NEWS
EVENTS
We spoke to Disciples about their adventures from Iceland to Ibiza and beyond
House | Tuesday 7th October 2014 |
One of the most versatile young electronic 3-pieces out there, Disciples have virtually exploded onto the scene after "They Don't Know" became Pete Tong's Essential New Tune. They've been signed to his label, FFRR, and have being going from strength to strength playing attention-grabbing sets all summer from Iceland to Ibiza. They're no one-track wonder, however - their Soundcloud back catalogue is a veritable treasure-trove of catchy, well-produced, retro twist tracks which we'll soon be hearing on dancefloors across the country. Comprised of South London friends Gavin, Duvall and Luke, Disciples met up with us in the gleaming offices of Warner Music to chat to us about superyachts, helipads, going for a wee in a set, and those doughy bits of heaven you find in Haagen-Daaz.
Hey guys, so thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Do you have a lot of interviews at the moment with your new track coming out and everything?
Gavin: Yeah we have a lot at the moment… but yeah its good! A lot of late nights and early mornings but its good, we love it.
Ok great, well as long as you’re enjoying yourselves! Ok so for people who don’t know you, how would you go about describing your sound?
Gavin: Its definitely like dance and house influenced, but with 3 minds involved there’s really a whole mix of influences. It really is a whole mix of sounds, so it can be different every time.
Luke: You can’t really bracket us in deep house, or house alone really because we all make such different sounds… we all come from different backgrounds with producing and songwriting so when we all get in we all make sure we put our own slants on things. And we’ll come up with a sound like They Don’t Know or Catwalk or Poison Arrow, so different things come out the hat really.
Yeah because I was gonna ask you how the dynamic is like with you working as a three, coz you know they do say three’s a crowd… does any one person ever take over with certain elements or songs?
Duvall: Yeah 3 is definitely a crowd, I’d rather work on my own!
Luke: We wrestle a lot in the studio…
Duvall: I think that’s how we get a lot of the best music actually, through the fights!
And that’s your secret??
Duvall: Yeah well I think we all have different strengths, I think that’s why it works. Gavin’s really good at percussion and bass and overall mixing, and Luke is really good at arrangement, writing the lyrics and the melody. I’m cool with the musicality; the sonics of a song, writing it and singing so… where one lacks, the others will pick it up which is why it works. But there are many times where there have been many arguments! But then a beautiful song comes out of it, or a beautiful beat comes out of it, so we don’t question the method!
Did you all grow up together? How did you meet?
Gavin: Yep we’re all from South London/Surrey, me and Duvall met at sixth form college and we were both on the same music technology course, that was a little while ago now… well not that long ago!
Duvall: hahaha, long enough!
Gavin: And we started producing together since then, we’d do our own individual projects and every so often we’d come together. And then we were working with Luke as an artist, so all three of us working in the studio together was when Disciples was formed.
Ok, so where did you get the name Disciples from? I think its quite a good name! Seems quite biblical, like followers… are you hoping you’ll get lots of followers?
Duvall: Yes! There you go… Disciples for us is like an inside joke that not many people really get…
Are you gonna try and explain the inside joke?
Duvall: Nope haha! It’s something that means a lot to us all personally, the three of us all mutually decided on it together… we actually never had to sit down and say let’s call ourselves Disciples, because we we were already just calling ourselves that. Literally it was such a natural thing… and the meaning is important to us as well, like you said, followers, we wanna create this whole kind of cult feeling of people following our music and us even following them… its the whole livelihood of music, I don’t think it should be oh he’s up there or she’s down there, it needs to be like a whole group and I think the name Disciples kind of fits that for us. Coz we follow good music and I think people follow us…
So although from London, when I listen to your music I can feel New York sort of retro vibes, especially Catwalk, so you know, where does that come from? Would you say the London scene does have an influence on you despite these overseas influences?
Luke: I think we’re influenced a lot by New York and Detroit sounds, you know that’s where house originated from, so all the legends in the early 90s…
Duvall: Yeah Chicago house… that’s always gonna be embedded I think, in house music, even with the new generation not understanding that but being able to do it, its subliminal… so I think that’s within us naturally. But the beauty of the UK sound is that its forever changing, and forever growing into something without a name… and I think that’s what’s beautiful about the UK and London especially, we’re very forward thinking… so mixing the two together, that’s what you’re hearing from us in our music, its a fusion of things, so its been quite difficult to put us in a box, but at the same time you can hear the influences in there, we’re not too out there…
Luke: And with the Catwalk style as well, what a lot of people don’t know about us is we did everything on that track, that’s us as well on the vocals!
Really! That’s amazing (the voice in Catwalk has a strong, deep american accent) Even with They Don’t Know as well.. So when you say about the New York Detroit style, that is my vocal, so its really embedded in our soul when it comes to music.
