What’s the scene in Canada like?
(Greg) It’s getting better, I think. Especially production-wise there’s a lot of really good artists in Canada.
Like Shiloh...
(Greg) Micah, Luke Fair, Max Graham. That way it’s great. You’ve also got some really good clubs in Montreal or Toronto...
(Marco) I think with a lot of places people will always tell you that 3 or 4 years ago it was really hot in Canada. Everyone was going out and it was amazing. We come from a smaller city. We don’t come from Toronto.
You come from London (Ontario – editor’s note).
(Marco) Yeah (laughs). Anyway - whenever you’re going to Montreal or Toronto it’s always thriving. Everyone is out to these events and it’s doing so well and I think there’s a resurgence in the music especially now with the progressive and the melodies coming back.
The melodies... don’t you have a feeling the scene is going to another dead end the way it did with deep and dark progressive? I mean – there’s so many dull productions coming out.
(Greg) Yes that’s true but there’s also a lot of guys doing the opposite trying to push the sound forward.
(Marco) I think just like with anything you get an oversaturation of something. If you got that in mind as a producer you don’t want your music to sound like everything else and you try pushing the limits. That’s what we are trying to do. We do hear a lot of stuff that sounds the same now and we push that aside but there’s still a handful, well not a handful, there’s tons of awesome stuff we get turned on all the time.
What does your work in the studio look like? Who does what?
(Greg) Well it depends whether we’re doing an original track or a remix but usually I start off with some beats. Then I shoot it over to Marco and he does most of the melodies and that stuff.
(Marco) We hook up one day a week. Usually Thursday.
Thursday is the day when I usually get drunk.
(laugh)
It’s close enough to the weekend so you can start it up.
(Marco) (laughs) Yup! Other times we start jamming in the studio. On that point we got all the main parts mainly written and we chop them up and lay out the track. On 6 in the morning we have to stop because we both have to work the next day. Throughout the week we’ll keep on editing things, send it back and forth. We both got studios at homes. Sometimes we’re working at 2 or 3 tracks at once, ‘cause now things are picking up and we’re getting a lot of remix work coming in.
You mentioned your jobs. Marco – you have your Velocity Studio.
(Marco) That’s right.
And Greg?
(Greg) During the week I work for my dad. He has his own company.
And what do you do?
(Greg) He has something like a grocery store and I do some managing crap. Nothing really important.
So DJing does not make ends meet?
(Greg) No, not yet.
(Marco) We come from a smaller city where’s rarely any kind of events.
How small?
(Greg) What is it? Like 400 000?
(laughs) I come from a 15 000.
(Marco) Ok yeah. Big difference.
(Greg) Yeah, yeah.
(Marco) But I think here in Europe dance music is more accepted. We came in the hotel and you hear it. Usually in Canada and America anywhere you go there’s very common music like r’n’b, rock and roll. The progressive music and dance music in general is not accepted as it is here.
Hmm, interesting view... I need to know who’s responsible for the music in this hotel. Back to Velocity Studios. I checked out the site and it looks great and successful!
(Marco) I’ve been running that company for about 4 years now. Making music is something that we both started as a hobby, whereas Velocity is my main occupation. We do websites, 3D work, print work, digital imaging. The work I do – we do – I have a business partner I run the company with...
Erick
(Marco) Yeah, Erick! How do you know?
I did my research.
(laugh) (Marco) It’s cool that we’re kind of known around the world with the work that we’ve done.
Benson and Hedges, Saatchi and Saatchi, Shure. I was amazed looking at the list of your clients!
(Marco) We’ve been in all kinds of books. Our works have been featured in Japan, Sweden, Germany and Poland as well. I’ve always been in the art stuff and I was fortunate enough to have a creative business. Everyday it’s something new and it’s interesting. I’ve always been into the music so now I can use a computer for making it and it’s very similar. You’re layering sounds like you’re layering images. Working with colours, working with tones.
