My Friend

Tipped by BBC Radio 1’s Danny Howard as “ones to watch”, UK producer duo My Friend have been crafting a signature melodic vibe over the past 18 months, releasing on powerhouse labels and remixing for the likes of Icarus and more. Last week we met with Archie and James to talk about their latest release and collaboration with Dezza ‘Dream Weaver’, which drops this month on Zerothree Records…

Tell us, how did you two meet?

Archie: We met at a club in Oxford back in 2011. I was running parties there whilst at university and booked James to play one night. At the after-party we arranged to get into the studio together at some point. Two years later we did!

Can you describe separately, how you started making music and what paths led you to be beside each other now?

A: I started out making mainly drum and bass but this gradually moved towards house by the time I had left uni.

James: I was DJing as a hobby at uni and managed to secure myself a residency at a house music night in my last year. This motivated me to start playing around with music production and considering music more seriously as a career rather than a hobby.

What were you doing before you started My Friend?

J: We’ve been working under another alias for the last 5 years.

Why did you decide to form a musical duo and how long have you been making music as My Friend?

A: My Friend came to life at the beginning of 2018. We started making music that didn’t necessarily fit in line with what we were known for previously and a fresh alias seemed like the most convenient way to get the project rolling.

You have a release Dream Weaver coming out on Zerothree Music on 17 May- what sort of sound can we expect from it?

J: it’s a collab with Dezza. A big progressive, melodic track and a nice mix of both our sounds.

Danny Howard has backed you two as “ones to watch”. What else, aside from your upcoming release, should we watch out for this year?

A: We have another EP that we’re really excited about coming out in July on Icarus’s label Fly Boy that we feel finally cements our sound as My Friend.

Do you have specific roles in the creative process or do you both get involved in all areas?

J: It differs with every tune but we mainly write separately and then come together on the last bits. However, we are trying to sit down together more from start to finish as we’ve found this works really well – it’s just taken some getting used to as we both have different set ups.

Where can our readers expect to see you play over the next few months?

A: We’ve got some shows coming up in London, and then a handful of festivals – El Dorado and Budafest we are particularly looking forward to.

What set up do you have when writing together? Is simplicity best or do you like to have a complex set up with hardware, etc?

J: It’s fairly basic at the moment. Just laptop, soundcard and monitors. Although we are about to take the plunge into analog and get us a nice bit of kit. Thinking the Moog Sub 37 would suit us well.

Do you plan to (or already have) a live set up to perform your own tunes?

A: We’ve experimented with live setups on previous projects and it’s absolutely something we want to do with My Friend in the future – once we have a body of work we are super proud of.

Who have you listened to recently that has tickled your eardrums?

A: We’re both loving Prospa at the moment. They were made ‘ones to watch’ by Danny at the same time as us, so has been cool following them over the last year. They’ve put out some seriously big records!

J: Will Easton as well – we rarely play a set without dropping one of his tunes.

Any collaborations planned? If not, is there anyone My Friend would like to work with in the future?

A: Yeah we have a collab we’re currently in the process of finishing. Will have to keep quiet for now on who that is though!

My Friend & Dezza ‘Dream Weaver’ is out now on Zerothree

https://zerothree.lnk.to/DreamZS