Installment number 4! Belgian remixers du jour, Aeroplane, chat to Dummy about emotions and working on their debut album…

2008 seemed to go very well for you. How is 2009 looking?

(Vito De Luca) Let’s say that 2008 was our take off.  2009 is going well for us, we are busy with our debut album and playing all over the world. So, all very exciting!

You’re famous for a very emotional, epic sound. How would you characterize it?

That’s just about how we compose, we just don’t know how to write differently. Everything we do starts with kind of melancholic chords that usually become the chorus of the song. And when we are happy with these chords we start making all the rest around it. If these chords are good, they can go on and on and on…

Do you feel emotional when you play?

Sure! Life is about emotions. But not only good ones unfortunately.

What surprising things are there in your music collection?

Nothing really suprising actually. The music we play as DJ’s and the ones we listen to at home are different. We listen to all good pop stuff from all the decades. That goes from The Pink Floyd to Massive Attack, to Italian singers like Lucio Battisti, Adriano Celentano, all the good disco pop like ABBA, some old school Hip-Hop for Vito like A Tribe Called Quest or The Beastie Boys. We listen to so many things.

You seem more influenced by classic disco than many others on the scene. Would you agree?

Honestly, not necessarily but we like the organic feel, the groove and vocal power of classic disco, and the melodramatic feeling. Sometimes disco is in the middle of good and bad taste, that’s also what we like.

What can we expect from the album?

You can expect Aeroplane! But with let’s say with more freedom, because there is no dancefloor to fill. We go deeper into our influences.

Can you tell me more about your writing process – how do you start coming up with a song?

It always starts with writing on a piano. You know when you have a good melody, it doesn’t matter anymore what the arrangement will be, how it will sound or whatever, that melody will always stay as good. So once we have it, let’s say that the biggest part of the work is done, even if after that we can spend a month in production.
Can you tell me something about your training and musical background?

Stephen is a DJ of 15 years, he played everywhere in Belgium, I learned music for 10 years, he learned piano and guitar and had a couple of bands before getting into electronic music.

How do you think you fit into the Belgian music heritage?

I think we stand out a bit on our own at the moment on what we do, but when you listen closely our tempo is quite the same as Belgium New Beat.

I love the covers to your singles. Can you tell me more about them?

They are designed by Chris Bolton, we think he directly understands our sound and knew how to visualise it. We really like them too.

You’re famous for your remixes, but often, if you don’t mind me saying it, when they’re rejected – as was the case with MGMT and Grace Jones. How does it feel when a mix is turned down?

Well the feeling is more like, You don’t know what you’re losing! It can sound a bit pretentious but when you do music, of course you love the music you are doing and you always think it’s the best thing in the world. For example for the MGMT remix, we worked so hard on the arrangement, I really love it, and we were really disappointed when they said no. But then they have rejected all remixes except the Justice one, which is really close to the original. So in a way they rejected our remix because, just like us,  they really love the song they wrote and they don’t want anybody to touch it! And we actually changed everything on it so I understand them.

Do you feel vindicated when people love a song as much as they loved your version of Grace Jones’ William’s Blood?

Our William’s Blood remix is a weird thing. But to make a long story short, all the love we had from the whole internet and from the blogs on this one was enough for us, we were already happy with that. But in the end Ms Grace Jones had another listen and decided to release it. So perfect.

How do you think your remixes differ from your own productions?

It’s simple, when you do a remix the limit is the original song. When you write a song, you start from zero, and zero in music is silence. So you better know where you are going.

Interview by Charlie Jones
Photography by Mikael Gregorsky

A longer version of this interview can be found at www.dummymag.com