Toronto’s finest team up with the Kanye West crew for a stupendous remix of ‘Dum De Dum’
Interview : Dan Prince
Guys welcome to DMCWORLD, where in the world are you right now?
Matisse: “ We are actually at home in Toronto. We have a show here Saturday for the Redbull 3Style World Finals on Saturday and then we go to Cali for shows.”
A stunning new remix out now of your ‘dum dee dum’ single taken off the ‘Solow’ EP out on Dim Mak Records. You have teamed up with Chicago rappers King Louie & Tree as well as CuHi the Prynce from Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music roster. Talk us through the story of this amazing remix…
Flo: “When we first made “dum dee dum” it felt like such a rap beat to us, so for a fun experiment we wanted to do a remix where we put rappers on it. Cyhi and Tree are friends of ours that have come out to our shows in Atlanta and Chicago. We are huge fans of them, so it only made sense when we were thinking about doing this sort of a remix to give them a holler. We sent them the original tune and they cut amazing verses to it. Our friend Pesh over at TrillHd hooked us up with King Louie who we felt like would be the icing on the cake. Once we had all of their verses we took our beat and re-chopped it a bit to make space for vocals and basically made a rap song. It was really fun to do!”
The video for ‘dum dee dum’ is directed by Steve Labour, a hilarious mockumenterary that explores the Mennonite culture and their reaction to experiencing iPods and boom boxes for the first time. Whose idea was the video ?
Tune: “Amos from Slave Labour (SlaveLabour.co) pitched us the idea and we loved it and went and did it. When we saw it we were blown away. The Slave Labour guys are incredible.”
So let’s rewind…Adam Tune master of the drums, David Matisse working your magic on the synth macine and Jr. Flo spins his golden touch on the ones and twos. Your friend Abby put you all together knowing you all wanted to try something different, gotta ask…you cut him a percentage?!?!
Flo: “No we didn’t cut him anything, but we bought him a bagel. Thx Abby!”
Keys N Krates seamlessly master raw samples and twist them with live instrumentation creating a very unique sound, which we have to admit is very rare in electronic music in 2013. Who are the artists that you have drawn inspiration from that have helped mold your sound – I hear you wanted to be a modern party band from the outset…
Tune: “From a performance tip we get really inspired watching bands, how they jam, interact with each other, and the crowd. We actually just saw Pearl Jam this past Friday at a festival we were playing in New Orleans and they blew me away. From a musical perspective we are inspired by a lot of electronic stuff and rap stuff. Swizz Beatz, Timbaland, Neptunes, Just Blaze, to people like Cashmere Cat, and Hudson Mohawke. These are all guys that have their own sound and have honed it. We get a lot from listening to these guys.”
Matisse: “We basically are trying to make beats that are unique to us and present them as live experience. We draw from anyone who gives us ideas towards that.”
For our overseas readers who haven’t had a chance to catch your live sets, talk us through the whole live show and live re-mixing performance you put in…
Flo: “We are basically taking our music and the music of others and freaking it live using just drums, keys, turntables and live sampling. It’s a party set but a dynamic one with highs and lows.”
Jr. Flo – what is the current top 10 you are spinning…
Flo: Me personally? Here we go…
1.) Keys N Krates – Treat Me Right
2.) Rustie – Slasherrr (Flume Edit)
3.) Meek Mill – Levels
4.) Grandtheft and SmallTown DJs – Flying
5.) Keys N Krates – Dum Dee Dum (Rap Remix)
6.) Keys N Krates – I just Can’t Deny
7.) London Future & Djemba Djemba – Look At Me Now
8.) Diplo and Dj Fresh – Earthquake
9.) Hudson Mohawke – Furnace Loop
10.) King Louie – Val Venis
Where is the weirdest place you have taken a sample from?
Matisse: “Man is there even a weird place to take a sample from anymore?”
You spend so much time together and obviously have great chemistry. What though is the 1 thing you would change about each other…?
Tune: “Flo will pick his nose into a napkin. It’s disgusting. I would change that.”
Flo: “Tune has temper tantrums from time to time that resemble a five year old. I could do without those.”
Matisse: “Flo is always hungry, and it’s really annoying.”
A great quote from you guys…” We kinda hate guitarists. They play too much and have no sensibility more often than not. “ Discuss…
Tune: “Haha! You wanna know what though? We actually just saw a really tasteful one in Toronto last week doing D’angelo and Jay Dilla covers. He was so good and tasteful and had such a nice tone. So maybe they aren’t all so self indulgent and out of touch after all!”
What is the best and worst thing about living in Toronto?
Matisse: “The best thing might be the Roti.”
Tune: “The worst thing might people not knowing what they like or being too insecure to decide.”
Flo: “I would agree with both of those.”
How important is the interaction with your fans to you, it seems you work very hard at being transparent to everybody?
Matisse: “So important! We love bringing them into our world and getting them involved. It’s so incredible that we can jam something or make a beat and get their feelings on it within five minutes by just posting to our social media. It makes everything so much fun.”
Milwaukee looked insane at the weekend where you played with Grizmatik – where have been some of the stand out gigs of the summer for you?
Flo: “Trillwaukee was insane. Those kids went in with us! That was definitely a stand out gig from this year. Lollapalooza was another stand out gig. That was insane and very surreal.”
Funniest thing that has ever happened at a festival to you?
Tune: “At Shambahala last summer we saw a dude dressed as a wizard emerge out of the woods with a smoking metal ball attached to some chain. He walked up to the DJ playing at that stage (it was a smaller stage) and started waving the ball around him, and the security on stage couldn’t figure out if it was part of the DJs show or if this was just some crazy. The DJ was in fact very weirded out. The wizard then walked off the stage, right passed us and into the woods. We never saw him again.”
How have you found the programming at events this year, have you found that the promoter has always put your hip hop influenced sound in the right slot…or have you ever followed/proceeded an artist which just didn’t work?
Flo: “Overall it’s been pretty good. We usually play stages with a mixed bag of stuff. We haven’t been upset by any of the programming yet.”
What is the 1 record you wish you had made?
Flo: “Tnght – Higher Ground.”
And finally, what is coming out next from you studio wise?
Tune: “We are working on our next EP right now!”
Watch ‘Dum De Dum’ (Original) Official Video here:
http://youtu.be/1ooPp0-UX48
http://www.keysnkrates.com
http://www.soundcloud.com/keysnkrates
http://keysnkrates.tumblr.com
http://www.twitter.com/keysnkrates
http://instagram.com/keysnkrates
http://www.dimmak.com/
https://www.facebook.com/dimmakrecs
https://twitter.com/dimmakrecs