| DJRYAN™ |
THEY NEED TO COME BACK TO THE ATL!!! HERE'S THE INTERVIEW!!
or CLICK HERE: http://lamusicblog.com/2010/12/inte...2/#comment-3248
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down and Skype with Josh Gabriel and Dave Dresden of Gabriel & Dresden. Timing was a little tricky with Josh being in Amsterdam, but it worked out and these two really talented and down-to-earth electronica producers were able to give us a sneak peak at what we can expect at this year’s GIANT New Year’s party at the Hollywood Palladium! (Click link for ticket information!)
Having been a DJ duo since 1980, they parted ways in 2008 to branch out and pursue their personal music endeavors. Now reuniting for a giant show in Hollywood on December 31st, 2010, they give us a snapshot at what they’ve been up to in recent years and even a little insight on their creative processes!
**Cliff notes for the interview: DON’T MISS OUT ON GABRIEL & DRESDEN AT GIANT’S NEW YEARS EVE PARTY ‘cause they’ve been working on some exciting stuff and plan to showcase some new things mixed with a little of the classics **
New Years Eve must be really exciting for you guys. Palladium at 4,000 people isn’t massively huge, but it always gets super packed. I’m sure you guys will be able to tear down the house and get the crowd excited. Have you played the Palladium before?
Dave: We haven’t played the Palladium before, but I’ve seen the Queens of the Stone Age there. It was the only time that I’ve been there. This was probably in 2000-2001. It was when they were gaining popularity. I was dragged to the concert, but actually had a good time. (LAUGHS)
Awesome, I’ve always wanted to see them in concert.
Dave: They’re EXTREMELY talented musicians. Anyway, we’re excited for the Palladium gig. I think it’s the perfect size for what we want to do for a reunion show. Not too big and impersonal, but also big enough where the people that want to go can go. And we feel it will create a really good party.
Cool, so how did that go into the decision process? ‘Cause as you know, Insomniac has the large-scale event for New Years across town too. Did you guys consider other venues for your reunion show?
Josh: We looked at all opportunities and picked the one we felt was best for us.
So when you say best for you guys, playing a smaller show, what are you guys really looking to do for your fans and supporters?
Dave: I think the New Years show is pretty cut and dry for what we need to do, which is celebrate the music that we made and give a little hint for where it can go. A New Years crowd might already be a little of a novice crowd, and on top of that, it’s a reunion show. We haven’t played together in 3 years, so it just needs to be a bit more about us as musicians and producers and what people love us for.
Fantastic, so will fans be hearing some older Andain and Motorcycle stuff? I’d really love to hear some of that.
Josh: We’re definitely going to play some classics. We know if we didn’t play classics that people would get pissed off.
Dave: Yeah we’re not trying to be super artsy on New Years. It’s sort of like, present the hits in a really cool way and then maybe do some unique and different things to some of the familiar stuff, but not too much.
Can you give us a little preview of what we’re looking at?
Josh: Let’s just say there will definitely be some new remixes of old songs, there will definitely be new bootlegs and mashups of old songs, and there will definitely be new songs. All those things will happen.
So what do you guys think of the LA crowd?
Josh: We like LA. LA knows dance music, and so we like LA.
Dave: Absolutely, it’s just such a great party city, and it’s a place where we’ve always felt wanted. Even some of our first shows there, people were really into us. I don’t think I’ve had a bad G&D experience in LA.
Awesome, so aside from the New Years show, can you guys give a progress update on your solo projects?
Dave: Alright, well, the main thing I’ve been up to was another duo project with Michael Johnston formerly of Mephisto Odyssey. We made an entire album and worked with a bunch of different singers including Nadia Ali, Holly Brook, and a guy named Mezzo Riccio. And we’ve been trying to find a good home for this album because unlike G&D, we don’t have the resources to put out an album the way Josh and I had, so we feel like the marketing of a label might be a better fit for us.
We have a song on the radio right now called “Keep Faith” that is being played all over satellite radio. It went to #4 on their charts, and it’s caught on to a bunch of other stations too. Thing is if we were on a big label, all these stations would have played these songs at the same time. Because it’s a small label with a smaller marketing budget, it’s gone from strength to strength instead of being all at once.
Also, I’ve also been working with another guy in LA, DJ Lynwood, a very talented radio DJ and music producer. We’ve worked on a couple of remixes that will be coming out early next year. Josh, why don’t you tell what you’ve been up to?
Josh: All right, I concentrated on doing lots of music. I did a first instrumental techno/progressive album called “Eight,” and I produced Sander Kleinenberg’s debut artist album. You might have heard some of his songs: “This is Our Night” and “Rock You All Night Long,” with a few more singles coming out. The current single is “I Remember When.” Another project called Winter Kills just finished our album. We had a couple of singles called “Deep Down” and “My Friend,” and the next single “Hot as Hades” will be out January or February.
I started a label called Different Pieces and did some releases with upcoming people like Francis Preve, Kaz, and Willie Mae. Finally, been finishing up the long-awaited Andain album. Just been doing some final listens and mixing it down, and “Promises” will be the first single from that.
By the way, I’ve heard like 6-7 wrong ways to pronounce Andain (An-dane). Thanks for clearing it up.
Josh: Yes. Andain. (LAUGHS) I also did a few solo tracks and some collaboration stuff, two tracks with Dave Seimen.
Dave: Whoooo that Dave Seaman track is the sh*t. (LAUGHS)
Josh: I also co-wrote a song with Meredith Call for Armin Van Buuren’s artist album called “Take a Moment.”
