Having both been veterans of Toronto’s music scene for many years, is there a discernible difference from your friends and fans that have been there since the beginning, and the new legions of fans you encounter in the city when you’re back after all your recent success?
Jonny White: Yeah there’s a difference, {laughs} the shows are fucking rammed now! And not so much before, (laughs). But it’s nice to come home to Toronto, it’s nice to be able to just slap your name on a flyer and boom, there you go, full club. There were nights when it was just us and 20 friends, trying to push a sound that people couldn’t comprehend in North America... you saw… you were there man.
Kenny Glasgow: {laughs} Yeah that is awesome! Our fans, or shall I say, the people who love and respect what we do, have been quite kind these days and we’re both very thankful, but what is also nice is coming home to friends who have supported us from day one and are coming out to both see what all the hype is about and to see how we are doing. They still continue to ask “are you eating properly? Getting enough sleep? Hope you’re not partying every night?” because they genuinely care.
Jonny you once said to me, “people need to start making more music and less beats” the quote kinda stuck in my head, and I think I know what you meant when you said it, but care to clarify for our readers?
Jonny White: I mean at that time, I’m guessing that was 3 or 4 years ago now, and at that time it seemed like people were making beats and not music,
but that
has changed a lot over the last 3 years, and hopefully we’ve had something to do with that. But at that time, I meant just what I said, you know. There were a lot of people just making fuckin’ drum tracks, and pretty much any idiot can do that. And I’m not knocking people that make drum tracks, I’ve done it, I enjoy them and a great standout drum track takes as much talent as anything else. But when a lot of people are banking and making careers out of a few loops, no soul or musicality, and we’re over here trying to write songs, it can be… it can be frustrating to say the least.
As artists, how do you see the current ‘edm explosion’ that people are talking about in relation to your own niche in the underground? Will the fans hopping on the ‘edm’ bandwagon so to speak, be able to find their way to more underground music?
Jonny White: Yeah I don’t know. I don’t look at it the same way as say, hip hop exploding. Hip Hop explodes with guys like Diddy and people end up finding the Mobb Deep’s and the Nas’ and the Common’s, because lines are more easily drawn between underground hip hop and mainstream hip hop, the music is more similar. Whereas in this case, the electronic music we’re talking about - Skrillex vs Art Department, it’s hard to draw a line between the two. So really, somebody that likes Skrillex isn’t necessarily going to find Art Department and like what we do. The reason it IS going to work though is due to the promoters who are doing these massive fucking festivals with the Deadmau5’s and the Skrillex’s, are ALSO booking people like us. And they don’t need to do that, but it’s because of the promoters taking an interest in the underground, and giving us stages, that aren’t necessarily going to bring 100,000 people to a festival that the music is being given this chance in North America. It’s of course also due to demand for it but these promoters could play it safe and stick with what sells... well, what sells more anyway…for now.
What, musically is in the hopper, who are you working with currently?
Jonny White: Currently we’re about to start writing our second album. So we’ll be taking off the first 3 months of the new year, after our December tour, and of course the BPM festival. We’ve been thinking about coming home to Toronto to write as well (the boys currently live in Barcelona and London). It might be cool to be here (Toronto) where we wrote the first album, something’s tugging at me saying it’s going to make for the right kind of vibe, and the shitty February weather will no doubt keep us locked in the studio here too. It’ll also be nice to be surrounded by old friends, who of course I plan to force into moving to Barcelona so that I’ve got that same vibe over there.
Kenny, you won’t know this, but back in the day… when we turned 16, being from Hamilton, we used to wait around until 1:30 am on the weekends then drive down to [legendary Toronto nightclub] Industry to be there at 2:30am, because that’s when they would let us in, after drinking hours! You’ll personally be re-visiting these days at Moskito here in Toronto for an Industry nightclub reunion spinning with (Industry co-founder) Mario J, on boxing day, back to where it all started. Excited about it? Got a memory or two of your own?
Kenny Glasgow: Wow that’s pretty dope, I did not know that! I’m excited for a few reasons, this summer in Ibiza Mario and I after years and more years of no communication, reconnected. Because of this positive reconnection we have decided to work together on a few projects in the New Year, obviously nothing I can talk about at this moment but something to look out for when it drops. I’m also excited about the Industry Boxing Day party. Boxing Day has always been a big day for parties organized by the owners of Industry. This year I expect no different, it’s gonna also be interesting to see after all these years if the musical chemistry still exists with Mario and I, I’m pretty sure it does and am not worried at all but very very curious {laughs}.
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www.djmag.ca
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