CATHERINE ARMATO: Hi.
JONO GRANT: Hello.
It's like "Pigs in Space."
CATHERINE ARMATO: So I just wanted
to thank you guys so much for coming today.
We're really excited to have you here at Google, and here
in New York City.
You just announced your new album, "We Are All We Need."
And I was wondering if you could tell
us more about what we can expect from it?
JONO GRANT: Did you see that?
TONY MCGUINNESS: It's is a mixture of reggaeton and trap.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: Why are you laughing?
TONY MCGUINNESS: It's the most tracks
we've ever put on an album.
16 tracks.
Features collaborations with Justine Suissa,
of OceanLab fame, you will know.
Zoe Johnston.
And Alex Vargas.
In terms of the subject matter, I think the title,
"We Are All We Need," comes from a song
that Zoe wrote that's on the album called
"We Are All We Need," which I believe premieres this week.
JONO GRANT: Times Square, 7:00 PM.
TONY MCGUINNESS: And it sort of suggests
a kind of mutual self-reliance that's
a theme that comes up a lot on the album.
So if it was appropriate to call it that.
It feels like a development from "Group Therapy."
It's about what you can achieve with other people.
And it feels like a very Above and Beyond thing
to say as well.
Overcome emotionally.
CATHERINE ARMATO: You mentioned that Alex, Justine, and Zoe
will all be featured on the new album.
How do you go about finding such amazing vocalists?
And how do you determine which songs they'll sing on?
JONO GRANT: Well, first of all, I
think tend to look for people who haven't worked
with a lot of other people in our area.
So rather than just get the kind of off-the-shelf singer
of the moment who's had a few hits with someone else,
we will try and dig a bit deeper.
And maybe look outside of the genre that we operate in.
So with Zoe, she had worked with Faithless,
who do do dance music.
But she'd also why worked with Bent as well,
who've done some amazing music.
So we just look for something a little bit different, really.
And outside the usual channels, if you like.
CATHERINE ARMATO: Tell us about the journey to Madison Square
Garden.
What made you choose New York as the ABGT100 celebration?
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: Well, obviously we do one of these big shows
a year to celebrate our radio show.
Last year was Alexandra Palace in London.
Year before that we were in Bangalore in India.
And so on.
Yeah, for us it really felt like we really
wanted to do one in America this year.
We'd already done LA.
Sp we thought, OK.
New York would be awesome.
But where?
And so we're thinking of all these potential venues.
And then somebody says, OK, yeah.
I think we can do Madison Square Garden.
And we're like, no.
We can't do Madison Square Garden.
It is not going to happen.
But really, it's been quite the journey.
We were here in January.
We did a site visit to have a look at it.
So ever since January, it's been just planning.
Doing.
Making music.
Figuring out what we want to do with the show.
Who should come with us, and everything.
So it feels quite unreal that just in two days
we'll actually finally get to do it.
I'm just beyond excited.
A little nervous, but that's always good.
It'll feel even better when it goes all well.
JONO GRANT: Yeah.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: What a venue.
JONO GRANT: It's also about-- I was going to say,
it's also about picking those moments to make
a step up somewhere.
We felt the same when we did Alexandra Palace in London.
When I moved to London, I remember
seeing-- we went to a gig at Alexandra Palace.
And I never dreamed of playing there.
I mean, it's a huge venue.
And again, with Madison-- I'd never
have dreamed of playing at Madison Square Garden.
But this was the right time for us to have a go at it.
And you know, the response, with the ticket sales
and everything, was incredible.
CATHERINE ARMATO: How did you go about choosing the artists that
are playing with you on Saturday?
TONY MCGUINNESS: We was trying to include
other artists on the label.
[CELL PHONE RINGS]
There's one of them on the phone now.
They basically rang us up like that, out of the blue.
And said, what are you doing next Saturday?
No, we was trying to include other artists on the label.
And we try and rotate those year by year as much as we can,
to give everybody a chance of appearing on these big shows.
And it's definitely Ilan Bluestone's year.
He's done some incredible work in the last 12 months.
Mat Zo goes from strength to strength.
Andrew Bayer is an enormously important part of the label
and of Above and Beyond.
So it sort of chose itself this time.
CATHERINE ARMATO: So it was really special for us
as fans to hear all of the songs stripped down for acoustic.
I was wondering if you could tell me more
what your experience was like producing and performing
that album?
