic dance music and the direction it’s headed now? I know EDM is a big thing in Europe but here in the U.S. they are starting to play it a lot more on the radio and it’s kind of becoming more mainstream. What do you think about that? Do you think it’s a good thing?
Vincent: It’s cool because it gives us a bigger platform to do our stuff. And more people are getting more into dance music so that’s good. We get a bigger fan base, I think. But when something gets mainstream, the whole charm of the underground goes away.
Jochen: It’s always difficult to make that crossover.
Vincent: Yeah, you have to find something in between, but it’s cool exposure for dance music, really.
Jochen: It’s cool because it’s fresh in the U.S., fresher than in Europe. Yeah, at first it’s strange to have it now on the radio here cause…
Vincent: …our radio station plays it all the time.
Jochen: Yeah. Like, our national radio plays it all the time, even during day rotation. But it’s good. I like it.
Nightfox: Who are your biggest influences at this moment?
Jochen: I think the guys we listen to and the guys we meet a lot are our biggest inspiration, like the other DJ’s we meet on tour. We really like Harvard Bass, Wolfgang is doing really well too. The guys from MSTRKRFT, we talked to them too. Erol Alkan, Brodinski and Boys Noize are still DJ-wise and production-wise the guys who…
Vincent: And there’s some cool new guys coming, these guys called Mumbai Science. They’re on the same record label as us (Lektroluv) and they’re like, blowing up right now. Then there’s another guy from Scotland, his name is Clouds. It’s like, those guys, they keep it alive.
Jochen: It’s like, they’re friends, we know them so it’s not like when you say it’s Daft
Punk and you really look up to them. It’s just friends and we keep each other fresh.
Vincent: Yeah, we unintentionally push each other to do better stuff.
Mumbai Science - Gold (Original Mix) by MumbaiScience
Nightfox: So you motivate each other?
Vincent and Jochen: Yeah!
Nightfox: So when you produce music, what is your artistic process? I know a lot of artists like to ‘put themselves on lock down’ so to speak, for a couple weeks to focus on their album. Do you find that you need that as well?
Vincent: He’s on lock down (laughs).
Jochen: He locks me down (laughs).
Vincent: I have a chain (both laugh).
Jochen: No, uh, [all my stuff] is at my house so whenever I feel like it. Like, the last few months, I’ve been doing more and telling myself “Okay, now produce.” Otherwise if you’re just doing EP’s, when you feel inspired, you go to the studio and you make some tracks. Now I’m sitting in the studio more and really making ideas and keep writing. It’s a different process but it’s fun. I don’t lock myself down yet. There’s a lot of demos and I think once we’ve chosen [them] then we’ll be on lockdown to mix down everything.
Nightfox: What makes you stand out as DJ’s? What makes you different?
Jochen: We want to make everyone have a good time. We just like to play stuff we really like and adapt to the public that is in front of us. We never have a steady tracklist. We always have our CD’s and our music with us. We have our selection of what we like and try to match what the crowd likes without making too many compromises. You wanna have a good time but you want the crowd to have a good time too so the interaction is important. I think that’s the thing about being a good DJ that makes a difference. I’m not saying we’re really good at it but I think that’s something that’s really important to do.
Nightfox: So where are you off to next after LA?
Vincent: We’ve got a couple days off.
Jochen: Then Sacramento, Calgary, London, Canada. And then back. Rest for a couple
days.
Vincent: And then an extra show on Sunday. Then it’s back home for I Love Techno.
Jochen: We’re doing a big Dim Mak show in Vienna, too.
Vincent: Yeah, just back to Europe for touring.
Sound of Stereo - Live @ I love techno 2010 by Sound of Stereo
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