1. Growing Up
My dad is a pianist and has always played in bands from his teen years to now in his 60s. I used to go along to whichever gigs would allow kids, and the music they played was a large influence to me early on. They played stuff like Hall & Oates, Ace, Doobie Brothers, Thin Lizzie, et cetera, and I still like all of that music today. There was always music equipment in the house and I started from a very young age playing around with synthesisers and making my own music, so without this early exposure I doubt writing music as Audiojack would have come so naturally.
2. Inspirations
I have been through a plethora of different styles of music through my life and many at the same time. All of these will have had some influence on our music but with many the link isn’t obvious. I think a more clear and quantifiable effect has come from listening to people like Pink Floyd, New Order, Joy Division and Depeche Mode in my teen years. Those sounds have a more direct connection to more current electronic music. I think different cultures and environments can also inspire you and touring can bring rich immersion into this.
3. Your Crew
Me and Rich [Burkinshaw], then we have some regular collaborators such as Kevin Knapp who we’ve worked with on recent Audiojack releases and Ria Moran who has done lots of work for other artists on the label. Alongside running and releasing on our own label, Gruuv, we also release on 2020Vision. With all of this going on and touring at weekends we haven’t had time to work a day job for eight years now and long may it continue!
4. The Music You Make
First and foremost it must work on the dancefloor. We try to avoid current trends and make every piece of music sounds fresh and different. At the moment we’re playing some house, some techno, some old-school electronic stuff but everything is focused on making people actually dance. So please people put your phones away and enjoy the fucking moment!
5. Music, Right Here, Right Now
The music scene is in a very strong period currently, lots of crossover stuff bringing in lots of people that wouldn’t normally listen to underground dance music. One of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is remaining interesting to people while avoiding the musical trends that engulf the music scene. We’ve just moved to Ibiza so our local is now the world’s dance music mecca, certainly in the summer anyway, so it will be interesting to see how it affects our music.
Audiojack headline the Spice Afloat New Year Sunrise Cruise. The Bella Vista leaves bright and early at 4am, Wednesday January 1.
