A massive remix from Axwell for one of Scotland’s finest new bands
Fergus, Laurie, Dave and Cat welcome to DMC towers. Things going really for you at the moment, you have the dance world’s ears pricked up thanks to the mighty Axwell remix of your beautiful ‘Falling’ (Committed To Sparkle Motion) record. Was Axwell a fan of you already or did he hear the song by chance…?
Dave – “Hey DMC, pleasure to chat with you! To be honest, it’s hard to know really, I think it started out with his label Axtone sending us an email, asking if we had any material they could hear, we sent them ‘Committed To Sparkle Motion’ and the ball started rolling from there.”
What was your initial reaction to the suggestion that a guy more normally associated with spinning in Ibiza or Las Vegas was reworking your track?
Dave – “Our reaction was similar to what you’d expect really, we’d sent the parts of the track around to various producers, and a few things weren’t really working, eventually I think Axwell decided to give it a go himself, and he had the finished mix to us in about a month’s time. After a long wait, things suddenly started moving very quickly.”
The remix has obviously got a lot of people talking about the video, was the storyline your idea or did the record label get their cheque books out?
Laurie – “A bit of both really, Fergus came pretty much came up with the entire storyline himself with a few adjustments from the director Camille. We all liked the idea of it being filmed in the highlands near Aviemore, I have a cabin up there where we all go to write music so it felt pretty natural to document it in some way. Axtone were very on board with all the ideas and it kind of went from there really.”
Tell us about the inspiration behind ‘Falling’…
Laurie – “Well, the title of our version is actually ‘Committed to Sparkle Motion’ and this is a reference to the dance troupe in Donnie Darko. I think its quite fair to say its about how we ourselves wish we were a dance troupe, its all in the lyrics…”
So we all pile back to Dave’s living room after the gig. What is the Discopolis Back To Mine 10 you put on the system to carry on the party…
Laurie – “Well we would start the night with Dave spinning some dance grooves including:
Pachanga Boys – Time
Deadmau5 – Faxing Berlin
Chemical Brothers – Another World
…then Cat would grab the decks and while professing her love for Dave Grohl play:
Foo Fighters – Watershed
Queens of The Stone Age – A Song for the Dead
…then Fergus would take over and head on over to his favourite blog and play us some mellow vibes including
Aluminia – The Awakening
Bibio – A Tout a l’heure
Toro y Moi – Rose Quartz
…and then to finish the night I would probably take over and insist we listened to
Foals – Moon
Lau – Tha Lang set
Dave – we hear you are a bit of a deadmau5 fan?
Dave – “Yeah that’s a correct statement. It really stems from when I was younger, I’d grown up studying Classical, Jazz and Folk music, but hadn’t had much of an introduction to Indie and Electronic. A friend of mine sent me a couple tunes by The Go Team and a couple tunes from deadmau5’s ‘Random Album Title’. I absolutely loved both, Laurie and I frequently listen to ‘Random Album Title’, and I think it’s influenced the way we write music as well. deadmau5 gets a lot of stick for some of his work, and I think some of it is unjustified. What I particularly like about him, is that he’s stuck to his guns, I don’t think commercial success has influenced the way he writes music. I’m less of a fan of his more recent work, but that’s pretty normal with your childhood favourites.”
Massive news we hear concerning a certain gig in Scotland in a wee while. Tell us more!
Laurie – “Thanks, I am not sure how much I am allowed to say at this stage to be honest but it is somewhere that means a lot to us. We have played there once before and its where me and Fergus first initially decided to start making music tougher (hopefully the die hard fans will be able to guess).”
Was this the first band for you all?
Laurie – “No, me and Fergus were in a ‘bedroom rock band’ which consisted of Bloc Party esque guitar melodies and weird lyrics about having gay fantasies for our friends. Dave was in a one man band involving him playing computer game inspired synth parts over trance beats and Cat has been in more bands than me, Dave and Fergus have had hot dinners.”
Laurie and Fergus – you didn’t speak to each other at school. Why? Was one cooler than the other?
Laurie – “Before I properly knew Fergus we were on a school ski trip together, him and some cool kids came into my room when I was listening to DJ Shadow on my compact cd player and turned it off. Fergus then put on some horrendous indie band and him and his friends proceeded to dance around the room and cause a ruckus. I met him again 6 months later at t in the park and explained this incident and he dutifully apologised but then proceeded to call me Lauren all night. I don’t think I ever got over the emotional trauma of these two experiences but we are trying to put our differences aside, for now anyway…”
Who would you say are your influences, what sort of artists get played on the tour bus?
Laurie – “There are not many things that the band agree on collectively but we are all liking the latest Toro y Moi album and we are all big Tears for Fears fans so we play The Hurting a lot. In terms of influences we all listen to such a broad range it’s quite hard to pin down so I’m just going to go for the classic everything from Modest Mouse to deadmau5 with everything in between.”
What is the greatest gig you have performed to date?
Laurie – “We recently played two shows in a row which were both incredible for separate reasons. The first was Brew in The Bog which was a festival near Inverness. It was just getting dark and we played to about 1500 people which was our biggest gig as a 4 piece. We all played really well, had no technical issues and the crowd were immense. The next night we played Electric Circus in Edinburgh as part of the Big Day In which was our first home coming show in ages. It was a really sweaty and intimate gig and our friends and family were all there and my mum was jumping around. It was great, gigs like those motivate you to keep going.”
What is each other’s most annoying habit?
Laurie – “Fergus is constantly berating anything and everything around him which although cute, can eventually become quite irritating. Dave is always apologising…for everything! A habit that sounds lovely but after the 55th apology about the slightest mistake starts to grind my gears. Cat is too nice, all the time. Seriously annoying. Mine is probably pointing out everyone elses flaws but admitting to none of my own…”
What is coming out next from you guys?
Laurie – “We are hoping to get an EP out at the end of the summer and then an album, we are really excited about recording our album!”
Right a question to all of you…
The figure from history you’d like to have a pint with?
Laurie – “Albert Einstein. My dad is obsessed with quantum mechanics at the moment, it’s literally all he talks about so I wish I could sit down with Einstein so he could explain it to me so I could appear remotely intelligent in from of my dad.”
Dave – “Debussy. I would ask him how in the world he wrote those damn chords.”
Cat – “Alfred Wallace. I reckon he’d have some good stories about monkeys. Everyone enjoys a pint and a monkey story.”
The film you can watch time and time again?
Laurie – “Half Nelson”
Cat – “Airplane”
Dave – “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”
The saddest time that shook your world?
Laurie – “When my cat Hawk died”
Dave – “Probably when my mother nearly died of Meningitis, but then she survived so it became a really happy time…”
Cat – “I went through a particularly difficult spell last September when the hair product I use to prevent my hair turning into a wild afro beast went out of production. I was gigging a lot at the time and it resulted in some pretty unruly frizz. Not cool.”
The misapprehension about yourself you wish you could erase?
Dave -“Everyone thinks I’m being sarcastic… all the time!”
Laurie – “I give off the impression that I dislike my band mates by accident all the time, I actually love my fellow band members!”
Cat – “That I’m a girl.”
The prized possession you value above all others?
Laurie – “My bed.”
Cat – “I’m pretty one dimensional, it’d have to be my drum kits!”
Dave – “My laptop. It’s my main music creating device, I take it almost everywhere with me, I’m barely comfortable leaving it at home.”
And finally, hand on heart and don’t worry he’ll be too busy to ready this. What do you think of his Swedish House Mafia back catalogue?
Dave – “Our music tastes lie in a completely different realm to be honest. ‘One’ was a decent pop tune though.”
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