1. Joe And Will Ask? are Joe Ashworth and William Green. Which musical roots do the two of you bring together?
I started producing when I bought ‘Music’ for the playstation 1 10 years ago, and tried to copy my favourite Leftfield and Prodigy songs as well as I could. As I grew up, I became obsessed with the deeper sub-genres of ‘Drum and Bass’ music, I liked the lack of boundaries and the community-like feel of the underground genre - everyone was friends in the record shop and played at each other’s nights. I was put off away as the mainstream nights began to play music that I literally hated, and the underground music that I liked got snobby and bitter - it just all got less exciting. Will and I met through a friend. When I was listening to drum and bass, Will was listening to Hard House and Trance, I wouldn’t say our music now is a fuse of the two, but I do think that there are elements from both our youths present in our music.
2. What’s most important for you about your sound? Which elements do you like/dislike the most these days?
We are happy to admit that we are still finding our sound. Our music started off quite sporadic, and is gradually boiling down to something that we are entirely comfortable with. Our recent productions, remixes and DJ sets have started getting close to something we are happy with. We strive for high energy but clean production which is nice on the ears, and we like to keep strong elements of melody and musicality. It is easy to make a dance floor crazy by using sidechained distortion, but the dance floor leave at 2am to see the ear doctor - we aim for songs with a balance of energy, bass and melody.
In terms of other music, neither of us were into the majority of the fidget/jackin’ movement this year, but we both love the sound of techno and house music at the moment - 2008 has been such a great year for dance music, we have been inspired by the sounds that have been developed by producers such as Style of Eye, Paul Ritch, Popof, Danton Eeprom, Joakim and Brodinski.
3. With “Claymore / Take Me Away” a release with Kitsuné is within sight! That’s a huge step we were all only waiting for ever since you played here in Berlin about a year ago. How does it feel and how did things come about?
Yes it’s coming out on January 26th! It’s great to have a release on Kitsune, we are so happy - it’s a label we have followed since it started, and will expose us to a lot of people who might like our music but wouldn’t have run into it before. I’m not sure how it came about actually, we did a remix for La Roux’s new single which just came out on Kitsune and so is a remix we did for the next Acid Girls single.
4. How can you describe the electronic music scene in London these days?
For us, London is a great city for living in, but our music taste and gigs have become much less London-centric. Most of our favourite producers and DJs are from Germany, Sweden, Italy and America. We began DJing around a part of east London called Shoreditch, which had a really nice scene, where nights had more freedom in terms of music, fashion, sexuality etc, but it all got a bit touristy and bitchy. Durrr and Trailer Trash our two of our favourite regular nights, and there are some good one-off parties, and of course the usual super-clubs are good for a big night out, but honestly it seems like next year something new needs to emerge.
5. Have you got any gigs on the continent planned for 2009 (Berlin by any chance)??
There is a lot that we are not allowed to announce yet. Next summer is starting to fill up with festivals, and we are playing in the Elysee Montmartre in Paris soon which will be great. I don’t know of any dates in Berlin, but we would love to return
