Delicious DK Interview

Delicious DK Interview

17 September, 2007 | 11.10AM

• Section: Music News
• Written by: jukeboxpr

We have to confess they’re new to our world, but when Delicious delivered a string of hot productions for our listening pleasure, they landed on the UK radar with a hefty thump.

The Danish duo of Denise and Karina have been making music together since 2001.

They’ve DJ’d at practically every venue and event in Denmark; hosted a house show on Kiss FM Nordic; ran ‘Get Down’, a house night at Rust, one of Denmark’s most established venues; and started up their own label, Lekker Records.

Delicious have also been holding down residencies all over Europe, including daily sessions at Bay Bar in Ibiza for the entire 2005 season, and regular slots at the Parisian clubs Manray, Madam and Redlight.

They have played at many of the world’s best clubs, including Pacha, Es Paradise and Space - and soon will be destroying dancefloors across the UK.

Their first single, a collaboration with Kid Massive, was released on UK house label Illegal Beats, then French label Paradise picked up Yours, a track which featured vocals from Tiger Lily.

Their latest single, ‘3rd Floor’, is a collaboration with Danish producer Jan W, released on UK label Soundslike.

Now the girls are on the verge of moving to Britain and have a host of new remixes and tracks ready to release to the UK market.

Where and when did you get your first taste of house music and who were your early musical heroes?

Our first taste of house music came back in 1995 when we were 13 years old.

We were friends from school and listened to music together in our bedrooms.

We got a compilation called ‘Superdiscount’ from Denise’s dad and heard it over and over again.

We asked what kind of style it was, because we had never heard anything like that before and found out it was house music.

We started buying CDs in that genre, but in the beginning more with the French house influence, like Cassius, Africanism and Daft Punk.

Later in our teens, we enjoyed going out to electronic parties in Copenhagen, like drum&bass and techno parties.

There were not many places to go and listen to house music in Denmark back then.

When we finished college we went on a trip to Ibiza, because we heard so much about this place.

We were in heaven for 14 days, because we could go out and dance to the music we loved.

We brought pen and paper, and asked some of the DJs’ names of the tracks they played.

We wanted to bring some CDs back to Denmark, but to our surprise the record shop in Ibiza told us that we could only get those new tracks on vinyl.

We ended up buying 10 records, hoping we would be able to borrow our parents’ old record players when we got back.

That started things for us.

Suddenly a friend borrowed some turntables and a mixer for us, and we had fun trying to mix them together

Without even realizing, we were soon starting as DJs.

What was your first ever professional gig and what was the last night you played at?

Our first professional gig was to a party called ‘Future Sound of Copenhagen’, a gig made for a lot of upcoming DJs.

It was the first time we ever played in a real club.

We were so nervous, but it went really well, and the gig gave us a residency in that same club.

Our last gig was a launch party in Denmark for a dog called Woofy - a plastic dog where you can hide your cables in (computer, TV cables etc.).

It’s a Danish design brand called Normann who created it.

People tried to steal the Woofy all night; it was weird to see adult people running around with plastic dogs, trying to take them home.

We always enjoy coming back to play in Denmark, as we can have fun with all of our friends.

Before that party, we had been on tour for a week playing in Turkey, Croatia, Madeira and Porto; it was a very busy week with 15 flights and not much sleep.

What gave you the impetus to finally turn your back on ordinary employment and take your record boxes off and make a career out of DJing?

When we started DJing in 2001, we didn’t know that this would be our career.

After 2 years playing most venues and events in Denmark, we collaborated with two other DJs our own club night called Get Down at Rust, one of Copenhagens most established venues.

We ran that club night every weekend and were nominated in the Danish DJ Awards as the Best Club night two years in a row.

At the same time, during the week, Karina was working for a record label and Denise did the PR and marketing for Rust.

In the beginning of 2005, we started to get more interest from abroad, got an agency in Germany and one in France.

We decided to stop the club night, quit our jobs and went to Ibiza for four months that summer.