JONO GRANT: Yeah.
I mean, when-- it was actually Tony's idea
to do an acoustic project, if you like.
And I think both myself and Paavo
were a little bit resistant to the idea of it.
Because you're essentially putting yourself
in the arena of other bands.
And saying, we're a band.
And up until that point, what the public knew of us
was only our dance music.
And we do play instruments.
We always have done.
But it's not something we've shown to the public.
So it was quite a nerve-wracking thing to do.
But at the same time, we're sort of
coming at it with a mildly kind of blank canvas,
because no one's ever seen us do that kind of a gig.
It could have ended up being a really Spinal Tap disastrous
kind of thing.
And I think it didn't, thankfully,
judging by all your response to it.
But it was great fun.
Because when we were doing the acoustic album,
we'd rock up to the studio with Bob,
who is kind of the designated producer and musical director
for the whole show, really.
And we'd play our parts-- piano, Rhodes, guitar.
And we were being produced by Bob.
And so the tables really were turned.
And you could actually relax into it,
rather than sort of talking over a talk-back mic to a singer
saying, can you sing this a bit differently?
We were in that chair playing our instruments.
And it was great having someone else telling you, you're great.
Play it a bit more like that.
It was a great experience end to end, wasn't it?
TONY MCGUINNESS: Yeah, definitely.
CATHERINE ARMATO: And Tony, this is a question more for you.
Will we hear any more from Making Plans,
or was that strictly an acoustic release?
TONY MCGUINNESS: It is on the new album, I'm happy to say.
It was an interesting one to try and produce
in a form that fit on the album, because we wrote it
such a long time ago.
And it hasn't ended up the way I imagined when we wrote it.
But it's amazing, I think.
JONO GRANT: It was in a really difficult range, BPM-wise.
Sometimes you get a track that is, say, around 65 BPM,
or something like that.
And you can kind of double it up to 130ih.
It's just some tracks just work at some tempos.
And that was one of the hardest tracks to work at dance tempo,
wasn't it, really.
CATHERINE ARMATO: Paavo, I saw some of the photos
that you posted at Burning Man.
I was wondering if you guys could tell me
more about that experience?
And if you prepare for those sets differently?
And if you got to experience the festival at all?
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: Well, obviously,
that was our first time at Burning Man.
And it's one of those festivals that we've always
really wanted to go to.
And we didn't quite know.
I think it's like one of those things
that you can't really describe even correctly.
You have to go there and experience it.
But we did we did the yoga sets with Elena,
who's actually from New York.
An amazing yogi?
At Robot Hut during sunset.
Which was a really interesting set for us to play.
Because, obviously, we normally don't play that chill music.
And, you know, I've dabbled a little bit
with yoga myself over the years.
So I could kind of imagine what might work.
[CELL PHONE RINGS]
JONO GRANT: That's Mat Zo.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: And do that.
Hey, Mat.
We also did a deep set over there.
Not too unlike what we're planning to do on Saturday.
We open the show.
So we had those opportunities to do something really,
really different from our normal gigs.
And then our gig at White Ocean was really more
of a traditional Above and Beyond gig.
Butt the audience was definitely not the traditional audience.
It was such a mix of people.
Just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful atmosphere
over there.
And I came out of Burning Man-- you know, I knew I'd be wowed.
But I came actually touched.
I was really touched seeing the burning of embrace
as my last thing over there.
And really seeing how Burning Man is really
about people doing really cool things for each other.
And when you see people doing really cool things
for each other, you want to also do the same thing.
So I was kind of thinking, one day,
maybe the world's going to be like Burning Man.
And it'll be a good place.
CATHERINE ARMATO: That would be pretty cool.
TONY MCGUINNESS: Would be.
There'd be a lot more nudity, for a start.
Good thing.
CATHERINE ARMATO: In addition to the deep set
you did at Burning Man, you also released
an Anjuna Deep Editions set.
You remixed the set for the Anjuna Deep Edition.
Do you think there'll be more deep sound releases coming
from Above and Beyond, or stick with the club sound?
TONY MCGUINNESS: Well, we like playing deep music.
We just don't get much of a chance to do it, really.
That's why Burning Man was nice to do.
We played in Brazil a few weeks ago at the World Cup,
and got away with playing a deep house set.
It's just a nice and very popular area of music
that we're kind of involved in.