Dave: She’s the singer from Winter Kills.
Oh yeah, I saw the video for “Deep Down.” She’s really hot by the way. I love the blue wintery scheme for that video.
Josh: Yeah, everyone was freezing for that video. It was shot in Sweden. The girls in the bunny suits hated us by the end of the night cause they were so COLD.
So how has being in Amsterdam influenced the music production for you?
Josh: In ways you could never imagine. One thing, my label that distributes music, Armada, being close to them is a very different thing to me. They’re literally a bike ride away. Also my manager is here. Being able to talk to the person that manages you more than once a year is really important. And the last thing is, about a month ago, my family’s house burned down. As a result I lost a lot of music and a lot of gear. I’ve been making music on my laptop, with speakers, and a small studio—just appreciating a back to basics approach. I just feel lucky that everyone made it out safely. Kind of a different headspace, you know?
Wow, I’m sorry to hear about that. But I’m glad to hear everyone’s okay. Dave, I don’t suppose you had a home burn down or anything to influence your music?
Dave: (LAUGHS) No, my home is in perfect condition. Every once in awhile I’ll drop a hard-drive and that’s my own personal nightmare. I’m a little rough here.
(LAUGHS) So I understand you’ve been up in the Bay Area for a bit. How has the Bay Area influenced your music production for Dresden & Johnston?
Josh: I’m going to speak for Dave.
Dave: (LAUGHS) Okay.
Josh: I know the biggest influence on Dave, having seen it myself, is his ability to take a drive on the rolling hills of the west coast and listen to music.
Dave: That is absolutely true—the land here is so beautiful and offers you so many different scapes in an hour drive. It’s very inspirational to music. Josh can attest personally to the fact that we used this land to road test every one of the songs we made, and I still employ that to this day.
Michael and I pretty much opened up a studio in a complex that was put together by one of the original guys at Google. He cashed out at the age of 30 and opened up a gorgeous complex in downtown Oakland. We’ve been working out of there and have been doing interesting things with sound. There’s a hip-hop producer and a punk-rock producer. There’re also a lot of different talented sound engineers and vocalists walking through the halls. It was really fun and interesting because we’ve been able to work with a bunch of types of music at once.
Cool. Josh, speaking of cross-genre work, I recall you did some work with a rapper recently, called Copywrite, right?
Josh: I did actually. I made a dubstep remix of one of my songs, and Copywrite used it in his track “Serotonin.”
Awesome, I’ll definitely need to check it out. Do you guys think you’ll be dropping some dirty dubstep beats during the show?
Josh: I would say I have some convincing of Dave to do, but I’m hoping there will be some dubstep in the night.
Dave: There is a new track by Deadmau5 called “Raise Your Weapon” that has a dubstep break in the middle. I’m thinking it’s a strong contender, but I’d love to hear anything that Josh has to play for me.
Josh: One of the artists on the Different Pieces label goes by the name of Secret Panda Society. I have some stuff to play for Dave that I haven’t played for him. With a little editing magic, I think we can make something happen.
Dave: We’re going to spend the 2 days before the gig getting acclimated to each other, working on the songs, playing everything for each other and putting together everything that will be going into the set.
Josh: Yes, we’ve got some homework to do.
Dave: Over the last couple of months we’ve spent a lot of time on AIM just talking to each other and sending tracks.
Josh: It started at ADE. We played music to each other for the first time and we just went from there.
On a side note, I just wanted to let you guys know that last year on a little California road trip, I actually had the G&D mix of Deepsky’s “Ghost” on repeat the whole time while I drove up the PCH. Thought it was funny that you guys mentioned the whole road-testing thing.
Dave: Cool, well that’s how for every song we made we would bounce it to an audio file, burn it to a CD, then listen to it as we drove around a reservoir around Josh’s house. It really gave us a lot of truths about the sound.
Sounds good. So now let’s talk after New Years in terms of shows and collaboration.
Josh: We’ve made it no secret that after New Years we can no longer claim we haven’t played together. It’s a good bet that we’ll play together in the future, but we’ll be picky about the gigs we choose because we want to keep G&B something special. As far as music goes, we both love to make music, and we’re obviously talking to each other again. No specific plans made so far, but I think it’d be hard-pressed to keep us away for too long.
Dave: Right. When Josh and I get into the same room, it’s very electrifying. We really saw that when we got together in Amsterdam in October. We’re like little kids and will be like “Oh, I got this,” or “Oh, I got this,” or “Oh, check this out,” or “No, no, check this out,” so it’s inevitable that we’re going to get together in the studio and make some original stuff.
Awesome, I’m really excited for the new stuff. I don’t want to keep you too long, but do you guys have some final words for fans and supporters?
Josh: I just want to say, look forward to New Years Eve. It will be fun to see all the familiar faces. It’s just going to be fun.
Dave: I just want to thank the fans for keeping the G&D music alive for all these years and still making us valid in 2011. That’s pretty cool. Expect a great show on New Years.
One final question. Where were you guys for New Years last year?
Dave: I was in San Diego. How about you Josh?
Josh: I’m trying to remember. (LAUGHS) Philly? I think that was the year before. Ohio? Boston? Kind of just all over the place. LA is special on New Years. I’m looking forward to being in LA on New Years.
Dave: We kind of always knew that our reunion show would be in LA. Also, please be sure to follow our Facebooks and Tweets. I’ve always been that one-liner kind of guy, so Twitter was PERFECT for me.
(LAUGHS) Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for your time! |
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