We played almost everyday and traveled back and forth from the Island playing in places like Italy, St. Tropez and Vienna.

Everything kicked off after that summer and we didn’t need to have normal jobs anymore.

Now it is definitely our career and we are busier than ever, playing every weekend around the world, producing music and boosting our record label.

How did your life change from that moment onward and did you have any help managing your career trajectory, which has gone on a steep upward curve ever since?

It changed in that we could concentrate 100 percent on our career.

We don’t have to take time off from work when we travel during weekdays.

We also have more time to produce music.

It is easier to focus on these things when you don’t have another job to think about.

We have always had some great people around us and have been lucky to meet some cool people, which helped us a great deal when we got booking agencies in different countries.

Louise from Whos Ya Mama Agency played a major role; she is the one who pulled the strings and coordinated all the bookings.

You’ve been fast and effective at harnessing the power of the internet as a promotional tool. Do you think it’s possible to make a name without it these days?

It might be possible to make a name the good old fashioned way without internet and just through TV and magazines, for example, but it takes a good PR machine or a major record label and a lot of money.

The internet is a fast, easy and cheap way to getting to most people.

There are die-hard vinyl addicts who also appreciate that times must change and life will go on with CDs, Ableton etc. What’s your take on all of this? Will vinyl ever finally die out or do you think there’ll always be a place for it in clubland?

We don’t believe vinyl will totally die out, but yes, times have changed a lot.

We played vinyl until 2 years ago, when all the clubs invested in the Pioneer CDJs and it got easier to only play CDs - today we don’t play vinyl at all.

Our love for vinyl is still there, and we miss the feeling of buying a track and appreciating it a bit more.

With vinyl you had a relationship and would play that special track for months, where now you can easily buy a new track you will never play.

Vinyl still has a big place in the underground scene, so yes, there is still a place for it in club land.

It will probably also have a come back later again and be a kitsch thing to do.

We do not use programs such as Ableton or Traktor; we still prefer to play CDs and still do not trust our computers enough to use only them when playing out.

If there is an error in a CD, you can easily make a copy again; but if your computer goes down you have a huge problem.

Who knows, maybe with time, we’ll change our minds.

Back when we started, we could never have imagined not playing vinyl.

What are the relative benefits of the different musical mediums that you seem to utilize when DJing?

Even though the vinyl is treasured, there are so many benefits to using CDs and a computer.

First of all, vinyl is very heavy and difficult to travel around with.

These days, with the restrictions at airports, CDs are a blessing, because you can bring so many more tracks to a gig.

We also receive promos via email and it’s cool when you have just finished a track in the studio and you can try it out in a club straight away.

Another benefit is the technical tools on the CD players.

As a DJ, it is more interesting to use a cappellas, to loop vocals and tracks and to make more of it than just playing the songs.

You’ve toured in some pretty far out places, like Russia, America and Asia. Which have been your favorite countries or cities so far, and what’s the next global destination you want to bring your music to?

There is something great about all the places we have been and difficult to mention a favorite destination.

We really liked playing in Malaysia and are looking forward to play in Asia again this fall.

We will be playing in Beijing, Jakarta and Bali.

Our dream destination is to play in Japan; we have never been there or to Brazil before.

We really enjoy playing in Portugal - that’s not a very far away destination but really worth mentioning.

We play in Portugal almost once a month; people don’t always know it, but they have so many great clubs and DJs from all over the world play there every week.

Best of all, they really know how to party.

When we were there for the first time, when were told that we would play at 04.30, which we thought was really late, but it’s actually their prime time.

You’ve got your home-base in Paris, but I hear your moving to the UK. Do you ever get time to hang out and chill out together after months on the road, or do you stay busy with production work in between touring? Do you have time to sleep these days?!

We can sleep when we get old - ha ha!

No, actually, we don’t tour for months and then return home; we travel to the gigs every weekend and then come back in the weekdays, where we do the production work, listen to promos, buy new tracks, stay in contact with other DJs and producers - but also hang out and chill.

