Duke Dumont

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Duke Dumont

In co-ordination with his recent tracks on the much loved Ministry Of Sounds: Deep House Sessions and an up and coming Australian tour, UK producer of the moment Duke Dumont got on the phone to give us an insight into his world. We spoke about how he is approaching his new album, possible collaboration and how his time will be spent in Australia!

Are you in London at the moment?

Yep, literally I got back to London last night, I’ve been on the road for five days or so. Um so yeah just back in the studio until this weekend.

We hear you are working on a new album. Are there any collaborations you can reveal or the style you are going for?

Basically it’s really, really early stages, so basically the rest of the year for me I’m still doing quite a lot of shows up until Listen Out, but once I get back from Australia I’m kind of locking myself away in the studio and just finishing songs I’ve done so in regards to collaborations I need to work on the music a little bit more, develop a few more instrumentals, then finish writing the songs as well then once that’s done then I’ll think about reaching out to people I want to work with, so it’s still in its very early stages but I’ve been recording with a few people I really want to record with.

Any particular people you’d like to point out or under wraps?

Basically there’s two ways I can go about it – the first way is I could predominantly work with one vocalist throughout the entire record so I’m not sure if you’ve hear the SBTRKT album? But SBTRKT works with a guy called Sampha and he pretty much features in three quarters of the record. So I kind of like the idea of that but there’ll be on or two features maybe popping up if the song is suitable for that vocalist. But I’m of the opinion where I want to work with the best vocalists, not necessarily the biggest vocalists.

So whatever it takes for me to get the best song I possibly can, but you know I could banter names around here and there, but until the songs are recorded it’s not even worth mentioning and it would be a nicer surprise when people just hear the song as opposed to hearing about it for 6 months to a year in advance.

What do you believe Australia brings to the global dance music community?

The thing is, I think with the internet nowadays, I think people should really stop placing the emphasis on what city you come from, what country you live in because other than actual the live aspects of playing like the UK does have some great clubs and great shows, and Australia has some great festivals, but actually guys making music and obviously girls as well, all you need is the internet cause I think most inspiration now comes from the internet cause no one watches MTV, unless you’re going to watch The Hills, you don’t watch MTV for the music do you? You listen to your local radio show or Triple J or whatever so Australia has some very talented artists, just look at artists like Flume, and I don’t listen to Flume and go ‘that’s Australian’ I listen to Flume and go ‘that’s a really good producer’.

There’s some great artists in Australia. It’s the same wherever, I mean there’s a guy who makes house music called Kink and I’m a huge fan of his and he’s from Bulgaria – you know like what’s going on in Bulgaria. And he makes probably some of the best house music around at the moment. So I’m of the opinion it’s all about individuals who want to pursue that course on life and become really good producers. I seriously think there’s no kind of borders now with how good music is. And to be honest with you, living in London or living in New York, is as a new artist it’s probably the worst place you can be because the cost of living is so high. And if you’re a genuine artist and you’re starting out and you don’t have a lot of money it’s actually a really hard place to live. So I think it’s actually a lot easier to be an artist somewhere that isn’t a big city. I think over time then if you gain a lot of success then living in a big city probably helps a little bit, but to start off with you can live in Antarctica as long as you’ve got a good internet connection.

Have you always lived in London?

I kind of see two sides to it cause I was born and in London and lived in London for the first 25 years of my life and now I have a recording studio in the countryside it’s about 30 minutes away from central London so I find it a lot easier to work out here cause there’s no distractions, it’s very peaceful, there’s loads of like forests and woodlands and it’s very tranquil, whereas in London it’s just a lot of you know tall buildings and a feeling that you can’t escape from the city. So I’m fortunate enough to have experienced both worlds and that’s why I speak quite passionately about that’s why it doesn’t really matter where you live unless you put the hard work in and have a passion for your music.

Anything else you’re looking forward to while you’re here in Australia besides performing?

I’m fortunate enough I think 3 or 4 times now over the past 6 or 7 years but the one thing I haven’t done is spend any amount of time in Melbourne, I mean I’ve usually spent a lot of time in Sydney but it would be really nice to spend more than two or three days in Melbourne so hopefully if it works out that happens but until I get the tour dates and everything I’m not too sure. So hopefully I’ll spend more time in Melbourne but then again I know a lot of people in Sydney now so I’ll be catching up with people I’ve met along the way.

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