And we just don't really get a chance to do it.
So when we do get a chance to do it, it's nice to do it.
Like Paavo said, we're doing the warm-up
set for ABGT100, which will be mostly Anjuna Deep.
One or two others.
And I would like to do more of those when the occasion arises.
Obviously, for our shows, for the most part,
people want to hear the Above and Beyond songs and the vibe
that they know.
And whilst those things work in a smaller environment--
on the tail end of a yoga session or warming up for one
of our shows-- it's not something
we really get a chance to do a lot.
But I would like to do it more.
I'm actually really interested in all kinds of dance music.
We sort of make a living from doing one particular bit of it.
But it would be nice to have a broader
canvas, if we were able to do that.
JONO GRANT: I think, yeah.
I have a feeling we might end up doing what he said.
And doing a bit more of that in the future, yeah.
CATHERINE ARMATO: We had a lot of people
that were curious where the names came
from on the new album cover.
Can you shed some light on that?
JONO GRANT: Well, we just did a Google Hangout,
and we decided it was all smoke and mirrors, really, didn't we?
But they came from social media, essentially.
We'll leave it that.
CATHERINE ARMATO: OK.
TONY MCGUINNESS: We don't really want
to say how we getting them.
Because then people, if we say, actually,
we pick them up from Twitter on Wednesday between 3:00
and 4:00, everybody's going to start
tweeting between 3:00 and 4:00 on a Wednesday.
And it'll ruin it.
It's people who are actively involved in our online family.
And "We Are All We Need" includes all of you guys.
JONO GRANT: Is anyone on the album cover here?
There you go.
TONY MCGUINNESS: We're trying to include as many people
as we can on the artwork through the campaign,
with all the single sleeves as well.
But if you can't wait to see yourself on there,
you can actually make your own album artwork
with a bit of software that we've
had designed that sticks your name on right now.
Well, good.
CATHERINE ARMATO: One of the ways
that you connect with fans during your shows
is the messages that you have you come up
on the screens behind you.
How did that start?
And are you typing those live?
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: Yeah.
That actually started because we were bringing
a laptop to our gigs anyway as a backup.
This is still when we were playing CDs.
Just so you could burn a CD if you're missing a track.
JONO GRANT: So he could burn a CD, not us.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: Because it was there,
you'd have Photoshop or Illustrator
for writing little messages.
JONO GRANT: So he could have Photoshop or Illustrator.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: So, OK.
So then I decided to write a little message.
Show the laptop to the people.
When we're in venues like 200 people, it's awesome.
Works great.
And suddenly felt like we had this new means
of communicating with people.
Like, really directly, actually.
But then in 2010, we were at ADC at the LA Coliseum,
and just holding up the laptop to a little bit more than 150
people felt like it didn't quite work.
So we're showing it to the camera over there.
And they put it up on the screen.
And we thought, hang on.
Maybe that's the way we can do it.
JONO GRANT: So he went off into a rabbit hole
and coded a system to do that, didn't you?
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: I did.
Yeah, yeah.
I love technology.
And I've been always really interested in the show,
and how this show can be used to enhance
people's feeling of connectedness to the music
and to each other.
And how we can use to enhance the atmosphere of the event.
JONO GRANT: At this point, I should point out
that Paavo actually wrote a clocking system
to send the BPM of the decks to our visual system as well.
And all sorts of stuff.
TONY MCGUINNESS: That's only half of it.
JONO GRANT: That's the minor thing.
TONY MCGUINNESS: We discovered that the output
from the Pioneer mixer wasn't high resolution enough.
So he got in touch with Pioneer.
And now it is.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: That's true.
But-- you I suppose we're at Google, so it's all right.
CATHERINE ARMATO: Yeah.
I was actually going to ask next how you guys have been using
technology to connect with your fans.
Like, in addition to the messages at your shows.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: Well, our first thing
was when we actually started.
Big record companies were basically saying,
we don't do websites.
And internet was like this sort of thing
that some young people are doing somewhere.
But actually--
JONO GRANT: If you did [INAUDIBLE].
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: The real world doesn't interact with it.
But we really started with the internet in mind.
And very early on, we had an internet forum
that for us was the first sort of step.
Hang on, we can actually use the internet
to really get to know the people that listen to our music,
and interact with them.
Then we saw the music as a distribution platform
quite early on.
