This article is part of a weekly feature on SalaciousSound: every Friday we’ll have a new exclusive interview for you with fantastic musicians from around the world.
Over the last 4 years, the Disco Fries have slowly but surely been raising their profile. They’ve now had a chance to work with Flo Rida, Usher, Estelle, Selena Gomez, Nelly Furtado, and Ida Corr. A quick look at their remixes set on soundcloud reveals nods from serious producers from all over the place!
I had a chance to catch up with them about their recent goings-on, what kind of parties they’re spinning, and to ask them what they think about formal training as a musician. They just released this new mixtape, so pop it on while you read!
Disco Fries G-Shock Mini Mix by DiscoFriesMusic
Ok so first thing’s first – who makes up Disco Fries, and where the heck are you guys from?
So it’s the 2 of us. Nick and Danny. I’m the quiet one that doesn’t leave the studio so there’s plenty of people that think its just Nick.
But we’re both in NJ
So you guys met in Boston, right?
Yup we were roomates in college Freshman year and decided to start the group a few years later. We both graduated from Berklee in 2008 and have been working on productions since.
I’m curious about that – a lot of people are really curious if formal training is worth it. What is one thing they do well, and one thing they could do better?
Yeeah Berklee was great and we both use a lot of the techniques that we learned while we were there. All of the fundamentals I know about sequencers/synthesizers/anything music production related started at Berklee bc I wasn’t really involved in this kind of music prior to college.
There’s a lot of networking opportunities but I really boils down to how you utilize those contacts and resources bc plenty of people just do the work and end up without work right after they graduate.
Its funny because if you walked into a Berklee class today you might think its a jazz based music school, which at its foundation it is but they have been trying to develop it into a “contemporary” music institution with all of the latest additions to the curriculum. Again, its about how you use the knowledge. We know plenty of kids who graduated at the top of the class and still a little stuck.
Yeah Berklee is definitely heavy on the jazz but you have tons of success stories out of there in almost every genre of music.
You guys seem to have made good use of it.. can you tell us a bit about how the collab with Clinton Sparks came about?
We’ve been talking to Clinton for a while, actually since we collaborated on mixing Fatman Scoop’s vocal on his track with Pitbull called “On To You” and were waiting for the right record to move on. Clinton jumped all over the “Killer” instrumental when we first sent it over…the guy practically had a movie written with that beat as soon as he started on it.
Yeah he’s crazy ambitious and so pretty much as soon as we sent him the instrumental he came up with a whole concept for project
The video drops in a few weeks, its going to be his directorial debut…the visuals are insane.
Who supported on that effort?
a lot of it was in house basically. Clinton has his team of guys he uses for video (same ones that shot the ambiguous video for him)
The video was directed by Clinton and Sev One, we had about 25 crazy’s that came to the shoot and starred in the video, and our label is pushing the record right now in North America
we did all the mixing/production at our home studios and then had it mastered at StadiumRed in Harlem
We still are working on release dates for the rest of the world
Meanwhile you guys are just gearing up to shoot the vid for Party On right?
Yuup we’re gonna get footage for that while we’re down in Miami for WMC next week. Honorebel is based down there so it’ll be cool meeting him for the first time in person, and we’re gonna perform the record together on saturday night as well
What night is that?
All day Saturday March 12th, at the National Wet Party at the National Hotel in south beach
So what else do you have in mind for when you’re in Miami? I get the feeling the week is one crazy party, especially with this whole Ultra/WMC thing now.
It should be interesting with the separation of Ultra and WMC but we’re trying to stay as busy as possible. As soon as we get in on Wednesday we’re heading over to the conference and are being a part of the Remix Panel, Thursday we start shooting the video and Saturday we are doing the National and then a Skins Party
You mean like a house party? I just looked this up on urban dictionary, confirm or deny: a huge party in someone’s house where nearly everything is broke, lots of people are having sex and almost everyone is either drunk or drugged up.
Haha yeah thats what we were told, except its not at someones house as far as i know
It should be interesting… As long as they have bottles, we’ll be pouring while performing
Some shows we have to cater to a more “top 40” crowd so we’re hoping that just means we can play some bugged out shit and everyone will be into it haha
I imagine your tunes are a good fit for most audiences no? Is it fair to say you guys are straddling deeper house and pop? I’m thinking of your latest Hyper Crush remix for example
yeeah definitely trying to. Sometimes we lose track of our direction in the studio and something will start to lean more towards one of the 2 extremes
but i think most of our stuff can work in both worlds
Its crazy when we walk into some of the venues and someone will be like “yo that Ambiguous remix ya’ll did is the most insane thing we’ve ever heard” then we spin the next day in the same city and the crowd is more into the more top 40, party anthem type tracks we’ve been involved with. For the most part though, we try to play a bit of everything when we spin just to see the reaction
So you have a direction more or less.. if you had to pick, would you be interested in the longevity of a ‘sound’, or would you favour the ability to pivot?
I think for us its all about evolving so we’re always trying to come up with new fresh ideas. Sometimes its cool to ride a wave and see where it takes you if a certain type of sound is working but overall we don’t want to be stuck 10 years from now doing the same exact thing we were doing before.
yeah we definitely like being able to change it up here and there
sometimes we go more electro, more progressive, more pop, whatever but i think it all still relates back to what our “sound” is in one way or another
So what can we expect over the next couple months from Disco Fries?
We’re still working out our release schedule but you can expect some new records with Niles Mason, Hyper Crush, Jeremy Carr, and Gary Pine to name a few and we are still working with DJ Class, Fatman Scoop and Clinton Sparks on some new material as well. We’re sitting on a ton of unreleased records just going back in and fine tuning them now to get them ready
Yup all of that plus more remixes…we’ve got one for Chris Brown and one for DJ Snake ft. Eva Simons that should be out soon
Sick! I Can’t wait guys! Well thanks for your time, and remember, the more you break at that skins party next weekend in Miami, the better your DJ set is!
We’ll get some of it on film for ya man!
haha yup. Thanks for the support with all of our records we really appreciate it
Disco Fries Gone Wild: Miami 2011
Niiiiice
And before we forget, everyone can check our new music at www.SoundCloud.com/TheDiscoFries as well as DiscoFriesMusic.com
and be sure to add us on twitter @TheDiscoFries