{"id":72103,"date":"2023-08-14T10:55:31","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T08:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/?p=72103"},"modified":"2023-08-14T10:55:31","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T08:55:31","slug":"interview-substax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/interview-substax\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview – Substax"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand electronic act Substax<\/strong> are genre-bending pioneers of electro-soul and breakbeat. Based in Auckland\/Tamaki Makaurau, they produce a unique fusion of soul, funk, breakbeat, and deep house. They are renowned both for their epic downbeat as well as breakbeat-influenced club tracks. This time around, the duo is delivering an emotive L.A. Sonic EP\u00a0<\/strong>via Punk City Holdings<\/strong> which is scheduled for release on August 18th<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

We sat down with Substax<\/strong> to talk about their upcoming EP, influences, creative process, and more.<\/p>\n

Hey Substax! Thanks for joining us today. How\u2019s your summer been so far?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Substax:\u00a0 Hey! Thanks for having us here.\u00a0 It is winter here in New Zealand now. Summer was not really a summer: severe flooding and a major cyclone, so we hope it is a better deal for everyone in Europe.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Congrats on the release of your new L.A. Sonic EP on Punk City Holdings. What was your inspiration behind this record?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Substax: Thank you.\u00a0 The primary inspiration was the fusion of deep house and breakbeat.\u00a0 It is a match we think works really well.\u00a0 We then took inspiration from Los Angeles – which is a city I love visiting – and kind of merged those things together.\u00a0 Speaking of summer, that probably does give it a summer flavor, but an atmospheric one.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Based in New Zealand, how much of an influence did the environment have on your sound?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Substax:\u00a0 It is always an influence.\u00a0 We both live out on the coast, one of us on the west coast and one of us on the east coast.\u00a0 Our homes both look out over the sea and my house over a huge inland sand dune.\u00a0 We are incredibly lucky down here that the landscape is hugely inspiring and it is always there in our music either in atmosphere, texture, or structural dynamics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tell us more about Substax. How did you meet, and whose idea was it to start making music together?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Substax:\u00a0 The act was originally formed in London many years ago when Jason Johnston and I (Nick Farrands) were living there. We were both friends from back home and had played in guitar bands together for a while.\u00a0 We both had a love of electronic music and used to go out partying and to festivals as you do.\u00a0 We set up a small studio in Kentish Town and started working on material.\u00a0 I encouraged Jason into it as he was a drummer and I figured (correctly) that this would be a great collaboration with my keys based production style.\u00a0 We were programming beats of course as well as finding breaks to use but his drumming knowledge and improvisation were huge.\u00a0 After we moved back to Auckland I met Claudia Gunn, our vocalist, through mutual friends and we started working with her.\u00a0 She comes from a folk music\/singer-songwriter background but was really excited to work with electronic producers, and it just clicked.\u00a0 We were looking for a vocalist so the timing was there.\u00a0 Jason is not involved in new writing now but is available for live shows.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Could you walk us through your creative process?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Substax: We really try not to get too formulaic, but these days I would typically write the instrumentals and send it to Claudia for vocals.\u00a0 But we have also worked pretty much 50\/50 together on songs in the studio from scratch. So certain tracks might start out on the piano before we bring them into the DAW.\u00a0 Claudia writes primarily on the guitar initially and she might bring me an idea and we produce it together.\u00a0 But the vocals on L.A. Sonic are licensed samples, as Claudia was busy with her solo music work.\u00a0 So I began playing around with samples and found they added an element we would never have come up with ourselves.\u00a0 I used to work significantly with samples back in the day so it has been a bit of a return to old styles. \u00a0 Cool samples just have a nuance that you can almost work a whole track around.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do you define success? Is it about the number or is there more to it?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Substax: It is just about the music for us.\u00a0 If we write music we are passionate about and which we believe in, that is success for us.\u00a0 Any further success, whether through exposure, streams, downloads, or financially is just icing on the already perfect cake. Obviously, like all artists we work for as much exposure as we can achieve for each release and to keep growing a following, and we work really hard on the promotion, but the music comes first for us.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Where can people expect to see you perform live in the coming months?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Substax: We are not playing shows at the moment.\u00a0 Just focussing on production, new material, and promoting the releases, but we will look to develop a new live show within the next 6 months or so.\u00a0 The live work is a big production process for us as we want it to be as live as it can be for electronic music and that does involve a lot of time.\u00a0 We also work with visual (usually video) artists on the shows, so that also takes time to collaborate and refine the integration.\u00a0 We will be working with Rachel Dreyer, who is a VJ and DJ\/producer, and also my amazing cousin, on the next show.\u00a0 In the meantime, we have some cool stuff in the pipeline with 2 further EPs and 2 singles scheduled for release this year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Last but not least, is there a message that you wish to spread to the world?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Substax: Believe in the music.\u00a0 Music has the power to transport people and that is a pretty incredible thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Follow Substax\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

SC: <\/strong>https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/substaxnz<\/p>\n

IG:<\/strong> https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/substax_music\/<\/p>\n

FB:<\/strong> https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Substax<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Zealand electronic act Substax are genre-bending pioneers of electro-soul and breakbeat. Based in Auckland\/Tamaki Makaurau, they produce a unique fusion of soul, funk, breakbeat, and deep house. They are renowned both for their epic downbeat as well as breakbeat-influenced club tracks. This time around, the duo is delivering an emotive L.A. Sonic EP\u00a0via Punk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":72104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3971],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-audio","has-post-thumbnail","category-interviews-london","post_format-post-format-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72107,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72103\/revisions\/72107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}