Due to the recent unrest in London, Modestep have cancelled their “Summer Carnival” scheduled for TODAY (11th August) and rescheduled it for August 23rd. All original tickets are valid for the new date and the show will remain at The Garage.
Tony of the band said: “I will be doing a special Modestep Radio show to try and make up for all of this as best I can. Please try to understand, much love to you all.”
Beatzbase pries into the inner thinkings of Modestep’s Josh:
1. Congratulations on your new release, how would you describe your track and its sound?
Our latest single ‘Sunlight’ was actually an old track of ours that we re-visited this year to finally give it a release. The style of the track is a combination of styles that have influenced us musically, we have the hard hitting/electronic sounds from dubstep, electric guitars from our rock background, some soul influences with the vocal and breakdown sections and also a transition to drum and bass/drumstep at the end. The overall tone we were going for was an aggressive yet anthemic summer track that could be played in clubs but also could sit comfortably on your iPod too.
2. When you make music, do you aim for a track that will make it commercially in the charts or something that will please the clubbers on the dance floors?
We don’t really aim for either. It’s been a pretty natural progression for us as a band to make stuff with hooks in (Josh has been a singer/songwriter for 10+ years) and the club sound just comes from the years we have spent working the dubstep scene. While we think it’s important for stuff to sonically work in both domains (we always mix our drums to sound punchy on big sound systems and the bass is designed to rumble in a club) we rarely walk into a studio session with any preconceived notions of where our tracks should sit in a marketplace.
3. What’re the top 3 tracks you’re listening to at the moment?
1. Candi Staton – Mr & Mrs Untrue – An absolutely GOLD old soul track that I recently stumbled upon.
2. Persist – BLAM – One of my favourite dubstep tunes of the moment, really fantastic sound design and groove.
3. Torqux & Twist – H E L L – Another belter by a great dubstep duo.
4. Who would you most like to collaborate with on a future track?
If it was a no-holds-barred kind of situation, I think we all agree that we would like the extremely talented Lauren Hill to get on a soul/dance crossover track with us. She would tear it apart.
5. Which do you prefer, working in the studio or performing live? And what are your experiences of playing live?
Definitely performing live for us. While we really love producing and writing our music and the outcome can be extremely satisfying, spending 15 hours a time in a dark room listening to the same 4 bars on repeat over and over again can be somewhat bad for our mental health. When it comes to mixing down our tracks, I can spend upwards of 4 days listening to the same few sounds and just tweaking them for hours, it’s not a particularly creative job and I think most producers from the dubstep scene find it a bane of their existence. Playing live is quite often instant gratification, there isn’t really a better feeling. We tend to have a strange pattern emerging with our live shows; before we go on stage there is no-one in the crowd, so we assume it’s going to be a terrible show… by the time we’re on stage, a crowd appears from nowhere. It’s happened far too many times to count now and it always comes as an amazing surprise for us.
6. Any tips for the next big thing in dance music?
Keep an eye out for Torqux & Twist, these guys are extremely talented producers and are taking the dustup world by storm right now. Also a young producer signed to Chronos Records who is based in Belguim called Eptic. This kid has some SERIOUS talent in both music and art and he has amazed us with everything he has put out so far.
7. What’s next for you? What’re your music plans?
We try not to plan too much. For us, it’s all about doing what is right for now and enjoying ourselves. We always think that if we try and plan too far ahead we’ll miss what is really important, right now! Musically we will just keep doing what we are doing, working on our album and trying to broaden out the spectrum a little more with our productions and live shows.
8 Finally, if your life was to be made into a movie, which actor would you like to play you and who would you have direct the movie?
Ross Kemp and Steve McFadden, otherwise known as the Mitchell brothers… mainly because we would find it funny. As for the director, we would have to go for the guy who has been shooting our web series ‘The Summer Of Modestep’, Liam Underwood of Suckerpunch. We know he would be able to represent what we are all about as he’s been living with us for a couple of months!
“Sunlight” by Modestep is out on August 15th
I reported last week that the next single from Modestep would be “Sunlight”. This week I have received a promo of the single – unfortunately it’s just the Radio Edit, so I can’t report on remixes of the single.
That said, as with Modestep’s last single, this one sounds like a dubstep mix of an uptempo dance track, and whilst “Sunlight” sounds very similar (mainly because of the vocals) to their last effort, the dubstep sound is more in your face in this track. Overall, as a dubstep track I’d say it is average – as a dance track, it’s probably better than most that make it into the charts.
We’ve yet to see many dubstep tracks grace the UK top 40, so it will be interesting to see where this charts when it’s released on August 15th.
Modestep could become the Pendulum of the dubstep world – bringing the dubstep beat and grind to the masses in the way Pendulum have with drum & bass. On reflection this may be ridiculed by the underground dubstep fans, but good luck to them I say.
As for Sunshine, their next single (out August 15th) check out the cool video below and judge for yourself. I like it for what it is – a nice piece of light dubstep.
And if you’re a Modestep fan, then catch the Modestep “Summer Carnival” at London’s Garage venue on August 11th or check them out at the following:
22/07/11: Redfest, Surrey
29/07/11: Global Gathering, Stafford
30/07/11: Audioriver, Poland
11/08/11: The Garage, London – headline show
18/08/11: Pukkelpop, Belgium
27/08/11: Invincible, Swindon
09/09/11: Bestival, Isle of Wight