So we had a shop where we were first selling music
with copyright protection.
Downloadable.
This is really a long time ago.
I can't believe we even tried that.
JONO GRANT: I think we were one of the first labels
to-- one of the first independent labels, at least--
to do online distribution of our music.
MP3 downloads, basically.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: And this is a long time
before iTunes or Beatport.
TONY MCGUINNESS: Or Google, actually.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: But yeah.
It's been amazing seeing how the internet has really
grown from that kind of almost underground movement
into something that everyone, pretty much everyone
around the world, either has something to do with,
or their lives are definitely being
influenced by the internet.
And it's a tool for learning.
I think it's just beyond amazing.
And I can't wait to see what it leads to
over the next 25 years.
I personally use it when I want to learn
how to be a better barista.
Google it.
It's a speedy learning tool.
It's incredible.
JONO GRANT: One of the things, one
of the incredible things I find now is on YouTube.
If you go onto YouTube, and you want
to find out how a particular track is made,
there are people who've basically
dissected one of your tracks.
And recreated the whole record in Fruity Loops
or Keybase or Logic.
I just find that mind-blowing.
Because when I was growing up with learning about music
production, I would learn everything
from magazines and from my own experience.
And now this is wealth of knowledge on YouTube.
Where if you don't know how to make a certain white noise
sweep, you'll find it on YouTube.
I think that's just amazing, you know?
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: Where I think social media
these days is really that the genuinely amazing things
that people see and feel like one to share.
Those are the things really work.
And that would work in this room as well.
If somebody sees something really amazing,
they're probably going to tell someone else.
And so it spreads.
So I think there's so much concentration--
how can we use social media in the best way?
And how do we know what the best techniques?
And what's the new silver bullet?
But I think what we've taken from all
of this is that if we really concentrate on the core of what
we do-- we try make the best songs that we can,
and give people the most amazing experiences at the shows
and online-- then, hopefully, they'll tell others.
And so it works.
At least, that's the theory.
JONO GRANT: That's a really important point.
Because I think there's a big attraction
to the social media side of things.
But actually, in a cold-hearted business sense,
the product is the music.
And you've got to put that first,
and not the social media.
The social media is very much a secondary thing.
If you make a great record, that will blow away
a million tweets.
It's really important.
Because I see a lot of kids getting into it,
and kind of believing it's really important
to have a great social media presence.
But that can be dealt with, I think,
by good management and a good team around you.
Whereas having the right ideas to make the right records,
that's the most important thing.
That's the core.
CATHERINE ARMATO: In just a few minutes,
we'll be taking questions from the audience.
So if you guys have questions, please line up
at one of the microphones on either side of the room.
TONY MCGUINNESS: And if you can't think of one,
you can phone a friend.
CATHERINE ARMATO: So I'm a huge "Breaking Bad" fan.
I wanted to hear the story behind the creation of "Walter
White."
And what your favorite "Breaking Bad" episode is.
JONO GRANT: Well, that track-- and I'd
be lying if I said we came up with the idea of doing
a "Breaking Bad" track, OK, first of all.
But as we were making the track, we
realized that it had a split personality.
There's a very dark, clubby kind of intro and outro
to the track, with a kind of uplifting
break down the middle.
And Walter White, he's a very two-sided--
or, well, maybe more than two sides to his character.
So it just felt like the right time, the right name.
It was just one of those things-- of course,
we'll call it Walter White.
It just felt right.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: There's a new track
called "Saul" on the new one.
JONO GRANT: No.
That might be a joke track.
CATHERINE ARMATO: I'd be excited to hear what that sounds like.
OK.
We're going to take our first audience question now.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
JONO GRANT: Hello.
AUDIENCE: My name is Naomi.
So, your music is like, really emotional, and, like, really
inspirational to me, and I bet a lot of other people
in this room.
And inspired me to get a sun and moon tattoo.
TONY MCGUINNESS: Wow.
AUDIENCE: So I just wanted to know, what inspires you guys?
TONY MCGUINNESS: So much inspires me.
I went to see a film last night that I
didn't know anything about.
I came away-- I mean, I was close to tears at the end.
It's called "The Skeleton Twins."
And I come away from experiences like that,
or reading great book, or hearing a great record.
And it lives with me for a long time.
And little bits go in.
When you come to write songs, ideas that you've heard,
and experience from other media, really are important.
I think no input, no output, really.
