NVOY chats to Dubzy about The Warehouse Project, touring with Gorgon City and their Future Plans
For people who know your name, but don’t know too much about you, could you give us a bit of background info?
We met together when we were at Uni actually and our Uni was this funny little place in Oxford, so it was quite small. So they didn’t have halls or anything and you kind of got put into houses with people. So we ended up in a house together and one thing lead to another and now we’re making music.
Were you making music separately beforehand?
Yeah, so I used to be in bands and playing guitar and stuff like that. I was in like a really heavy tech metal band for a while, which was quite funny.
I used to produce like really bad minimal Dubstep and kinda like DJ at one of my favourite clubs called Stealth in Nottingham, which is where I’m from. We both came from pretty like different things, but we started producing music together. I’ve been doing bits of production as well, kinda different stuff, then when we started producing, it was a lot of house music we were listening too, so we started out playing a lot of house shows, definitely getting involved in that sort of scene.
How would you describe your style from when you first started out, to your progression over the years? Obviously you make house music, but that’s such a varied term these days.
That’s a very, very good question, because at the moment, it’s been changing a lot. I think the music industry and music culture and tastes, especially in the UK, has been shifting a lot over the past year or two, so it’s a really exciting time for us. I mean, house music was really good fun and it still is, but it’s very much kind of diversified out into like Techno, Tech House, Tropical House. We love house music and a lot of our music is always informed by that kind of club sensibility and stuff and most of the music which we get really excited about these days, is a lot of Trap, a lot of Hip-Hop and a lot of future beats stuff like Flume and Hudson Mohake and Lido and Cashmere Cat and all these like really interesting producers, that are pushing the boundaries of music. So we get really excited by all those kind of sounds and we started working a lot of different tempos, doing a lot more swanky kind of like 140 stuff.
And then we try and kind of, obviously naturally because we started out with the whole kind of house thing, it always fits back into that template and kind of back into that base. So yeah, we’ve kind of been trying to ease this thing together I suppose and yeah, but just keeping it really dancey and pretty clubby still.
We’ve just finished up a five track ep, which is everything from kinda House 120 BPM sorta stuff, to erm, there’s a lot of stuff at 130 and 140 half time, like real steppy, kind of like Future.
When’s that EP dropping, can we catch it anytime soon?
The first single called Further, you might hear it in clubs and we’ve just sent it out to a load of our DJ mates. That’s gonna be up in the next few weeks and there’s another track called Make Your Mind, which is gonna be up in about a months’ time. After that the whole EP will be coming out, two or three months down the line, the full thing will be up and around. We’re just putting out a few tracks, it’s always really good fun just like sending tracks that we’ve finished off to all of our friends; just to DJ them out and see all the reactions and stuff. That’s a really fun stage of the process, so we’re just looking forward to enjoying that over the next month really.
How have you found summer this year?
Yeah, its been really good. We’ve done a lot of festivals which we didn’t really do last year, so it we good. We did like SW4, we did WildLife, Eastern Electrics and then we did a little residency in Amnesia, which was really, really cool. We played Together, with Gorgon City, which was really, really good, an amazing room to play. We had a lot of fun and made some music and yeah it was a good summer.
Was it your first time playing there this season?
We went out and did a load of shows with Sankeys last year, with Gorgon and Rudimental. But this year, that was our first time in Amnesia, which was amazing, that Terrace room is just so good. We took our mums out and they were up standing on the podium in the middle, going wild, they were loving it. They were just roaming around like “What is going on in here!” we were trying not to let them see us do anything naughty.
You mentioned playing with Gorgon City and you’ll be playing with them at Warehouse Project this season on the 13th of October, are you excited for the gig?
Yeah we’re really excited man, we played there last year and it was great, it’s such a cool space and it one of the ones we look forward to every year. After doing last year we’re kinda looking forward to getting another day in hopefully and it should be wicked, really looking forward to it.
