{"id":6915,"date":"2015-02-16T09:47:41","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T08:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deephouselondon.com\/?p=6915"},"modified":"2015-05-14T13:55:26","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T11:55:26","slug":"exclusive-interview-wolf-lamb-zev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/exclusive-interview-wolf-lamb-zev\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive Interview: Wolf + Lamb (Zev)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who knows about Wolf +Lamb will be well aware of their history, their influence on the New York scene and their discovery and support of some of today’s brightest young stars including Nicolas Jaar. They are also responsible for launching the Crew Love concept, a collective which tours the globe bringing the very best party vibes to every venue they attend; with DJs and live acts representing all through the night (or day) at every event. We’re big fans here at Deep House London, so we caught up with one half of the duo, Zev Eisenberg, to find out what they’ve been up to lately. Here’s what he had to say…<\/strong><\/p>\n

What have you been up to? Have you been DJing much?<\/strong>
\nNo, we\u2019ve been taking it easy on the DJing. We did a couple of shows here and there, but for the most part, we\u2019ve been busting out tracks. Gadi put us on a strict schedule of 30 tracks before the year\u2019s up- remixes, tracks\u2026 whatever! We\u2019re not doing too bad, for not doing any in January anyway, we\u2019ve got six going already.<\/p>\n

So, when did you sit down and get all that planned out?<\/strong>
\nIt wasn\u2019t like that, we actually just started hitting it and making a bunch of tracks and everything was gelling real nice.<\/p>\n

What have you been working on so far?<\/strong>
\nThe whole spring is jammed up with albums from our artists. We really wanted to make a club track for each of the albums. That was really the start of the whole thing and we\u2019ve pretty much wrapped that up now. We\u2019re just working on the Slow Hands remix. They\u2019re all like club bombs, because all the albums are all pretty mellow.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to refer to it as \u201ccoming back\u201d, but, do you feel like you\u2019re going to have more prominence this year?<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s weird because we\u2019ve been at this for so many years that I think we just stopped looking at it in that way. We come, we go, we come, we go. It\u2019s really hard to classify it. I think one thing we do want to do is hang back a little more this year and make more music, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n

Is there a particular reason why less music was made and why now, you\u2019re focusing more on hanging back and making more music?<\/strong>
\nNo. I mean everything with us goes in waves and we don\u2019t control them. We\u2019re both very different personalities and we both have other shit going on. When planets align and everything is great in our musical sense, then we do production. Then, when we try to sit down, and we\u2019ll sit down a couple of times, and nothing happens, then we give it up for a couple of weeks or months. Then try it again when we feel. There\u2019s times when both of us are in the right head space, we want to tour and we do a lot of shows together. Then sometimes we don\u2019t, so we do them separately. We\u2019re very, very flexible as partners and give a lot of space to each other to have our own orbit. Then, when the orbit\u2019s fine, we do what we want to do.<\/p>\n

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I completely understand. It\u2019s one of those things, like with anything that’s creative or that comes from the heart or soul, you never really want to force it. There might be times where you have to give yourself a kick up the arse, but you don\u2019t want to be forcing yourself to make something happen, when it\u2019s clearly not going to happen, for whatever reason it is. Especially where you guys have the option, or different kinds of outlets, like you say. You can go and play music, go gigging or touring for a while, then you can also kick back and hit the studio, when the inspiration is right.<\/strong>
\nTotally, and there\u2019s also a lot of other work that we have going on, too. There\u2019s a lot of Crew Love work that we handle. There\u2019s a lot of other work going on that we believe, after so many years, everything is equally as important. If you\u2019re a touring artist, you have to tour, you have to make music. If you\u2019re running a label, you have to run the label, you have to do A&R, you\u2019ve got to come up with ideas. There\u2019s so many different things you have to do and all of them are important. So, because of that, none of them are important! So, really, I think that reflects on the nature of our label. It goes in spurts. We\u2019ve never had label staff who show up every morning with things to do until very recently, for example.<\/p>\n

So, how would you say your attitude and approach, to what we would define as a career, has changed and evolved since you first started the whole thing?<\/strong>
\nI think because of the way that our career in this industry grew very gradually. It grew from throwing parties in New York and transitioned from throwing parties primarily, to making music, to having a label. It evolved very, very gradually, over many, many years. Also Gadi and I had quite a tumultuous relationship in the beginning, because we were younger and dumber. We were just anxious to do things. However, I got sick a whole bunch of times in my twenties. I had cancer three times and that really kept on pulling back the reigns, if you will. Therefore, everything evolved very slowly and became about the preservation of the relationship, first and foremost. Everything fell in line behind that principle. Whenever we felt overwhelmed, like we weren\u2019t being creative or that we were getting on each others\u2019 nerves, then that dictated a step apart to regrow, individually, as artists and as people. Then when we did come together, we would have a lot to contribute to each other. That was the real survival skills that kicked in and everything, still, is dictated by that to this day. No project is important if we\u2019re not in the mood or if it\u2019s going to create a situation where we’re not working well with each other.<\/p>\n