So everything that we see and experience in our lives.
Everything that we read in books.
Every record that we hear, every film that we see,
goes in somewhere and comes out eventually.
So many things, I think, especially now.
The way that YouTube and on-demand TV are.
We can really feast on things that we like.
And I think, if we had the time, we could spend all our times,
all our lives, watching TV.
But there's so much great stuff out there.
I think we're getting-- I saw loads of trailers
before the film started.
It feels like we're getting into Oscar season
again, because they were like, yeah, I want to see that one.
Yeah, I want to see that one.
It's great.
I think there's some incredible stuff.
They made so much music that's around
at the moment to get inspired by.
With our Kindles, we can read books all the time.
It's just great, I think, at the moment.
[INAUDIBLE]
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: For me, at least,
the moments where I've felt really inspired
is often when I feel like I can connect
with a sort of emotional state that I
can remember from having experienced.
So be, like, utter happiness and joy, or a really sad moment,
or something like that.
The way I write a lot is playing the piano.
So if I'm playing the piano, I can really
get into that emotional state.
And often I then find that really
helps to feel really inspired.
And the nice thing with being creative
is you can't really plan it.
You can't really go into something
knowing what's going to come out at the other end.
I love the journey of getting there.
And that's why making music is so cool.
JONO GRANT: I think one of the most amazing things about music
is-- so, drawing from that-- when you are in a state
and you write something, and someone else
can listen to that piece of music
and be taken to that place.
That's just the most incredible thing.
Because it's not something that we're taught at school,
how to interpret music.
But it's a kind of universal, world-wide language.
And I can't think of anything else that is quite like that,
really.
AUDIENCE: OK, thanks.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: Thank you.
JONO GRANT: Thank you.
CATHERINE ARMATO: I'll take a question over here.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
My name is Jesus.
I DJ in my free time.
And some of my DJ sets that I recorded
live, I uploaded them to Some Cloud.
And they were flagged because they
contain copyrighted material, obviously.
So my question is, like, what do you
think about the situation in copyright
that we are living in?
Should the users of your music be punished for sharing them?
Or should be increased to share them
so that they can go to your concerts?
And do you think that sharing live mixes and DJ
sets has helped you or has hurt your career?
JONO GRANT: It's a really difficult question to answer,
because if we weren't able to perform and do gigs,
we wouldn't be able to do this job.
Because we earn a living from performing shows.
People who make music full time really struggle-- really,
really, struggle-- to earn a living from that.
It's a question I've struggled to answer, really,
because I have so many mixed feelings about it.
When U2 gave away an album-- I'm sure they got paid for it,
right?-- but it's great promotion.
I mean when Radiohead, they released an album a long time
ago, and invited fans to pay what they wanted for it.
And that's fine for Radiohead to do that,
because they're such a big band.
They don't need to worry about the royalties
that they'll earn from that particular record as much.
However, it does set a precedent for everyone
in the music industry to some degree.
And then to try and meet that precedent
if you're a smaller artist is challenging.
And what do you do?
Because if we said that, we'd be all right, because we do shows.
But on the other hand, a really small artist
who's up and coming, maybe it would be a great success.
And maybe people would pay lots for the album.
But I just feel like when you devalue music in such a way,
it really does restrict it to those artists who
are able to go out and perform live.
And not everybody is a performer.
Not everybody is a DJ.
Not everybody can go and stand in front of 1,000 people
and do a convincing performance.
But there are a lot of people who can make a great record,
as well.
So my question back to anyone is, how do we--
should we-- make those people included in the music industry
still?
Because that's a real challenge, isn't it?
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: But as it seems at the moment,
the future of music distribution is streaming in
all its many forms.
And maybe some that haven't yet been invented.
And I think that is pretty much-- it's a compromise.
Subscription models and streaming.
But I think that way, people can do what they want to do.
Which is they can share music.
They can listen to whatever they want.
And the musicians still at the other end
should get some royalties.
Maybe not enough for to do as a full-time job.
JONO GRANT: I think you've hit on it there.
Because I think the answer really is,
you shouldn't have to have your mix taken down,
but the royalties need to be tracked
so that someone gets paid.
That's I think a fair answer to it, really.
I think you should be allowed to put your mix up.
But, yeah.
Those records need to be accounted
for by SoundCloud or something.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: But the internet and music distribution
through the internet has vastly helped us around the world.
