LSi Music’s Jamie Taylor and Robbie Russell from Leeds Student Radio went to chat to Adam and George of Bondax before their first ever live gig in Leeds at Canal Mills last week.

Let’s talk about DJing to start with. You’ve made your names by DJing but now you’ve got the live show on the road are you still planning to do sets or are you gearing more towards the live show?

Yeah, that’s the point of the Red Bull house parties [that are following the live shows]. We didn’t wanna just cut off a part of our lives that we’ve been doing for years now so it’s sort of a way of being able to still DJ and have a good party. Not that our [live] sets won’t be [a party] but I think in our sets we have a bit more of a chilled, relaxing part of our music that never sees the light of day when you’re in a club. So that’s what the live sets gonna be doing a bit more and then in the house parties, we’re gonna be having a mad time.

So what kind of balance do you see between DJing and your live set in the long term? Which would you prefer to be doing?

I think we’re gonna make our live set as good as we possibly can for now and definitely work at it. We both love DJing and I like DJing as much as I like doing this. Especially because Adam’s a better musician than me but I come from producing so I wanna keep making house music. I make house music on my own for fun. Sadly, I can’t put any of the tunes out because of contracts and shit so just getting to DJ is a chance to play that side of us. At the same time I think we want to move forward together and make some fucking weird R&B and shit like that cos’ that’s what our album kinda sounds like at the moment. It’s just you can’t DJ that out as like a 19 or 20 year old white kid. It looks a bit weird but bringing a live set in and then doing it live just kinda gives that whole vibe that we want. It’s good to have two outputs and two mediums to do that in which is fun cos’ we can’t always play the same shit we want either. In America we’ll still DJ because at the moment we can’t afford to take the live set over there. We will do next year but not for a bit. It’s a heavy, heavy business so we’re sorta just gonna make it as good as we can here and then see about touring it about and expanding.

So, you briefly mentioned the album, can you tell us anything about that? 

Its just in the works at the moment, we’ve done quite a lot of stuff but there’s still a lot to be done. It’s a big and, kind of, scary prospect but we’ve never wanted to rush into it so we’re still gonna take our time. It’s gonna be like next year, like Easter time I imagine but nothing concrete yet. It’s not finished at all but we’re excited about it though and we’ve made a lot of tunes and with a lot of exciting features that we can’t really talk about.

None at all?

No, we can’t because none of them are concrete but there’s names flying about and shit. It’s like pretty much all sort of 80 to 110 BPM with like 1 or 2 faster tunes like a bit more ‘Baby I Got That’ vibe but except for that the whole things pretty like fun songs, slow and then just what we think is hopefully quite a cool beat. If not, then we’re fucked aren’t we? (laughs)

What do you think it’s going to be like for those of us that will listen to it?

I reckon like it’s not gonna be the the kind of album you put on like Disclosure’s album or like Flume or something. You whack that kind of album on before you go out or whatever and then you go out and you’re like “yeah, that was like the warm up to it”. I think our album’s a bit more kind of the end of the night comes and you just wanna chill about. It’s a bit more risky in some senses but we’re kinda just making what we like to make.

Well you’ve gotta do something different really to stand out, haven’t you?

Completely.

You have said that you make dance music and not music to dance to, but as your most recent single, ‘Giving It All’ is the most dance-floor friendly track you’ve released, how do you feel about that now?

A: Yeah it’s true. It’s not like we wanna separate ourselves completely, it’s just we wanna explore both mediums and ‘cos we do love DJing, we love like house music and partying and stuff but we don’t wanna just be that cos’ then we just kind of be a copy of Disclosure or whatever. It’s not like the kind of music that we ever really intended to make I don’t think.

We wanted to just be able to make like whatever we wanted to do, ‘Giving It All’ is literally like just experimental music. It just happened to be like 120 BPM and I think it’s just then annoying that then we got grouped in a little bit into like a movement that’s happening. Obviously ‘cos like it did have those sounds but we never actually tried to make it like that you know. It was just like we all made this music at the same time, us and Disclosure and Flume and whoever. All these guys you chat to now say we had no idea about each other and it’s interesting to see like how Disclosure have moved into the mainstream with it.

We like never wanted to do that, it was never an aim and it was never like a thing that sort of inspired us to get big. All we wanted was to be underground. So it’s a bit annoying when we got put in that kind of area. I think the thing is, in the end, we just wanna go and do what we do and if we’ve failed doing what we do then at least we’ve done something we love so I think that’s why like sometimes some of the tracks are a bit random like some maybe a bit faster and some will be a bit slower.

We’re just making stuff that we like and that’s it really but even even ‘Giving It All’ is like really slow when you actually play it compared to like a banging house tune right now. It’s way slower.

‘Giving It All’ and ‘Gold’ are full vocal tracks whereas your earlier stuff that was more sample based. On the back of that, the next logical step would be to collaborate, I would think. Have you got any collaborations lined up as you must have had offers already? Has this lack of collaborations been purposeful or is there another reason?

No, it’s kind of like we’re saving it for the album really. We don’t wanna go into getting a feature on every track but at the same time we haven’t really had the chance. You’ve gotta remember that in music what you’ll hear now is like six months, if not more, behind what the guys making it are doing. Six months ago, we weren’t really anything you know. We were kind of a bubbling act but not really anything any vocalists cared about us so all these opportunities have come to us like now or recently will only be seen on the album in like 6 months time. We basically made like a shortlist of people that we wanted to get on the album and we’ve got the majority of them. We got pretty much like the main guy we wanted and the main girl really.

I read that you’re rumoured to be working with Sampha also, who has worked with SBTRKT and most recently Drake, is that just not happening then?

I fucking hope that happens. Our tour manager is the tour manager for SBTRKT as well and also Rhye and SOHN and all these people and we’re like, they’re probably our three favourite people right now so might pull his arm a bit and get some tunes with those guys. I really want Sampha but I think Sampha’s like just gone huge.

How was the live set received at your first show in Brighton, are you pleased with it?

We just wanted to get it out the way, like get the nerves killed a bit because it was a long time coming and we just kind of wanted to get it over and done with and be like yeah right we can play in front of a crowd. It wasn’t the most mental gig of our lives and I think you’ve just gotta learn from every gig though ‘cos we’ve been told this a lot. You know you go in at a certain level and you can just push yourself from there.

Last question, we just wanted to know what do you ask for on your rider? We heard you love Rolo Yoghurts?

(Looking at their rider) You never get exactly what you ask for and we’re not like that at all. You just put loads of shit on it and see what you get. We put champagne and shit on it and you act like you’re an idiot and most of the time we just end up getting whisky and coke.

We ask for snapple but you never get snapple.

If you enjoyed this chat, keep an eye out for even more interviews from different artists in the coming weeks. You can also hear the interview on Leeds Student Radio in the coming weeks, tune in at www.lsrfm.com when broadcasting starts on the 14th October.

Jamie Taylor