Electronic music
has always been an exciting genre that always has something new floating around
it. Monstercat is
one of the main places I go to for new electronic music, and I have always been
curious about them. Therefore, I
asked to interview the Pegboard Nerds, one of MonsterCat's most successful acts. I ask questions
that cover main points of their history together as a band and discover things
that are pretty awesome about them. With Uncaged and
also Global Gathering to be on their busy schedule, they managed to find time
to answer my long list of questions.
~Matthew Clewley
MRD: How did the Pegboard
Nerds form?
Well we have made music
together for 10+ years. But specifically, we started Pegboard Nerds towards the
end of 2011, with the intention of making our own music under our own name,
shifting the focus away from doing what was basically remixes only. We’d talked
about it for a long time, but there was always that “one more remix…” which
made it take forever. We had to make the move however, because making music
started to feel like boring routine, and a drag, and that is not really
conducive to making big and exciting dance music! We really just wanted to try,
and still try, to be the best we can be, on our own four feet. We never looked
back! It’s a brave new world :)
The Uncaged Tour is
just over the horizon, have you ever done a tour this big?
What has the music
life for you guys been like since you've signed to Monstercat?
Busy :) We are not technically signed to Monstercat, it’s more on a
track by track basis, but as you can see we have a really close and strong
relationship. We feel like we’ve grown with Monstercat, which was already
pretty big back then, but now has gotten so much bigger and is still growing.
We’re always working on new tracks and look forward to each new song we can put
out.
On Monstercat Wikia you've been known as the most popular
artist on Monstercat, how do you feel when you hear things like that?
Actually we didn’t hear that until we read it here.. Wow, that is
humbling and nice :) It also feels.. weird, in a positive way, if that makes
sense. I mean we had no idea what would happen when we formed PBN.. And now..
This! Amazing. Monstercat is such a great community, very supportive and
interactive and vocal about how they feel.
How much has video games or/and video game music had an
effect on your music.
It’s probably ingrained in us from our childhoods, so it’s more of
a subconscious thing a opposed to actually referencing games and music from
them when we work. The thing about old school video game music is that they had
a very limited toolset to work with, and practically no effects or fancy
production tools, so the melodies HAD to be catchy and great. So some of the
vibe and feel probably/hopefully finds its way into our melodies as well :)
What do you guys see as the perfect live set up when it comes
to songs setlist and live equipment?
We think a set should be kind of like a journey, with highs and
lows, contrasts, fast and slow. We usually cover a pretty wide range of genres
and tempos in our sets. As for live equipment we are just doing straight up
DJ-set as of now, but of course we dream of maybe doing something more live
based and hopefully we will do in the future. It’s just that it’s so easy to
travel with a couple of memory sticks and a headset!
What is your favorite song you have remixed so far?
Hmm good question. J. Viewz - Far too close was fun, but I guess
the Alive remix was our favourite so far, as everything kinda came so nicely
and instinctively together. But we try and make every remix our “favorite” at
the time of producing it, because you gotta have that feeling when you make it.
I translates into the production, gives it soul.
Do you plan on remixing anymore songs? If so, would you remix
songs from genres that seem out of place to your genre?
It’ll probably happen, but it would have to be a really
interesting song for us. Sure, that’s the most exciting! Which is why we are
trying to avoid remixing a straight up electro track, or a dubstep tune, etc..
Have you guys ever been to the United Kingdom? Or if not, do
you ever plan to?
We have played several shows there: Last year we played in Exeter,
and we did Global Gathering, Reading & Leeds (missed Leeds due to really
bad traffic unfortunately! :( ), Creamfields and Manchester (Haunted House with
Knife Party). Also, this is written as we’re going back to play Global again
this weekend so that should be fun, can’t wait for the artist lounge burgers!
What is the ultimate venue you would want to play?
We played some pretty sick venues/places already (EDC bass pod,
Reading festival and Red Rocks) :) For maximum grandeur and flair probably
something like mainstage EDC Vegas or Tomorrowland? For gritty, up close,
intimate and downright sweaty raging, any small club with a crazy crowd!
What do you think about sampling in songs nowadays? Do you
think artists like David Guetta do it too much?
It doesn’t matter.. We have a saying: “Whatever works”. If an
artist samples and uses it in an interesting way, or uses little bits and bobs
to create one shots (we do that a lot). Of course there are more exciting and
less exciting ways of utilizing a sample, but at the end of the day it’s the
end result that counts.
You said on Facebook your genre of music is "crazy
shit". As much as I agree, would you be able to describe what crazy shit
consists of?
Haha! It consists of whatever we feel like making on any given
day, because it can be most anything, a lot of it never being released.
Actually it’s amazing that anything makes it to release because (and this has
been said by many before us, but it is so true) a track is never finished, it
is abandoned because you have to (deadline/release). It’s kind of taken from
you, and you have to let it go, haha. It’s also referring to how we almost
cannot believe how insane the process of writing a track is.. It goes through
so many stages. The pre deadline paranoia one is the worst. The best one is
when a bunch of sounds suddenly goes from being a incohesive mess into actually
being a concept, a TRACK. It’s such an elusive point during the production process,
but it’s clearly felt every time. Fascinating!
You have stated you have too many influences to name, but
what is your main influence?
Too many to name ? lol! But really, there is no main influence,
it’s way more faceted than that..
You've had a few comments on one of your
Facebook posts, but one caught my eye saying "Come on PBN. You guys have
changed and it's terrible. Go back to your old roots when you made the most
amazing music...." How do
musicians like yourselves respond to this kind of comment?
Well first of all, things move incredibly fast in today’s world,
but we can’t help but smile when people are referring to music we made 1-2
years ago as our “roots”.. We’ve barely begun defining our own roots!
Technically, and as far as Pegboard Nerds’ timeline as a whole is
concerned, that is indeed our roots if you want to use that word… We’d rather
say that our roots are the music that defined us 10 years ago, 15 years ago and
made us want to make music ourselves. Stuff like The Prodigy, Chemical
Brothers, Orbital, etc. Anyway. We usually never actually respond to
comments like that, but we read them (sometimes) and discuss them. We don’t
want to water down our own music by doing a “Disconnected 2” or “Self Destruct
2” or a “Fire in the hole 2”. That’s why they are strong tracks and have their
place in our history, because we made them and then moved on.. We don’t want to
“rip off ourselves”, you know?
What songs and collaborations have you got coming up for the
near future you would like to tease?
We have a raunchy trap-influenced track coming up, as well as
collabs with Cash Cash and Destroid.
You have a great following and you have had things like
necklaces being made based on Pegboard Nerds, how great does that make you feel?
We love it!! It’s unbelievable to see people go and do their own
things with something we cooked up together in a basement outside of Copenhagen
one rainy night. We have a big bag of necklaces, pearler beads, combos of both,
and a kickass hero flag at home as tour souvenirs :)
What is the signature song of the Pegboard Nerds in your
eyes?
Self Destruct (At the time of writing, lol)