That is how most of our fans have first
heard our music-- somehow, by the internet, I think.
And I think it will continue to do that.
And even better than at the moment, I believe.
Because more people are getting online every day.
And there's so much interest for electronic music
around the world.
And it's still brand-new in so many countries.
So it's very exciting times.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Hello.
My name is Jude.
So obviously, I have a like for British bands.
And my question is, for vocalists,
like with "We Are All We Need" and "Sun and Moon"
and all that stuff, do you-- they write their own lyrics,
right?
So do you tell them, like, this is
the kind of vibe we're going through?
Do you make any bit of the song first and then
work with each other?
TONY MCGUINNESS: It depends.
It depends on who we're working with and what the song is.
In the case of "Sun and Moon," for example, we wrote that.
JONO GRANT: With
TONY MCGUINNESS: And then we got-- with Justine, yeah.
And we got Richard to sing that for us.
And he sang the lyrics that had already been written.
When we write with Justine, she often writes most of her songs.
Same with Zoe.
It really depends on the track in question.
AUDIENCE: So let's say they wrote one of their lyrics,
or whatnot.
How do you go about putting it all together
into a song where everything sounds good?
Do you have a tune?
Or do you let them write a song, and then think,
this melody will sound great with these vocals,
or vice versa?
TONY MCGUINNESS: We tend to write the song with them.
So the two things are happening at the same time.
AUDIENCE: Gotcha.
Well, all right.
Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
First of all, I want to thank you
guys for helping me get my job done, because I listen
to your podcast for four hours every day.
My question is--
JONO GRANT: Thanks for giving us a job.
And
AUDIENCE: I'll see you at your show on Saturday.
The question is, there's a lot of collaboration
in the EDM music industry.
And can you tell me more about that?
Because compared to other genres of music,
EDM's always like, one form, one artist
is mixing off some other artist, who
is mixing off another artist.
And you get several of them coming together.
And it's an unusually strong form of collaboration.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: I think with electronic music, obviously,
most of the music is, first of all, produced electronically.
So it's easier for people to collaborate,
even if they're not in the same place.
Because obviously if you're playing live instruments,
you really have to play in the same room together
to really get into that vibe together.
And also, dance music has a long history of remixing.
So we started as remixers.
And so many people are used to remixing other people's stuff.
So it's just a tradition, I think.
There's a lot of collaboration all throughout
the electronic music community.
JONO GRANT: Also, I think, generally, people work better
in teams than they do alone.
I think that's a fair comment.
And it's true of the music industry.
You look at an album like "Dark Side of the Moon,"
and, again, it comes back to that musical investment
question.
Because I'm not sure if that album could be made easily
today, because of the amount of people involved
and the amount of money invested in a record like that.
It's a really cool thing when great people get together--
a great engineer, great band.
And I think some of the best dance records
are being made that way, where you have a great singe.
Maybe two great producers.
And maybe someone else it mixes the record.
AUDIENCE: Thanks.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
I'm Camille.
I just had a question.
At Trance Around the World 350, you guys
debuted "Sun and Moon," and asked the crowd
to name the song.
Will you guys be doing the same thing this Saturday
with your new album coming out?
JONO GRANT: Was it "Sun and Moon?"
I think it was-- wasn't it a different track?
AUDIENCE: I remember "Sun and Moon."
People were yelling "Sun and Moon."
TONY MCGUINNESS: No.
Because people already know it's called "Sun and Moon."
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: But will you be debuting a new song
and asking the crowd to name the track?
TONY MCGUINNESS: No.
I don't think we're going to be doing a name the song.
We've kind of named them all this time.
AUDIENCE: Sad.
Dang.
TONY MCGUINNESS: Yeah, we got round to doing it this time.
So yes, there won't be a naming this song section, I'm afraid.
AUDIENCE: OK.
Sounds good.
TONY MCGUINNESS: OK.
AUDIENCE: Thanks,
CATHERINE ARMATO: Got a question over here.
JONO GRANT: Over to the east wing.
AUDIENCE: Hey, guys.
Thanks for stopping by.
It means a lot to us.
I'm curious about your music creation process.
I know it's probably different for every specific song.
But my specific question is, who do you
think about when you're writing songs?
Or rather, who do you write for?
I know some artists that write mainly for themselves,
and some artists who think about others
who'd be great to play at a show.