So how are you feeling about the reception for They Don’t Know at the moment… obviously Pete Tong’s a big fan, it was his Essential New Tune and now you’re on FFRR as well, is that exciting?
Gavin: It is yes. It’s more exciting now that we’ve met him. We met him a couple of months back….
Duvall: It was so funny, when we met him, we thought he didn’t like us *all laugh*
We were DJing and he was quite shy… so he came up to us and was like “hi how you doing” and then just walked off! We thought oh god…
Luke: We were like, we’ve been signed to him for 6 months now and it’s just hi?
But after getting into our set he really warmed up to us, like he knows our music, he’s listened to the whole of it and he’s been really enthusiastic in terms of supporting us, not just the radio but off the record as well, things that people don’t hear coz its just between him and the label… he champions us around the world, so we really appreciate and respect that.
Yeah he’s a really good person to have on your side!
Yeah definitely. He’s a really cool guy.
That’s awesome. So where were you DJing when you met him? I saw you’ve been playing Egg a few times recently…
Gavin: Yeah we did Egg a few weeks ago, with Markus Schulz,
But when we met him, we were on a boat, in Ibiza.
Oh standard!
Duvall: Not just any boat though! There was a Warner boat party… it was just a little bit bigger than a dinghy! It had a jacuzzi in the middle of the helicopter pad, which was kind of random… So we were DJing on the helipad…
As you do!
Duvall: The venue was just full of radio 1 DJs and guests, like Jess Glynne was there, she did an impromptu performance which was absolutely sick and then she got into the jacuzzi… dived in fully clothed and dived out again… Nick Grimshaw was there, twerking… MK was there, Eats Everything, a lot of our peers, like people we look up to. And they were really enthusiastic when we djing and thats the first time we met Pete Tong… he was DJing after us. He got on the decks and we were like yeah, that’s why you’re sick, coz he had everyone dancing and going crazy. It was a crazy time coz it was us, Pete Tong DJing, Amine Edge & Dance were DJing as well, and afterwards we all went on a night out together to Pacha with Pete and the rest of the guys…. it was a great experience.
Yeah that does sound incredible… you know superyacht, jacuzzi, helipad, Pacha, with Pete Tong...
Duvall: But then we couldn’t get into the VIP part of Pacha because we were wearing shorts! Pete was trying for ages but they were saying that even David Guetta himself couldn’t wear shorts and he was DJing that night. But unbeknown to us at the time was David Guetta’s manager, Caroline came out, and said these guys are with David, these guys are with me, they can come in and the bouncer was like nope. No-one can come in - if you’re wearing shorts, no-one can come in!
Wow that is strict!
Duvall: But its cool coz you know what we like being down there with the speaker in your face and nearly blowing your hearing - thats our thing! We love that so…
Quite a funny story though, even with David Guetta and Pete Tong in Pacha you still can’t get into VIP… that’s got to be the strictest code ever…Obviously that must’ve been a really incredible experience but have you got any standout gigs over this past summer?
Duvall:The two in the past would be Iceland… we’d never been to Iceland and it was the secret solstice festival where its 72 hours of sunshine, its like 2am and it felt like it was 11am. That experience was amazing coz we were in that place where the volcanos power those warm baths you can go in… so Gavin and I thought it was a good idea at 8am in the morning, 2 hours before our flight home to take a dip.
Did you have to get your flight all cold and wet??
Duvall: Well luckily the coach waited for us! But that was cool. But I think the biggest show we’ve done so far was the Prague show, that was crazy, that was one of the best shows that we’ve all done together, it was a massive experience for us all really. Seeing the crowd go from about 150 people to like 2000 in the space of an hour and a half... it was absolutely mental.
So people just flooded in?
Duvall: Yeah it was an EDM festival but we started off playing deep house but then we started going into some real old school progressive, EDM, like Porter Robinson, old Steve Angello stuff, the original don, and they lapped it up - it was fantastic. I think we showed them our knowledge of music in general. And I think thats why it was important for us on a musical standpoint as well as a crowd standpoint because that was our biggest crowd. Plus not many of them knew who we were so…
Luke: And one more before we close that question would be Sankeys, when we did the 5 hour set in Ibiza… yeah it was crazy. It was the opening this year for Sankeys, it was us, Duke Dumont, Amine Edge, Steve Lawler, Finnebassen… it was supposed to be an hour and fifteen minute set and it turned into 5 hours…. they just did not allow us to get off!
Gavin: The owner of Sankeys just came up and he tapped me on the shoulder whilst I was DJing and he was just like can you carry on playing?
Luke: We couldn’t hear what he was saying so he was gesturing and I was like what does that mean?? Do you want us to come off? 5 minutes?? It actually meant 5 more hours! I took my earplug out like sorry??
