I’ve recently been able to interview trance superstars Above & Beyond in advance of them DJ’ing at Slinky’s 12th Birthday Party. This year Slinky are having two dates and two parties to celebrate being 12, and Above & Beyond will be headlining the May part on Friday the 1st of May 2009 at the Opera House in Bournemouth.
Slinky's 12th Birthday Party
Here’s the interview which was also hosted on the Slinky website where you can also see more associated images.
There are DJs who can rock a party, a club, a festival. And there are acts that can write songs that will bring out the goose bumps in you. But there’s only one group that can do both: Above & Beyond.
This three piece have remixed Madonna, won Essential Mix of the Year, and played to one million people in Rio de Janeiro. More importantly they’ve written songs with the power and the melody to en-trance that one million-strong crowd, many of who were singing along, word for word.
We’re lucky enough to have them headlining the white-themed part of Slinky’s 12th Birthday celebrations on the 1st of May. Want to know more, then read on:
1. Hi guys and thanks for agreeing to the quick interview. Could you briefly tell us who you are, where you are, and what’s playing on your stereo?
I’m Tony from Above & Beyond, I’m on the Eurostar going to Paris (avoid flying when you can) and “Here It Comes” by Doves is on my iPod.
2. What has been your proudest moment during your career in dance music and DJ’ing and are you able to tell us about it?
There have been so many it seems churlish to select just one, but since you asked so nicely I will. Winning Essential Mix of the Year in 2005 was pretty special: it was the first year they’d ever given an award, and we saw off people who had been inspirations to us.
And in some ways the “Trojan Horse” element of the mix, the random spoken words by some of our studio neighbours, caught the zeitgeist and made a political statement far more powerful and complex than we could have made on our own.
3. There seems to be many types of awards now available to DJs and producers. Do you personally place any value on accolades such as the DJ Mag Awards and is it important to you to receive that type of recognition?
It is always nice to win awards, especially if they are beautiful things, but since so many of them are internet voting polls there is always this nagging doubt about what they actually mean in reality: so few people actually vote in practice it can make the results meaningless.
It would be nice of there were dance music Oscars, voted for by your peers. That would be nice. And I don’t mean a panel of journalists who obsess about some tiny genre and miss the big picture, but our peers.
4. Do you have any ambitions, whether they’re related to the dance music industry or outside in normal life, what might they be?
I think its important to set goals as a directional aid, but in life there is no back of the net in which to wallow in your own self importance when you reach one, only a muddy goal line with another pitch glued on the back of the first to save goalposts and a big centre forward bearing down on you.
5. I understand you met whilst at University… what path do you think your lives and careers would have taken without this meeting of minds?
Jono and Paavo met at University, I met them through my brother, the internet and the peculiar software standards of Yamaha samplers. Who knows what might have happened if we hadn’t met.
I think the important thing is to not dwell on the “what if” but make sure you are ready for change: when that door opens you better be through it with your suitcase and passport and your clean pants on in case it closes in your face forever.
6. What skills to you all bring to the Above & Beyond collective as individuals?
I’m quite good at drawing and a qualified PADI Rescue Diver, Paavo can do computer programming and makes excellent sushi, and Jono does really good magic tricks and impressions.
7. Are there any other artists or singers’ tracks you’d like to cover and put the Above & Beyond stamp on that you haven’t yet done, or not been able to?
I’m not sure. We’d always wanted to work with Radiohead but the experience wasn’t so great. When they finally asked us to remix one of their tracks they gave us a song with a weird time signature and no chorus and, after they asked us to remix it, offered the parts to everyone on their website.
So there were thousands of remixes out there as well as ours. I think we did an amazing job all considered, but with so much noise out there it’s hard to feel satisfied. So today, feeling like I do, no. We’re OK on our own thanks.
8. I recently read Jono mentioning that “part of dance music is copying things” which makes a lot of sense as there seems to be a constant re-hash of genres and ideas. But on the other hand it must be hard coming up with that original aspect, how do you guys do that and where do you take inspiration from?