I mean, even writing a song for a fan to listen to at a show
is very different than writing a song for someone
to listen to by themself in their bedroom.
So I'm just curious about is there
a general trend or general direction
that you usually think about when you're writing a song?
JONO GRANT: I think from a musical perspective, rather
than the lyrical perspective, for me,
it's definitely writing for myself,
in terms of whatever ideas spring to mind.
And then afterwards, during the production phase,
you may produce-- obviously, you've
got certain formats to think about.
Like a radio mix, or something like that.
But I actually think it's kind of really important,
if you're going to move things forward,
you kind of need to do what you believe in most.
And I think lyrically, it's a similar thing, isn't it?
You don't think, oh, I'll write this song because they're
going to sing along to it.
TONY MCGUINNESS: I mean, I tried that.
Well, we tried it once, I remember.
A long time ago with OceanLab, with "Beautiful Together."
That was a song that we decided to write
for a specific purpose.
And I don't think it's that's good.
I think it's a lot healthier and a lot easier-- I mean, it's OK.
But it's not-- to me, it wasn't-- I can see through it,
I guess.
It's difficult for me to listen to it.
JONO GRANT: I think once you've written it, you--
TONY MCGUINNESS: But I think it's
about it's a lot easier and a lot more meaningful
to write from the heart.
So you write-- as Jono said-- predominantly for yourself.
These are things that you feel like you've got to say.
And then when you're in the process of thinking what
songs might make the album, how they'll be produced,
and maybe you're thinking about how
they might transpose to somebody else.
But the moment of creation, it's a very personal thing,
actually, I think.
JONO GRANT: But I think there are
sort of two phases to writing.
The one where you have the original idea.
And that's the most organic bit.
And then there's the moment when you take a step back from it.
And you hone that idea.
And I suppose that is more the contrived side of it, that bit.
It's more considered, and less of what
Paavo was talking about earlier, when you're just getting on
with it and it's flowing.
You do sit back.
And you go, well, hang on a sec.
This song's 12 minutes long.
That isn't going to work.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: Yeah.
And the real art of production and great production
is doing all the analytical stuff without killing the song.
And we sometimes started from something
we felt like has an incredible core, produced it,
and then we lost something.
We went back.
Tried it again.
And three years later, we've got "Sun and Moon."
JONO GRANT: Yeah, "Sun and Moon" is living proof for us
that you can work on about 50 versions of the song
and sort of get it right.
Because sometimes you think if you overwork something,
it's going to make it worse.
And it does make it worse.
And sometimes you have to leave it for next album.
We've got songs we've written for this album that didn't make
it on that we'll revisit, I'm sure, in future years.
And "Sun and Moon" was one of those.
It was supposed to be on the OceanLab album.
As was "Thing Called Love," actually, wasn't it?
But those songs wouldn't have been as good as they are,
perhaps-- or certainly not how they've ended up--
if we hadn't have left them and come back to them.
They would have been on there, but maybe-- maybe they
would have been even better.
Dunno.
Can't say.
But we had a lot of versions we weren't happy with,
is what I can say.
AUDIENCE: Awesome, thanks.
CATHERINE ARMATO: We have time for one more question.
TONY MCGUINNESS: Awww.
AUDIENCE: I'm lucky.
Hi.
My name's Jeff.
My favorite song right now is Ilan Bluestone's remix
of "Satellite."
So I'm wondering what your favorite remix
or mash-up of your own song is.
TONY MCGUINNESS: My favorite remix of our songs
is the Seven Lions remix of "On My Way to Heaven,"
because-- it's a weird thing, because obviously, I
don't think I'd ever heard anything like the kind of music
that he makes when we wrote the song.
And the one issue that they raise with the song
is it's not a very traditional song structure tool.
It goes through various different bits.
And suddenly, here was this kind of music form
where in the space of five minutes,
you could have seven different themes and vibes.
And it just-- everything works so well.
It's great.
I love it.
JONO GRANT: I couldn't pick one, to be honest.
But I agree with you, that was a fantastic remix.
When we did a remix competition, people
think-- I think people think-- we're
going to pick something that sounds like what people think
Anjuna Beats is about at the time.
Anjuna Beats is changing all the time.
It might be something different tomorrow, next week, next year.
But that remix just popped out.
It wasn't what we expected to get.
But it was just incredible, wasn't it?