But yeah that was the best feeling ever coming off… and that stamped us really, every interview we’ve done, everyone’s talked about the Sankeys date coz they knew the set was intense and there were some real headliners on that event so we were pleased to be on that, so thanks to Sankeys man, big up!
Ok so I have to ask, how do you handle playing marathon sets like 5 hours? How do you go to the toilet? Do you have snacks??
Gavin: Yeah you’d think that you’d maybe wanna go to the toilet but I think you just get so lost in it and caught in the moment that you don’t really know that you need to go for a wee.
Luke: You just hold it!
So for 5 hours you just held it?
Duvall: Its alright though, because for Gav he’s the main DJ so he can’t wait to take people on a journey musically, coz his musical knowledge is just insane.
Gavin:Thanks!
Duvall: So you’re talking dropping tracks that came out in the 90s, that really still sound amazing today, all the way to music that came out last week… and being allowed to do that for 5 hours, you’re in your element! Plenty of time for weeing, do that another day!
Gavin: I think I did go for a massive wee at the end, I think that’s probably what happened!
I do not blame you! Do you have any strange stories, like what’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you whilst you’ve been DJing? Obviously clubs can be quite funny places…
Gavin:Do you remember that time that girl threw her bra at us?.... Nahh I’m joking!
Luke: That happens to MK a lot apparently
Duvall: We’re still waiting for that story with Disciples… But one time when I was performing on my own before Disciples, I had one of those CO2 cans, like the guns? It was my first time using one of those. So I was in St Tropez DJing and I’m on stage, and just before I get off I pick up this gun and I decided to spray it, I’m standing on top of the speaker.. and it’s got such a kick back!
Did you fall off the speaker?
Duvall: Yep I fell completely off the speaker and off the stage - so all you see is this guy going *pow* completely falling back…. and I think that’s the most embarrassing or funny thing that’s happened!
That is actually quite funny, was anyone filming it?
Duvall: Yes but I’m not gonna tell you where to find it!!
Ok so finishing up now, what’s in the works for you at the moment in terms of future plans? Future gigs, future material you know, what’s coming up?
Luke: We’re around for the last quarter of the year -literally just gonna be based in London and around the UK. So we’ve got a few shows in Egg, one in Qube, which was Pacha before... and we’re in Bournemouth after that with Eats Everything… yeah we’ve got a lot of shows coming up, they’re all on the website as well and our twitter and facebook. Music wise, They Don’t Know is the only thing you need to know about right now, its just been released exclusively on Beatport. We’re just focusing on the reaction of They Don’t Know and where to go from there. We’ve got tunes in the pipeline but we want to see how They Don’t Know is recieved really, because we want to see if people want a club tune next or an out and out single.
Yeah we’re very fan-led, there’s no point us making another club track if people are asking can these boys make music now? And if you want to hear that, yes we can! We’ve got that in the pipeline. But if you want to hear another club banger then we got that too. We’re really into what people want, because the fans are the most important thing right now. Its not about wanting to get success really quick, its about getting that solid fan base, the cult, the Disciples!
Right final question - the classic Guestlist question - if you were an ice cream, what flavour would you be and why? And think about it carefully because you might have to dissociate what you like with what you are.
Gavin: Ok that’s interesting…
Luke: You know sometimes you can get two? I always scoop two so… banana and strawberry.
Gavin: And why would you be banana and strawberry?
Luke: I dunno! Because I’m mixed race?? I think everything needs to have a little mix in it to be honest.
Any toppings on that?
Luke: Yeah sprinkles… and a flake as well! When I was a kid I always used to hustle the flake coz I never had enough money for it!
And look at you now!
Luke: Yep, Mr Flake himself!
Duvall: That’s good! How do I follow that? I think I’m Haagen-Daaz Strawberry Cheesecake.
All: oooooo!
Why strawberry cheesecake, why not just strawberry?
Duvall: It’s a nice flavour, tastes good, but then there’s moments of heaven when you just get that little doughey part.
Others: oooo, you creep!! *laughing*
Duvall: But you know when you’re scooping it out and you’re waiting for those bits to come?
Yep I get that, with Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough.
Duvall: Yeah that’s it! You just wait for those moments don’t you! And that’s me!
Gavin: What can I do to follow this?? really and truly, what can I say... I’m gonna go with cookies & cream.
Good choice.
And the reason behind that is because I like cookies, and I’m creamy.
Others: ooooo!! *explodes into laughter, faces of disgust all round*
Duval: that’s disgusting!!
Gavin: It is what it is. I like cookies, and I’m creamy.
Don’t worry guys, we always get weird answers to that question.
https://www.facebook.com/DisciplesLDN?fref=ts
https://soundcloud.com/disciplesldn
https://twitter.com/DisciplesLDN