And how did you feel about August Hall who painted some images while listening to your music? (www.allenspiegelfinearts.com)
(Greg) They’re really cool!
(Marco) Yeah, yeah. We get a lot of people e-mailing us that they like our stuff but that one was very moving in a way.
With that said, you’re fans are going to get more clever. “A few tips how to make you fan mail work”
(laugh) (Marco) It’s kind of cool with what I’m able to do. I design the website, I put all the images together and all that. I just finished designing a new record cover we just got signed on Baroque. They’re putting an EP out with “Tainted” and “Spiagia”.
(Greg) And you did the Aurium website which will be up soon.
What are your musical roots?
(Greg) I’ve been listening to electronic music since I was 15, 16. Richie Hawtin, Plastikman, John Acquviva - they’re all Canadian artists so you could buy their stuff in a HMV in our town.
(Marco) And you got into hip-hop.
(Greg) Yeah I was really into hip hop for a while when I was in high school.
No guitars involved?
(Greg) No.
(Marco) Me is quite the opposite. I was in the heavy metal stage. I’ve played a guitar since I was 15. That’s where I got started. But not only did I play but I taught music as well. I was into Jazz, classical and a wide range of things until I started listening to Underworld, Orbital, Chemical Brothers and all that. I got so immersed in it because it’s a type of neverending music. The sonic possibilities are endless. And I’m not only into progressive. I listen to drum and bass, deep house, techno. We both love techno a lot.
And do you occasionally go back to the roots? I’m asking, ‘cause for the whole day I was listening to The Killers and Kasabian
(Marco) I like The Killers man!
Wicked! Anyway – there are times when I just have to hear a guitar.
(Marco) Yeah. Same here. I kind of play DJ when I’m at work so we listen to music all day and I go from progressive to rock like Muse or The Killers, Franz Ferdinand – all that kind of stuff.
Sometimes I’m just so full of beat.
(Marco) (laughs) Yeah!
Greg, how did it happen you were asked by John Digweed to do the Kiss mix?
(Greg) We sent him some tracks and he called me on my cell phone. It’s a funny story actually. I was in the shower when he called and my friend answered the phone. He saw some crazy long distance number and he answered it. He goes like “Hello” and hears “Hi, it’s John Digweed” so he ran, bust the door down and hand me the phone.
(laughs) You were actually talking to John Digweed butt-naked?!
(Greg) (Laughs) Yeah. I said like “John, this is a bad time. Can I call you back?”. It was so stupid! He gave me his phone number and I called him back. He really liked what we were doing and he wanted to sign a few tunes like “Dilation”. But it ended up getting picked up by someone else.
Why didn’t he sign it?
(Greg) In Bedrock they really liked the track “Wonder” (which came out on Hope) and they wanted a b-side for it. So we wrote another track but they didn’t like it so they just passed on.
(Marco) The funny thing is Silver Planet picked that up.
Which one was it?
(Marco) “Still Rain”. So they were split up but both ended up really successful. We had good reviews.
Leon told me something about a Klatka remix.
(Greg) We just finished a remix before we were coming here for a label called Basswalk in Miami. I think that Luke Fair and Angel Morales also did remixes. The original was really electroey, analogy type of thing - kinda eighties. So we just took the bassline and I messed with it a little bit. We basically did it very quickly. It just flew out.
(Marco) He had the drums like “check it out”, I started jamming out on the synths and next thing we had the parts done.
(Greg) Actually I laid it out because I was going to see Holden. My friend was opening for him and I wanted him to test it out and it ended up really good. We called it Benz and MD Klatka remix, ‘cause the first time I’m gonna play is gonna be tonight.
OK, enough of the pleasant things. Your October chart is opened by Blue Haze – “Into Nothing”. Don’t you feel like Mick Burns’ vocal is the worst thing that could ever happen to the Bill Hamel’s remix?
The end of part 1
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