The Belgium techno brothers in rhythm
Interview by Dan Prince
Guys welcome back to DMCWORLD…where in the world are you today?
Home sweet home in Belgium.
The first piece of music you heard this morning after crawling out of bed…?
Split Enz – Message to my girl. Always loved that one.
Congratulations on another stunning release, this time round part of the new Toolroom Live 03 album alongside Amtrac and Mendo. You created the mix together – as you should as you DJ in a back2back style. Let’s kick off with your live sets, do you discuss beforehand where you want the journey to go, we’ve watched you and it’s as if there is quite simply an unspoken understanding going on between you two?
We usually discuss what tracks we want to play in the days leading up to a gig. New ideas we want to try out or some new promos. I guess our understanding comes from DJing as a duo for more than 10 years now but also making music together for most of our lives.
Talk us through the mix for Toolroom, how much does it represent a typical live set and what are the stages…
We feel the mix has 3 stages: it starts out with some groovy tribal techno, then it morphs into peak time melodic techno and we end with a bunch a big techno bangers.
When did Toolroom first appear on your musical radar…what are some of the stand out tracks from over the years?
We liked Toolroom right from the beginning. Toolroom has always been a benchmark for quality house music. I feel that our paths really came together with the relaunch of Toolroom Trax. The overall sound and phylosophy of Trax fits our own sound perfectly.
I always chuckle when I read an interview you guys do where the journalist asks you two where you first met! You are always so polite with your replies…and knowing how tired you are half the time, do you ever just think of walking off?
Hahaha! Oh that’s all good. We’re not that easily upset about these things. There is already enough diva bevavior in the scene.
Two gigs I wanna mention that people still mention to me on my travels. Your first ever gig in Columbia and your annual show at Ageha, Tokyo. Pretty special parties right?
Absolutely! Having our first ever gig at a big rave half way across the world was indeed rather special. It was a bit if a trial by fire but it turned out great. Ageha in Tokyo is simply amazing. The love you get from the crowd is overwhelming.
Like so many of our leading European producers, you thought Eurodance was shit. It wasn’t until the sounds of artists such as Masters At Work, Daft Punk, DJ Sneak and Amrand Van Helden appeared on your radar that you started to take dance music seriously. What was it about this sound that captured your imagination?
A lot of Eurodance sounded cold and formulaic and often unmusical. House Music had so much more soul and groove. Techno adds the extra dose if energy and a certain abstract element.
Underworld live in concert in the 1990s. A pivotal moment for Filterheadz. Discuss.,.
We got free tickets from a friend so we thought we’d go and have look. We were blown away by the energy, the musicality, the visuals and the fusion of rock and dance elements. A pivotal moment for sure.
You grew up in a musical family, instruments were always around you and a guitar and a drum kit were two early toys. What did your family think of your choice of genre of music that you finally happened on as a career path? A shudder or a big slap on the back?
We did get a few questions from friends asking why we go into electronic music and if that was really what we wanted to do. For us it was more of an expansion of our musical horizon than a departure from our roots. It’s surprising how many “guitarist turned techno producer/djs” we met over the years.
Your production style is so wide – Disco House, Tribal House, Progressive House, Elektro and of course Techno – is there though 1 particular genre where you two brothers really gel in the studio, a style where it just feels RIGHT?
I have to say techno. That’s really the genre we gravitate to. It’s interesting a as producer to try different genres, even just as a studio exercise. It gives you new insights and inspirations. But in the end the final question is always: would we use this in our sets? And that always brings us back to techno.
Aside from the Toolroom Live 03 release you have a really busy few months ahead of you. Let’s kick off with the forthcoming artist album, also on Toolroom. Where are we at with it, what is the direction, are there any collabs on the long player? And what’s it called!!!!!!??
All Filterheadz music, no collabs. We have around 30 tracks ready to select from. Style wise it’s ranging from down tempo atmospheric tunes to full on techno. Making an album is great opportunity to express musical ideas that fall outside of the typical releases. We have a few album titles in mind but we still need to make a final decision.
You launched your own label Loooglow this year…what are the future releases coming up?
We have an EP ready for Loopglow but we feel it’s important to give releases a bit of time to grow. We see some folks release week after week but we that does more bad than good. Where is the quality control when you release 50+ tracks year?
Tell us about your summer – where have some of the stand out gigs been for you…
Definitely a fun summer. Our favorite was probably the Prigl festival in Brno.
Anthem of the summer?
Technasia & Green Velvet – Suga for sure. The moment we heard the promo I messaged Matt Smallwood at Toolroom that he had a no 1 on his hands.
And finally – 1 track you just HAD to have on Toolroom Live 03?
We’re very proud of our 2 exclusive Filterheadz tracks that we included in the mix. We’ve been playing these out for a while and they both do serious dancefloor damage. We felt we just had to include these tracks.
http://www.toolroomrecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/FilterheadzOfficial