Right now we are based in Paris, but will be moving to the UK in October, which we are looking forward to very much.

Tell us a little about ‘Yours’ and the remix that you have just done for DJ Conte?

‘Yours’ is our first release with the Danish singer Tiger Lily, and the original was released last year in France on the label called Paradise.

This spring, we had the Swedish producer Ali Payami do a remix of the track, which came out on about 20 compilations in France and was played on the major house radio station Radio FG.

We’ve just done the remix of DJ Conte’s ‘Starlight’, which is released on the UK label Soundslike.

The style of the remix is a bit darker than ‘Yours’ - more electro inspired and without vocals.

Soon we’ll release a track called ‘Fly By High’ on the US label Roc It.

Also watch out for some new releases on our own new label, Lekker Records.

For the benefit of any techno-boffins that might be reading this, what studio equipment do you use?

We both have our Mac laptops, so we can make music and ideas whenever and wherever we want to.

We also have access to a home studio with a better setup containing a mac G5 work station, Fireface 800 rme soundcard, Genelec and Dynaudio monitors, various external hardware synths such as Korg MS20, Virus Indigo, Korg MS2000, etc., and external Tube Tech stereo compressor and Tube Tech summing.

We use Logic, which was the first program we learned to use.

How do you describe the music you come up with in the studio? Does it fit into a particular genre?

We like to call all the tracks we produce house, but that genre is big.

We produce everything from electro, to funky and minimal.

Right now we produce a lot more electro house inspired tracks.

Which has been your favorite remix out of the tracks you’ve done so far?

It has with no doubt been the Ali Payami remix of our track ‘Yours’.

He did such a good job on that, giving the track a more prime time electro house feeling, which works superbly on the dance floor and is the one track of ours we play the most.

We do also like the Kid Massive remixes and the Sharooz remix of our track ‘3rd Floor’.

Do you have any UK residencies that people can catch you at?

We don’t have anything in particular yet, but we are a part of the AudioDamage tour, which is run by DJ/producer Kid Massive.

AudioDamage tour has a main room and funky electro house sounds and has guest DJs like Danny Freakazoid, Ali Payami, Beatchuggers, Cedric Gervais and ourselves on the roster.

AudioDamage also run a label, which will release straight up house music, and we’ll be dropping a few tracks on their label in the near future.

Which other DJs do you really admire?

We recently played at Corsica with Richard Grey.

He was not only a very good DJ, but also a great guy!

We would also say Axwell and Mark Knight, as they are both more than DJs; they have a great sound, wicked productions and bring something to the dance music scene.

Is there one DJ night that you’ve done in particular that really stands out for you?

Playing in Redlight (Paris) in October 2006 really stands out.

This was an amazing night because we had some friends come in from Denmark and the UK, and the crowd that night was really going off.

It was a great party.

What do you really love?

Music!

There is so much to mention, but especially good food!

We like chocolate and clothes (we are still girls in that way) and being around nice people.

We are really into animals - cats, dogs, you name it.

And Denise couldn’t live without her coffee.

What is your top tune at the moment?

There are too many to mention just one.

Some tracks we have had in our record box this summer are: Murk ‘Reach For Me (TV Rock vs. Dirty South remix)’, Steve Angello & Sebastian Ingrosso’s ‘Umbrella’, Andrea Oliva’s ‘Sombatiki’, Mark Mendes’ ‘I Don’t Know’ and the Thomas Gold remix of Just Jack’s ‘Writer’s Block’.

What would be your five desert island discs, and would you bother to take a book as well?

We would probably bring a book to a deserted Island, but studio equipment would be preferred over a book!

Music would be our number one priority, and would probably look like this:

Disc 1: ‘World Dub Pastry’ from Music For Dreams
Disc 2: The ‘Super Discount’ compilation
Disc 3: ‘Get Lost’ by Damian Lazarus
Disc 4: Trentemøller’s ‘The Last Resort’
Disc 5: The ‘Salinas Sessions’ compilation

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