The Knocks talk Festival Scenes, UK Love, & ..
Ben (left) & James (right) If you're at all interested or familiar with the continually popular domestic dance scene today, you know who The Knocks are. The increasingly hyped NYC-based duo of Ben Ruttner & James Patterson have been making their heavy rounds as of late, touching down on both sides of the Atlantic and hitting the festival and club scene, all while managing to churn out quality material for us to eat up. We sat down with the fellas at the Sweetlife Festival a couple weeks back in Columbia, MD for a quick convo. Follow up with the two's reflections on life as of late, upcoming work, and how they first came up not too long back. _____________________________________________________________________________ You guys have been super busy as of late, tell us about the last couple months. Ben - We’ve been travelling a lot - we were in California for a couple weeks recording in studios and such, and other than that we’ve been hitting spot dates. We did our own little tour from NY down to TX for SXSW - the Neon Gold tour which was us, St Lucia , Savoir Adore , all really fun. From SX we went straight to Ultra, played the main stage there which was pretty sick, and then we were in Miami for all of the Winter Music Conference as well and just hung out. James - And before that we were in London, like right before we did the Neon Gold tour, with DJ Shadow which was fun. Ben - Yep, after all that, the travelling is chilling out for a little bit - basically after Sweelife we’re going from doing a festival or show every weekend from back at home in the studio consistently. What do you guys like most about the festival scene? James - I like the fact that the crowd is pretty built-in, so you know you’re going to be reaching new people. And if they like it, the festival response, is way more epic than a regular show. People come to a festival and they’re just amped for whatever they’re gonna hear. Ben - Yeah the energy is way higher, it’s much happier vibes compared to a NY show or something where everyone is so serious, in scenes like this everyone's just here to have fun. And our music is so much fun, so, it’s hard not to have a blast to it. James - Sometimes shows can be more of a showcase for an artist, A&Rs; can be there or industry people. Not that industry people don’t go to festivals, they definitely do, but I feel like the ratio is more in favor of the music lover than it would be otherwise at a scene like this. You guys mentioned going home soon - being NY - how’d you two come up initially and first link up together... READ MORE Ben - I grew up in the boonies up in Vermont, James grew up in Connecticut, and we both did music apart originally. I used to make weird trip-hoppy instrumental stuff and he played through ...
Vibe To This
15 May 2012