Dance music is the only genre I know where you have to make records that are designed to be played two at a time. So you can’t be too different. You have to blend in with what’s around at the time or, putting it simply, no DJ is going to play your tune.
Dance music is like a huge, ever-changing jigsaw puzzle being designed and manufactured by thousands of people all at the same time. And you know what? We’ve just made that bit of blue sky you’ve been looking for all these years.
9. You all travel extensively as Above & Beyond, other than the UK where’s your favourite place to gig and why?
Brazil. Brazilians are beautiful, they love music, they can dance, they have the best food, the best cocktails, the best wine, the best weather and the best football players. And my girlfriend lives there.
10. It must be good great being Above & Beyond. International jet-setters, playing to adoring fans every week… and of course getting paid for the privilege. But, and it’s a big but, is there anyone else you wish you could be, even if it was just for a day?
It is good great! If I could do anything else I’d like to be the professor of Complexity Science at Yale University. Or maybe be Brad Pitt for a day. Before he met Angelina, of course.
11. On your travels have you seen any evidence of the global credit crisis having any effect on clubland and dance music?
Definitely. Some sponsors are getting cold feet and so some of our shows have been affected. Luckily we are on an upward trajectory so the effect is not as bad as it must be for the fringe players.
12. If the credit crunch isn’t scary enough, I’d like to know what your scariest ever moments have been when DJ’ing, or failing that, the weirdest?
The scariest moment for me was before going on stage for our first ever gig: it was in Japan in front of 8,000 people and I’d only ever mixed in my bedroom before. I could hardly breathe.
I was, as my old chum BC might have said, beyond scared. I had no experience to draw on, only some NLP training I’d hastily taken the week before, a sliver of self belief, alcohol fuelled bravado and the knowledge that Jono and Paavo were with me and had DJ’d once before in the student union in Harrow. So they were experienced old pros who could hold my hand if disaster struck. Which it did, of course, on the very first mix.
Luckily for me, Japanese people are so polite that not one of the 1,600 eyebrows present was raised, as we went live to the 4.15 from Newmarket. But it was OK in the end. I had a fiver on Monkey’s Bum and he won by a nose at 12:1.
13. So what can the Slinky clubbers expect from you at the Opera House on our 12th Birthday?
Fireworks! Nudity! Death defying stunts. You know, the usual. But can I make a request? A couple of years ago we played at the Opera House and on stage next to us there was this seven foot high half-man, half-inflatable, white dancing figure with a baseball cap on and an inane grin drawn on his face.
I’m not sure why, but it struck me at the time that it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen in my life. Paavo will tell you, I was laughing so hard I nearly wee-wee’d myself. He’s a fucking star that blow up man!
Who is he?????? He smiles, he dances, he smiles, he wobbles in an adorable, inflatable way. He’s like the Pilsbury Dough Boy on a pill. Fucking genius. If he’s not there I’m not going on. I’m serious.
14. Thanks for the interview, we’re looking forward to having you at Slinky so without further ado I will you have the last word:
Don’t forget our new CD “ANJUNADEEP:01 which is out now and available at all good record shops. Which, apart from the very lovely http://www.CDJShop.com (your first stop for downloads, CDs and T shirts), is basically just HMV now, isn’t it?
Jesus. Our Price – gone. Virgin – gone. Woolworths – gone. Zavvi – gone. Good old HMV, hanging in there. I bet the others wish they’d had a small yappy-type dog on the team to ward off the bailiffs now. Even if he had been cruelly genetically modified over the years to have an unnatural affinity for old gramophones.
Good old HMV dog, whatever your name was. No good pissing on lampposts now, mate, there isn’t going to be no Zavvi lady dog coming down the road any time soon. Been made into cat food, she has.
Find out more about Above & Beyond on their website on http://www.aboveandbeyond.nu.
!
! And I will see you guys on May 1st!!
