Fourward are an Austrian fourpiece breaking through after support from the likes of Ed Rush & Optical, Trace and Noisia… but hold on, rewind: did someone say ‘Breaking’?
I see a Breaking Bad shirt on one of your press shots. Top right. That leads to my first question: what do you follow Breaking Bad with, viewing-wise, now it’s finished?
There’s loads of interesting shows out there at the moment, like Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Boardwalk Empire, a long list to be honest.
That’s not answering the question…
Haven’t found anything that’s on the same level as Breaking Bad though.
OK. Breaking Bad leads to ‘Bad’: in D&B that can only mean BAD Company. & there’s not too many four piece D&B acts such as you. Did you want to achieve a similar four-strong assault as Bad Co?
No not at all, actually. In the beginning of Fourward there was no plan at all behind all of it. We where just four friends making some beats after a day at the skatepark.
We had no idea where it would take us, we didn’t even think someone would ever sign our tunes, we only loved D&B.
And here you are: how does it feel to be part of the Shogun gang?
Oh it feels great, we all were proper fans of the label for the last couple of years, so many modern day classics have been released on Shogun.
We couldn’t think of a better home to release our tunes on.
Tell us about your inclusion on the mighty Way of the Warrior 2 album, ‘On a Knife Edge’?
When Friction asked us to make a tune for the album we were super excited, but we only had a week or so to nail it. ‘On a Knife Edge’ was completely last minute. We banged this one out in about five or six sessions from start to finish.
Think we even stretched the deadline for a few days, sorry guys!
httpv://youtu.be/A0uz-xe5NTE
And the album as a whole?
The great thing about the Way of the Warrior 2 album is that each track is great in its own way. You got the tear out dancefloor tunes, you got some rollers and you got some very deep stuff as well.
Rockwell’s track is absolutely smashing it in the clubs, DLR’s ‘Sleep Talk’ is very very good, as are all of the others. Can’t pick one fave here.
Fourward means four individuals, so what are your respective strengths and talents?
Hard thing to talk about your own strengths really, but Lukas is definitely the tech wizard of the gang. Whereas I (Ludwig) am very good at making coffee and so on!
And live?
We hardly play b2b sets these days really; most of the time you’ll see one DJ at a time. Everyone in the group has his faves and plays whatever he feels like
I feel like D&B is on fire in your part of the world, so much going off. Double Helix, C&K, Dossa, Body & Soul…
Yeah man, Austria always had a strong D&B scene, loads of good producers, loads of good events, quite a big scene over here. Hopefully even more talented guys will break through in the years to come!
The UK will definitely get to see us live next year, that is for sure, long overdue!
What are your plans for 2014, going Fourward (sorry)
At the moment we’re working hard on our first solo release for Shogun of course. After an extremely busy year and a half – I think we released almost 20 tracks in that time – we wanted to take our time to come up with new ideas, new ways of sounddesign and we really want our next releases to be the best tunes we ever made.
Was there something unique about your production you’d share?
We don’t really ‘test’ our own tunes much in the club before finishing them. Don’t think we need that to judge the sound of a tune. Is that weird?