The boys from Germany aping about enjoying the High Life
Interview : Dan Prince
Guys welcome to DMCWORLD, where in the world are you right now?
“Ola Dan, at the moment we´re in our hometown, Halle City in eastern Germany. The place we live, work and love!“
You are setting dancefloors alight yet again with your ‘High Life’ track, a record that was out at the start of the year and now back again. Tell us the history of the track…
“It´s a really short story. We built a track in the summer 2012. Our friends and neighbours Super Flu grabbed it for their label Monaberry and released it in September. People liked the track. One night Pete Tong played Hi Life on his radio show and a few minutes later we got an email from Ministry Of Sound. They liked the track too and wanted to do a re-release. My brother and me said: ‘Let´s do it’ and we´ll see what happens…”
When I mentioned to The Buzz Chart team I was interviewing you two today they were very excited, they love this tune. “It’s the new Wankelmut style hit” they shouted! Thoughts on that comment…?
“Glad to hear, your team love the track…it´s our profession to make people happy! But to be honest, I don´t know what´s ‘Wankelmut style’ is`! A lot of artists in the past and present made emotional dance music with sampled vocals. Good stuff and of course really bad stuff. Wankelmut has bad luck that his first bootleg got so much attention. Now it´s much harder for him to develop his music and artist profile as he wants and not like how the industry wants it. I don´t think Wankelmut is really happy about the fact that the masses in front of his DJ booth are just screaming “One Day, One Day, One Day“ during his whole set and not seriously listen to the music he really plays!”
I am intrigued and also taking my hats off to you both about your devotion to the scene. Music and clubland seem to be running through your veins. You have your labels, your venue, your DJing…how did all this begin, what music/DJs/clubs first pulled you into this magical world of dance music?
“Many years ago we bought our first turntables and mixer to start DJiing. Lars played Hip Hop and I (Sven) a lot of the Big Beat stuff. Formative influences at this time were artists like Fatboy Slim, Chemical Brothers and Gang Starr. From the beginning we both loved to play the crossover. We listened to different kinds of music so it was also really interesting for us to play different kinds of music in one set in one night. In 2008 we started our first label What! What! and had no idea! In this time we also opened our club and made the first steps in the studio.”
You both have wide tastes in music, Hip Hop, funk, World Music, psychedelic and even The Doors have all helped you become the artists you are today! Who are some of the artists outside of dance music you are listening to at the moment?
“Edward Sharpe, Macklemore, The Shins, Sigur Ros, Maler Im Hemd and so on…”
The Monkey Safari name came courtesy of a friend during a session at Kreuzberg in Berlin – and you decided to call your club Charles Bronson because, well just because he is a cool dude and the name looks good on paper. But has anyone come to the club thinking that the Charles Bronson you named the club after was in fact the UK’s most violent ever criminal and not the US actor famed for his Death Wish films?
“Of course in the past some people asked us which Charles Bronson it is who is the father of the club, but to be honest I think the people in Germany know anout the UK Bronson.”
What was the main ethos behind the club?
“The main aim of our club was to build up a platform for quality electronic music in our hometown. A place for dancing, drinking and networking. Halle has a lot of young, talented artists. For their development it´s good to play together with established artists from around the world.”
What is the current top 10 you are spinning?
The XX – Reunion (Ame Remix)
Luca Bacchetti, Guti – Loneliness
Monkey Safari – Jörg
Einmusik – Do You
Isolee – Allowance
Nils Penner – Seventy Seven
Kollektiv Turmstrasse – Ordinary (Lake People Remix)
John Tejada – The End Of It All
Rebelski – The Rift Valley
Super Flu – Fibi Maybe
Where have been some of the stand out gigs this summer?
“The Fusion Festival in Lärz this year was impressive again and also the first time at Space in Ibiza was really interesting. But we´d a lot of great parties and festivals this year so it´s hard to say…”
What are the future release plans for your labels?
“At the moment we are putting the focus on our new born label ‘Hommage’. From there we´ll release a lot of good stuff from new Halle City artists and some Monkey Safari alter egos…”
What has been your anthem of summer 2013?
“Super Flu – Shine.”
A famous quote from you…”we are brothers and that’s why we know each other well.” Tell us about the studio working arrangement, who excels where?
“At the beginning we tried to produce the whole track together in the studio but that was not really successful. So in the years we developed another workflow for us. Lars builds a skeleton, an idea for a track. Than I´ll have a listen to it, say my opinion and we talk about the structure, elements etc…After this, Lars works on the track again and again and again until we both say: YO.”
Do you ever argue over music?
“Of course! Music is a really subjective and personal thing and inspite of being brothers with a lot of similarities we´ve different opinions and influences in our musical developments.”
If you could change one thing about each what would it be?
“Snoring!!!”
Who are the producers from around the world you are giving high fives to right now?
“Guti, Animal Trainer, Casimir Von Oettingen, &ME.”
Funniest thing that has ever happened to you in a club?
“It´s happened this year during our set at the Fusion Festival. In the morning on our way to the festival I made a post via Facebook saying something like…”Fusion we´re coming with sunshine in our bags“. When we arrived at the festival area it was very stormy and rainy – only clouds, no sunshine. The people from the festival told us the weather was shitty like this during the whole festival weekend. When we started playing the rain stopped and we thought: ‘Ok cool…better than nothing’. Suddenly, after 30 mins playtime the crowd were screaming and we wondered what had happend because the music was on and there was no big break or something like that to excite them. So we had a quick look and saw a sunbeam about 40-50 meters in front of the stage hitting the masses. For some of these people it was the first sunshine they had seen all weekend and hey, it was during a Monkey Safari set. That was really funny and impressive all at once!”
Strangest thing the cleaners ever found in your club on a Monday morning…
“More interesting is the strangest thing we never found in the club…two years ago during a party with &ME, circa 30 policemen came into the club and stoped the music because of a bomb threat. After 2 hours waiting outside, a bomb detection dog and a spontaneous party in a public service vehicle, nothing was found…as of this interview!”
And finally, have you ever been on a monkey safari?
“Every weekend Dan, every weekend…”
http://residentadvisor.net/dj/monkeysafari
http://www.lastfm.de/music/Monkey+Safari
