London’s finest getting ready to bump & grind down at Highrise
Interview : Dan Prince
Guys welcome back to DMCWORLD…where on the planet are you today?
“We’re in the studio in London representing UK!!”
You couldn’t walk around a street corner these past couple of days in Ibiza without seeing the posters for the Sankeys party with yourselves and Duke Dumont…how was that little soiree?
“Loved it – Ibiza is always a laugh.”
A couple of weeks ago some superstar DJs including Paul Oakenfold, Afrojack and Steve Angello announced on Radio 1 that “Ibiza is too expensive” and that the “mystique of Ibiza isn’t there anymore”. Do you agree?
“When you think Paul Oakenfold was one of the first to go over there, back when we didn’t really travel as much as we do now, when it was probably really unspoilt – of course it’s going to be different. Back then it was a load of locals dancing in open air clubs. We still have love for the island, you just have to know where to go now.”
Throw 3 reasons at us why you love Ibiza…
“Alioli. Massive G&T’s in goblets. Formentera.”
Brilliant! So, a huge day and night hitting London town in two weeks with the arrival of the Boxfresh High Rise event; a series of cool roof parties with three distinctive line ups in three exceptional spaces. You’re headlining the Rockwell House party…this is going to go off right?
“Right off! We’ve got some new, never heard before tunes to play too. There’s something about daytime roof top parties that gets us going.”
Where have some of the stand out shows been for you this summer…Secret Garden party looked ace as usual…
“We’ve been involved in Secret Garden Party for a fair few years now – we curate the Pagoda Stage…it’s really pretty special…definitely unique in the fact it feels like one big party in someone’s garden. Glastonbury was pretty special too, we had a real good time – we played before Seth Troxler and Jamie Jones on the WOW Stage and it was great. We had to leave two hours later to go to Croatia. That was hard leaving all our mates as they wandered off for a night of madness in the Shangri-La….”
A recent quote from a certain superstar DJ…“I believe true DJing is actually an art, but it’s a dying art, as everyone is pushing the sync button…it’s a real shame when you see a ‘DJ’ plug his laptop in and call this DJing. Music will always evolve but sometimes not in the best way.” What are your thoughts on that?
“Not everyone is pressing the sync button though…there are still a good number of DJs out there repping vinyls, CDs or USBs and mixing for real on the decks rather than having it all pre-mixed. There seems to be a lot of confusion when it comes to technology. Some DJs will use their laptops for Serato but mix off vinyl live – essentially their laptop is a huge record box. Others may use a controller and let the computer do the work. All we know is we love mixing live – there’s definitely an art to it, the spontaneity and immediacy of what’s going on in the club at that time – you need to be able to react to it and that’s that. There are definitely more DJs nowadays, the technology is cheaper…but quality still stands out doesn’t it?
More big news in the Waze & Odyssey camp right now is the release of ‘Bump & Grind 2014 ft. R. Kelly’…an hilarious video, please talk us through the history and sound of the track that is coming out on October 5th…
“The track started as a DJ tool – more for us to play in clubs, a few DJs got a hold of it and it went from there. The problem was it was never officially released so we had this record that everyone was asking for a copy of that they couldn’t buy. Now they’ll be able to. Check the video out here : http://smarturl.it/BumpGrindVid?IQid=fb
It’s that time of year again, the annual DJ Top100. I interviewed Arthur Baker this week, he remarked…“there are too many DJs and genres for a realistic competition – it needs to split”. What are your thoughts on that – do you give a shit any more?
“It’s all waffle at the end of the day. We don’t pay any attention to these charts. We’d rather focus on what we’re doing and what we’re about.”
And finally, what lies further ahead release wise from you guys…?
“We’ve got Bump & Grind coming out very soon as you know – keep your eyes peeled. Plus we’re also really hyped for a 12 track vinyl and cd sampler we’ve been working on for Street Tracks. Pencilled for October – it’s got tracks from people like Citizen, Ejeca, XXXY, Eliphino, New Jack City, Chamboche and more. We wanted to make a mix CD with music from our favourite acts – that no one has heard before and this is it.”
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Waze & Odyssey will be appearing at the Boxfresh Highrise event in London on September 6th
Event links :
www.boxfresh.com www.twitter.c!om/Boxfresh www.facebook.com/boxfresh
Waze & Odyssey links :
https://www.facebook.com/Waze.Odyssey