TONY MCGUINNESS: Yeah, it was amazing.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: And I remember you guys did
the Stereosonic tour in Australia.
And I was tuning into it live when
you were on stage in Sydney.
And I heard the "You Got to Go" and Believe in Me"
bootleg for the first time.
TONY MCGUINNESS: Oh, yeah.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: I was like, what?
Hey, that's brilliant.
I didn't know it was happening, but you guys
were preparing all that stuff for that tour.
And it's been interesting.
Because obviously, sometimes remixes are really interesting,
because somebody's really, like, actually built a new thing
around the core of the song.
Bootlegs can also be really interesting,
where sometimes when you match up vocal
from another and instrument from another, somehow
they make more sense out of both of them.
And that was the case with those two.
TONY MCGUINNESS: And on a good day, the "Metropolis" mix.
I mean, it's uncanny--
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: [INAUDIBLE].
TONY MCGUINNESS: --how those things work together.
JONO GRANT: Artie actually wanted
to put a vocal on "Believe in Me," didn't he?
He kept on sending us these vocals.
And we weren't quite sure if he'd
got the right one at the time.
And then, so, when putting those two tracks together, kind of
solved the problem for him, I think, as well.
AUDIENCE: It's a great name, too-- "You Got to Believe."
TONY MCGUINNESS: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: All right.
Thank you.
JONO GRANT: You have to.
You got to believe.
TONY MCGUINNESS: Sorry about that, west wing, east wing.
JONO GRANT: Oh, go on.
Let him--
TONY MCGUINNESS: Go on, quick.
Quick question.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
So you mentioned a bit about genres.
About how you were noticing how genres
are changing and becoming more popular.
I was curious about what your thoughts
of how electronic music has grown, and where it's going.
And what sort of genres you might
be interested in looking towards.
And how that influences the way you make your music.
PAAVO SILJAMAKI: I realize that maybe like 10 years ago,
we played a lot of places that had a real genre tack.
We played a lot of trance clubs, for example.
And what's happened, because largely down to the internet,
is that a lot of the electronic parties
happen in venues that don't have a genre tack.
You might get a bit of dubstep, and a bit of house,
and a bit of trance.
And at the moment, I feel like we
live in a kind of genreless place, in a way.
And I find it's very interesting.
When people are going to the studio,
there's less people thinking of, you know,
today I'm going to make a music in this genre,
and more people going into the studio saying,
I'm going to make a track that's going to be great for my sets
next weekend.
And it's that kind of freedom of restriction
that's made music really interesting.
And future is a little bit-- you know, it's not written.
We don't know where it's going to lead.
But it's exciting.
JONO GRANT: Genre is a useful labels for the press, I guess.
But I view genre as like race, or religion,
or any of those things.
And I'm a proponent of secularism.
So genre is kind of p-ing me off a bit, really.
I mean, I just like music.
And the press can label us or anybody what they want.
TONY MCGUINNESS: It's exactly that, actually.
This may be--
JONO GRANT: Divisive.
TONY MCGUINNESS: But the important thing,
I think, about the way it works in the way that make people
make tracks, is they bits of loads of genres.
If there was an app like Shazam that sort of told you
what genre it was.
I always feel like this when I'm listening to something--
is this tech house or techno?
I sort of feel like I want to know,
because I want to appear knowledgeable about it.
But if there was an app that told you
what it was, it wouldn't say, it's techno.
It would say, it's got 20% of techno.
It's got 5% of dubstep.
It's got 20% of trance.
That's the nature of electronic music, actually.
It isn't one genre.
We're not one race.
We're loads of different ones, all mixed together.
And I think that's what makes it great.
JONO GRANT: And as an artist, you can't own a genre.
But you can own your own artist name.
So with rock bands-- OK, I've just mentioned a genre--
but rock is, I think, a lot looser genre, in the same way
that you could say dance music, for example.
You can own your own kind of brand in that respect.
But Trance Around the World, we can't own the genre of trance,
if trance goes in a direction that we don't like, with Trance
Around the World, for example.
So by being Group Therapy in that instance,
we're able to create above and beyond world, rather
than clinging onto a genre that's slipping away somewhere
we don't want it to go.
CATHERINE ARMATO: OK.
We're out of time.
I just want to thank you guys so much for coming.
TONY MCGUINNESS: Thank you.
JONO GRANT: Thank you.