Dossa & Locuzzed have stepped up with the infectious ‘Only Way’, while taking a crafty diversion with the ‘Electric Boogie’… the funk-infused path of the latter causing us to ask some more, resulting in a killer random selection from the Austrian duo.
Hi Dossa & Locuzzed, we’ve just been informed you’ve signed with Viper? How did this come about… do you go back?
We’re really happy about this opportunity – especially since Viper has been our favorite label since we got into D&B.
We sent them our second track we finished together, ‘Hollow’, which already got released on the Summer Slammers 2015 album.
After that we kept on sending music to Brendan Futurebound, and he has been giving us great advice to push our productions to the next level.
After sending the latest bunch of tracks, they brought an exclusive deal to the table.
For people new to you: you’re from Austria? It’s a country with masses of D&B people and the scene’s very strong and diverse.
Yeah, Drum & Bass is definitely very strong in Austria. We got parties across the whole country and there’s international DJs playing here each and every weekend. Besides that, more and more people want to get involved in the scene, which causes more people to listen to it as well – kind of a cycle. It’s a great place to be – not only for the music.
Where is your base, where you produce?
We’re both from St. Pölten, a sleepy town in Lower Austria, where we built up a small studio. But the creative process takes place in our flats on a really basic setup individually, to keep the full creative freedom. So we keep sending us ideas all the time and exchange projects and sounds.
Once a track is ready for the next stage we go to studio and enhance it with our gear, a Moog and a Juno… and do a proper mixdown.
What was the first D&B that ever caught you?
Locuzzed: I first got into DNB when a friend showed me a track of Pendulum’s album Hold Your Colour. I’m pretty sure it was ‘Tarantula’. Back then I was really into the hard-rock stuff. At first I didn’t want to admit, but I was completely blown away by the energy of that music. I got the album next day and was amazed how diverse this genre was. The following months I spent on listening to rips of live sets and finding new tunes.
Dossa: Well, beside hundreds of heavy metal tracks, I had a few breakbeat tracks on my iPod back then when I was like 13. Once I showed it to an older friend telling him, “listen to this wicked genre – it’s called Drum & Bass!”
He immediately told me that this wasn’t Drum & Bass at all and showed me Pendulum’s ‘Tarantula’ – I instantly fell in love with the genre and spent hours to get more of this exciting music.
Take us into your first single on Viper ‘Only Way’ with Tasha Baxter… I feel this works well live?
Actually it started as an instrumental track, and when we first played it out the MC went totally nuts on stage. We sent it to Tasha and she immediately came up with an idea and sent us back a version with vocals. So we did a little tweaking on the tune to make it vocal-compatible, and so the track was born. It’s really an honour to have her on board when you think about who she has already worked with.
Take us into the flip ‘Electric Boogie’: what inspired… sounds like another live killer.
Basically, Dossa just wanted to do a tune with a cowbell on every hit like there is often in funk music, which is our main inspiration. It didn’t last long until this crazy funky lead-synth that starts at the build-up came up, and then Locuzzed added this jump-up-esque synth sounds on it.
When we had the first studio session we couldn’t stop smiling, thinking about dropping it the next weekend.
Then, it was the first track from ourselves we just HAD to rewind live.
So what is a random pick from you, a tune that inspires you?
As mentioned, Funk is our main-inspiration, but we almost got hung up at this question as we both are listening to so many different kinds of music that all inspire us – from Funk over Hip-hop, Rock to Experimental and of course electronic stuff – so that’s a really hard pick.
But the tune we agreed on was James Brown ‘Super Bad’. This man is a legend, and the impact he had on Soul music really inspires us a lot.
Any shouts Dossa & Locuzzed?
Shouts to all of our friends, family and supporters, we wouldn’t be where we are without you! Big up to DisasZt and the Mainframe Crew, and to Camo & Krooked for supporting our music since day one.
Then of course props to the whole Viper Crew – especially Brendan, Tim & Asad!
Buy ‘Only Way’ and ‘Electric Boogie’ here