The cool Canadian duo alongside 3lau behind the most frantic tune at Ultra…’Vikings’
Interview : Dan Prince
Gordon, Erick welcome to DMCWORLD, where in the world are you right now?
G: “Thanks for having us! Back home in Montreal right now.”
Well, what can we say about your 3Lau collab ‘Vikings’ tune…it has absolutely smashed every dancefloor around the world. Tell us the history behind the track….
G: “Sure! It came about very organically. We’ve been good friends with 3lau for at least a year now, and one day we were sitting down talking about music, and got to chatting about how big room was due for a facelift…and at the time, to us nothing new was that shocking any more! We showed Justin this idea we had for the drop that was the early version of ‘Vikings’, and he right away had ideas for how to make it an actual song haha.”
Ultra. Skrillex/Diplo/Jack U. Hundreds of thousands of people going mental when they played the tune. Where were you when that shit happened?
G: “We went to Ultra just for the Friday and saw Zedd play some of our tunes…and were there when Tiesto played our ‘Animals’ edit. But on Sunday when Jack U played we were having sushi in Vancouver and 3lau calls me like “Holy shit dude! Skrillex and Diplo just played our track on the stream!”. It was crazy, that moment I checked twitter to see literally hundreds of tweets about the track. It was pretty insane the reaction!!”
When I told The Buzz Chart crew I was interviewing you today they shouted…”we love Botnek, this tune is going to spark a thousand bootlegs and is more frantic than Scooby Doo on ice!”. Thoughts on that little comment?
G: “Hahaha! One thing that this track is definitely causing is a lot of extreme reactions. Most people either reallllly love it or realllly hate it. We’ve already seen a couple bootlegs show up so you’re totally right. I always thought of it as the EDM version of a heavy metal double bass pedal drum solo. Like Danny Carey or something.”
True or false? The most interesting fact about your hometown of Halifax on the east coast of Canada is the pepperoni?
G: “Dan. You are a wise man. To Erick and I this is definitely a highlight of going home. Forget the seafood just go straight for the pepperoni.”
E: “And Donairs.”
You met in a club where Gordon was DJing, you admit that not many people were into dance music where you were at the time, most people went to bars and listened to Bob Seger. So was a career in music the only avenue you were interested in from an early age?
G: “No! To be honest neither of us thought it was even possible to be involved in the music industry. To us it was this world that we had no connection to, but were pretty determined to figure out how to do it. Our goal in the beginning was to be on the cover of the local indie newspaper called ‘The Coast’. Around that time I was a computer programmer and Erick was in art school.”
What did your families think of your choice of your careers…?
G: “I think if I was an adult and my kid was like “Yo, I’m quitting my day job to play bleepy bloopy music in nightclubs for drunk people” I’d be bit worried…but we’re lucky in that both of our families are super supportive of what we’re doing. My Dad always buys our songs on iTunes when they come out haha!”
Best and worst thing about living in Montreal?
G: “Best would for sure be the food, the French girls and that a lot of our friends are often here playing on weekends when we’re home! Worst? Easily winter for half the year here. Most of my American friends who come to visit have never experienced cold like this. But it’s good for staying in and getting work done…no excuses!”
You grew up listening to a lot of UK based dance music, Radio 1 was pivotal in giving you access to new sounds every week. Whose shows were you checking back in the day…
G: “The ‘In New DJs We Trust’ show has always been awesome. Back when we were really listening to it we never missed Jaymo & Andy George’s show. Back then they used to play the dopest fidget house records. I miss those shows!”
“Canada’s first celebrity stormchasers” Discuss…
G: “That’s a lie. We’re actually Canada’s premiere Botnek stunt doubles. On the weekends tho we’re a debate team. But we’ve been called Canada’s most controversial substitute teachers.”
Gordon, god I hope this is a falsey. True or false, you used to wear a Sonic The Hedgehog sweatsuit top and bottoms?
G: “Hahahaha!!! Not only did I wear them, but I wore ONLY them. I had two separate colors. I ruled the school. Ladies knew who was the boss when they saw the matching sweat suit.”
What is the current top 10 you are spinning…
G: “Whatever the Beatport Top 10 is bro, duh. Lol.”
Tell us about your studio set up, who excels in what department?
G: “Great question. We’re pretty minimal actually. Both of us just have laptops and headphones. We like this idea instead of having too much outboard gear we have to plug in…especially for travelling and collabs! I used to have a bunch of synths but I sold them all for plugins because having to patch everything in takes so long…I love how with ‘in the box’ mixing nothing is ever final…and you can tweak forever!”
E: “Gordon is usually the melody guy. He’ll just sit there and work on a break forever and get all fancy with his notes and crap.”
G: “Yaaa but Erick is Mr. Techno. The dude will sit there and spend an hour making duck noises and somehow turn that into music. Kind of.”
You work, rest and play together…what is the 1 thing you would change about each other?
G: “I would make Erick less handsome so I could have a more obvious advantage with the ladies.”
E: “I would make Gordon incapable of showing me his butt every single chance he can.”
Nice. Everyone has one, a guilty pleasures album lurking in a closet. What is yours?
G: “Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch “Music for the People”. Well… mostly just ‘Good Vibrations’. That’s my jam.”
E: “Bruno Mars ‘Unorthodox Jukebox’.”
G: “Mmm…same.”
Who are some of the producers from around the world you are giving high fives to at the moment?
G: “Right now we love Snails, Aylen, Merk & Kremont, Robotaki, Mightyfools, Tchami, Camo & Krooked, Henry Fong, DallasK, Pierce Fulton, Alesia & Kill Fm!”
And finally, what is coming out next from you guys studio wise…
G: “After Vikings, we’ve got some pretty dope collabs coming, that I’m not sure we can talk about just yet…but very excited about the next few months!”
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