Light beams and lazers. Brilliant new album H0L0GRAM getting us trapped on the dancefloor
Interview by Dan Prince
Photos by Jonathan Dailler (1&4), Hanse Cora and Uber&Kosher (2), Bruno De Cock (3)
David, Wiebe, Hadrien…welcome to DMCWORLD, where in the world are you right now?
“Hey Dan, we’re split between Belgium and London at this moment.”
So much to talk about, let’s kick off with the track that has smashed the world famous Buzz Chart this week, a beautiful version of Colonel Abram’s ‘Trapped’. Tell us the history of the tune…surely you are too young to remember the original??
“We have been a fan of this vocal for ages and we have been trying for the last couple of years to use it…but with a big (dare I say historic?) vocal like that, it needs to be real special…I think we finally succeeded, but let’s see what the rest of the world thinks! We wanted the vocals to be re-sung to make it more unique, so we invited Colonel Abrams to our Belgian studio. It turned out to be a real adventure! Before he wanted to sing any note he needed a haircut and a stylist. It eventually took 3 days and a shipment of Baileys to lay down the vocals. And the man is full of amazing stories about back in the early days of house music. One evening during dinner he told us it was actually him who made the very first house record: ‘Release The Tension’, a track from 1984 recorded with Boyd Jarvis. Hard to verify this, but anyway, he was definitely a pioneer and it’s a damn good track!”
You have us all licking all lips in anticipation regarding the new album ‘H0L0GRAM’. 12 tunes including ‘Trapped’, please can you give us a few words on each of the remaining tracks…
Enter The H0L0GRAM
“Let yourself fade into this weird, absurd and dreamlike holographic cyber space.”
Trapped (feat Colonel Abrams)
“And you are trapped inside! This song is about being trapped in your own thoughts, your own world, your own H0L0GRAM, your own way of seeing reality.”
Live In A Dream (feat Selah Sue)
“But the H0L0GRAM inside our heads is a beautiful place.”
27 (feat Danny Greene and Jay Brown)
“And so we lose ourselves in the H0L0GRAM: about the subconscious, about going on a journey in your mind, about dreams, about “the world is a stage and everyone plays his part”. Vocals are from the notorious East London nightlife carouser Danny Greene and the London based young and talented singer-songwriter Jay Brown.”
Concorde (feat Jean Pierre Castaldi)
“A retro-futuristic ode to lost love with the Concorde as the metaphor. Kind of intriguing when you think one of us lives in London and one is French. The voice is performed by Jean-Pierre Castaldi, a well known French actor. This choice is an odd one, we knew that some people would not understand, because it is such an unexpected collaboration, but this remarkable man has such an incredible voice…”
Fly (feat Jay Brown)
“All about an imaginary place where two lovers can be together in perfect harmony, but knowing there is the real world and we all have to fly. Completely Holographic shit.”
Cling To The Love (feat Jay Brown)
“About falling in love and then holding onto the dream. When you are in love, you feel like living in a surreal holographic world.”
The Hand (feat Jay Brown)
“But there is also reality. This one is about the truth that isn’t hard, but sometimes hard to digest. Dream vs reality. But it’s also about men come from Mars and women come from Venus…you have to read between the lines, but, at the risk of completely demistifying the lyrics…the girl talks about love and the guy about…X.”
Under My Skin (feat Jay Brown)
“About hiding the truth.”
The Bottle (feat Danny Greene)
“About trying to be happy. It gives a look into the vocalist’s brain/world, like a H0L0GRAM of his mind, the way he thinks and tries to be happy. This vocal is directly cut from one long improvisation by Danny Greene. Nothing was written down, nothing was prepared…but yes, some alcohol was involved…one of those mad studio sessions…”
H0L0GRAM (feat Jay Brown)
“Love inside the H0L0GRAM.”
Exit The H0L0GRAM
“Fade out…welcome back in the real world…”
How long did the album take to create?
“It took nearly two years ever since David Newtron moved to London. Being the main producer/songwriter, one could say the album was made in London, but we actually jammed a lot over the internet…”
You take to the road once again in May, directly after the album release show at Ancienne Belgique on April 4th. What can we expect from your live shows this year…?
“The same but better…since the album contains a lot of song material, we made carefully remixed versions for the live, having the complete picture of the live show in mind. So the whole concert flows like a live DJ set, but with our own material and played by musicians.”
Right potential rock n’ roll moment. I was leafing through some of your old interviews and saw that on one of your first live tours you were stopped and questioned by the police 3 times. What for…?
“Haha. Okay, here’s one. When we toured Australia I had the lucid idea of jumping onto the conveyer belt in the airport with the tour camera in my hand. I went through the luggage tunnel and came back out the other end. The world still being in the aftershock of 9/11, this wasn’t such a good idea…”
Just before you released your second album you were asked you hoped would come of it, you replied “making The Subs sound like a real band”. It’s 2014, do you think you have achieved that desire now?!?
“We function like a real band now, although we all live in different cities. We created the music by swapping files over the internet…so I don’t know if we sound like a band…but we definitely function like one…”
Wiebe – what is DJ Tonic Top 10 you are currently spinning…
Laurent Garnier – Bang (The Underground Doesn’t Stop)
Johannes Heil & Len Faki – Dirty
L-Vis 1990 – Flash Drive
Audion – Sky – Daniel Avery Remix
Hoshina Anniversary – Extra
Vin Sol – Voice Chip Activ8 – Matrixxman Remix
Josh Caffe & David Newtron – As I Look
Elizabeth Merrick-Jefferson – Quetzalcoat!
My Favourite Robot – White Light – Jimmy Edgar Remix
Moderat – Bad Kingdom – Head High Remix
Noticed you showed a photo of Daft Punk winning Best Album at the Grammy’s. There have been many comments from fellow producers exclaiming their disbelief the duo had won the award “for Best Album with only one track on it”. Thoughts at that…?
“You have to know that we are Daft Punk fans of the very first hour, so we are biased. Just the mere fact that they made it from true innovators of underground club music to winning a Grammy…that is just so beautiful. And there’s more than one track that we love on the album. And also, you know, in the end, opinions are like…well…everyone’s got one, right?”
Tell us about life on the road on the tour bus. Are you all immersed in your own headphones or is there a soundtrack to the motorways…?
“Soundtrack goes like: bzzzzzgrrrrrrrrrrrbbrrrrrrrdddddrrrrrrrrrrrrbggggggggghhh. But once in a while, when by some miracle everyone is awake, we play our favorite playlist “music for motorways”. Here you go:
Autobahn v Kraftwerk
Cars van Gary Newman
Little Red Corvette v Prince
Behind The Wheel v Depeche Mode
The Distance v Cake
Low Rider v War
Heaven’s in The Backseat Of My Cadillac – Hot Chocolate
Drive My Car vs Beatles
On The Road Again v Canned Heat
Always Crashing In The Same Car v David Bowie
Crosstown Traffic v Jimmy Hendrix
What is each other’s most annoying habit on tour?
“We’re actually all in harmony on the tour bus. And very sleepy. Bunks are timewarp machines.”
Where are some of the big festivals we can catch you this summer?
“Most of them are too early to announce yet, but we can confirm Rock Werchter.”
What is on The Subs rider in 2014?
“Batteries.”
And finally, what are the plans for after the summer studio wise…?
“We gonna keep on working on the remix-live versions of the album H0L0GRAM and who knows we’ll release those. In the meantime David Newtron will keep on teaming up with underground talent in his London studio. He’s just finishing a collab with Ashworth…”