We’re planning a pretty fun weekend for it, cause we’re doing Warehouse Project on the Thursday and then on the Saturday we’re playing at Chibuku in Liverpool and then we’re going to be throwing a party in some student halls in Leeds on the Friday, so we’re gonna make a little weekend out of it. So we’re gonna take a load of mates from London and live stream the party from Leeds in-between the shows. So we’re looking forward to that, it’s gonna be like a proper sort of crew thing, everyone getting together and stuff.
You mentioned that you were gonna live stream it as well?
Yeah, it’s something we’ve started doing a bit recently, cause we’ve got so many DJ mates, especially in London and to get everyone together somewhere, everyone can play their own music and we stream it on the internet. Cause there’s such an interest from all over the world, in our kind of scene and what we’re doing and what our friends are doing around the UK. You know, Bristol, Brighton, Manchester, Birmingham, wherever it is, there’s a real UK thing going on and is exciting for people to be able to kind of see that and see it all happening I suppose, it’s a good project.
Where are you doing the feed from, is it from your Facebook page?
Yeah, we’re gonna be doing it on Facebook and on YouTube, but Facebook’s kind of the main one. Maybe we’ll try and even live stream some of The Warehouse Project, if we can get our GoPro working in there, that’d be good fun actually, that’d be really good.
Let’s talk more about Warehouse Project, the line up for the night is amazing, is there anyone in particular that you want to see?
To be honest, like it’s a lot of our mates, so we’re kind of happy to just hang out with everyone. It’s a real crew thing, like we do so many shows with Gorgon and Warehouse Project’s probably up there to get us really excited about. We’ve played with Claptone at a Ministry of Sound once, which was great.
Have you ever seen Claptone without his mask?
No we haven’t actually. But we did see these mad like, he’s got these huge statues of his mask in Ibiza Airport this year. We were like “WHAT!” in the airport, that’s mad.
What do you think of the Manchester crowd when you play here, do they stand out as any different to anywhere else?
I’d say along with Leeds, it’s probably one of the better crowds in the UK, in terms of the people are just up for it.
Good energy yeah, really good energy.
London’s great because so many of our friends are here, but it’s just different. Like Manchester, I think probably Manchester, Leeds and Bristol’s cool as well, we haven’t played there much. But yeah, Manchester, people have a bit of a different attitude, like no one wears coats, you know what I mean, that says it all. Everyone goes out in a T-Shirt and a pair of Jeans and they’re just up for having it, like they’re not messing around, they’re just going and getting stuck in, which we like that attitude.
What’s in store for your set, any little surprises?
Recently we’ve been doing a few like NVOY edits of classic tunes, like classic 90’s trance tunes and stuff like that and just doing re-edits of them. So we’ve got a lot of little bits in the playlist, which are looking exciting.
Play out a few of our EP tracks which will always be good, we’ll get to see the reaction and stuff and few of our edits and a few of our friends tunes, which is always cool.
Let’s talk about your winter plans, what’s lined up for after the Warehouse?
Well we obviously got a couple of other shows that weekend and I think the rest of the year is pretty much hibernating in the studio. We’ve got a couple of weeks out just to kind of do music, a couple of shows here and there, but nothing major, just to be kind of writing all new stuff to come off the EP.
We’re doing one show in London on the 18th of November, in Koko, which I’m excited about. That’s with Elderbrook as well, who’s also on The Warehouse Project line up.
Would you say that’s when you make all your music, throughout the winter?
Generally yeah, I think more than the summer, because it’s cold and we just lock up in the studio and just pretty much write all winter and have more fun in the summer and have a lot more shows and stuff. So everything kind of quieten downs a little bit in the lead up to Christmas and then throughout January and then kinda starts to pick up like February, March time. Autumns a good time for making music, it feels good, for whatever reason that is.
Can you let everyone know where the best places are to keep in touch with you?
So, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever it is, whatever floats your boat, just search NVOY on google and you will find us. You’ll see our beautiful faces somewhere and just hit us up, because we’re gonna be around and about the UK, we’re throwing parties in a few different cities over the next few months, so we’re just gonna be doing some fun stuff, so if anyone wants to shoot us a message and hang out when we’re in town then, hit us up man.