Would you say that your health issues possibly led to that point where u would take a distance from each other? With the dynamics of the relationship now, was that impacted by your health issues or was it just a natural kind of evolution that led you to separate?<\/strong>
\nYes. Everything was impacted by my health issues. Everything was impacted by that. My own personal life, obviously, and my partner, who was pretty much at its mercy, like me. I was at the mercy of this thing that I wasn\u2019t in control of and so was he. I\u2019ve been in remission now for six years this January, but even after this went away for the last time, I\u2019m still guided by my own self preservation. I can\u2019t go touring for weeks on end. I have to stay relaxed, I have to stay calm and I have to constantly be putting myself in a situation where I can take care of myself. That means that I\u2019m going to be in Miami for the winter and try to sit in the sunshine, have time to cook, meditate, take care and go shopping. These kind of things can\u2019t be done on the road, it\u2019s just not possible. Maybe I would like to go hang out in, Mexico, say, for a couple of months or whatever. However, it\u2019s just not conducive to the things that I believe I have to do to survive.<\/p>\n

I think at this point, both of us aren\u2019t fighting with it anymore and we\u2019ve learned to make the best of it. There was a point where we both had the option, where we did actually branch out and set up our own kind of things. Gadi more than me. He\u2019s done solo work, he\u2019s done a lot more collaborations, he DJs as Baby Prince and has a lot more shows under his belt. All of that has given him the option to do whatever he wants on his own and it’s not a problem, but we\u2019re both extremely supportive of each others’ solo work. It just works out that we both shine a lot when we\u2019re working with each other. So, there is options, and it\u2019s hard to say, and maybe this is just something that came up in hindsight. But that kind of slow chug that we had, the accent to being world renown, touring the world and our labels growth, that taking off, taking off, and then pulling back again, because I got sick for 6 months, then taking off again, then pulling back again. That stop and go way of taking off probably contributed to how people take us. We still have this older, kind of, New York institution that\u2019s been around forever. That\u2019s not necessarily true, but the slow build has given us something which we embrace and we\u2019re like, \u2018you know what, that\u2019s not a bad thing to have\u2019. To be able to survive long term. Maybe it doesn\u2019t shoot up so high, but it doesn\u2019t dip down quickly either.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m not really into hyped top acts at all, and the same with a lot of people I know. It\u2019s a fast accent but it\u2019s a fast decent as well isn\u2019t it? Usually, people can burn out pretty quickly when they get over- hyped. So it\u2019s nice to have that slow- burning effect. I think it gives you a bit more credibility as well. It shows that you can maintain for a longer period of time because you are creating music that resonates with people, for a longer period of time.<\/strong>
\nYes, but that all ties into my health issues because that was absolutely like what was going on. I mean, we were ready, we had all the fuel, we were all geared up to take off, we had what we needed to take off. The first round of take off artists that we had was when Nico [Jaar] was part of it and we were ready to go straight to the moon. Then, everything just stopped for months and months and months, while I had like treatment or tried to figure out what to do, and had surgery or whatever I needed. It happened three fucking times. So that really, really changed the trajectory of, not only our career, but of all the people that are around us and that join together for the journey.<\/p>\n

Well, its great that you\u2019re still doing it, man!<\/strong>
\nHey, part of that survival instinct is what we were talking about all along in the beginning, which is to say that, we\u2019ve got a lot of pots in the fire. Then that way, for whatever cycle we\u2019re in, for whatever mood that we\u2019re in, for whatever situation I put myself in, because of my health, there\u2019s always something for us to work on. There\u2019s always something for us to be creative about. There\u2019s always something for us to come together. Not just me and Gadi, but Soul Clap and WLSC – which leads the whole Crew Love thing. There\u2019s always something for us to come together if we\u2019re feeling creative. There\u2019s always something fun to work on, that\u2019s appropriate for that time.<\/p>\n

So what else are you working on at the moment, apart from doing your music?<\/strong>
\nOk, so, we\u2019ve got the Music stuff. Touring is on hold until the big Crew Love album tour, coming in May, June and July. I\u2019m pretty much hanging back until then as far as touring goes. The Crew Love Album is a big project that we\u2019re all working on. Gadi and Eli had the actual musical content, the remixes, all those kind of things. Me and JMac do the media, artwork, graphics, the technical things and some of the financial things. That\u2019s a lot of work right now. Then we have the Crew Love site, which is pretty time consuming but also growing at a nice rate. We also have the Wolf + Lamb label which has a lot of stuff going on.<\/p>\n

Yea, tell me about that because you guys have got a lot going on…<\/strong>
\nWe have a brand new act, which is Life On Planets. They have just injected this whole new feel, this whole new sound, a lot of new vocals and a lot of new stuff to play with. We\u2019re having a show with them in New York this weekend, in and out in 24hrs in New York, then back to Miami. It\u2019s just going to be us and them, which is something we like to do. We\u2019ll have a showcase where we can really meld our sounds together and present a new sound. They also have an album coming out on Wolf + Lamb. Slow Hands has an album coming out on Wolf + Lamb, which he\u2019s been working on for a really, really, really long time. We then have another new artist, Cameo Culture, who\u2019s got an album coming out as well. So, there are three albums coming out and Crew Love\u2019s album is also coming out on Wolf + Lamb. It\u2019s actually a pretty tremendous amount of output, as some labels are geared up for that, such as Defected. Some of these labels\u2019 have just churned out every week since they started and that\u2019s their thing. Our output is much more limited because we tend not to put out albums or records from people that are not closely affiliated with us or that we wouldn\u2019t really stand behind. Therefore, our output is very seasonal and has to do with when people are in the mood and making music.<\/p>\n