In the recent run of breakout UK house and future garage duos, first came Disclosure, then Bondax, both groups finding success in their blend of pop hooks and house tracks. Blonde look well placed to follow in that dynasty. Having set up the hugely influential dance music YouTube channel, Eton Messy, they’ve recently been releasing their own music, including hits All Cried Out, I Loved You and Feel Good. With a successful first live tour done and dusted and an album in the pipeline, Blonde look set to push on in 2016.
Could you start by telling us about how you met?
Blonde: We met in typical 21st century fashion, via the internet! I was running a YouTube channel called Eton Messy at the time, and Jake got in contact with me about posting one of his tracks when he was better known as Thieves. We got chatting and I asked Jake to remix a track of mine which he did a fantastic job of. So we decided to work together more often, and it wasn’t for another few months until we actually met face to face! At this point we had already finished 2 tracks together. You’ve gotta love the internet!
Eton Messy (the hugely popular UK Youtube house music channel) has played a huge role in pushing dance music to a wider audience. How does it feel to be a part of that?
B: We feel very proud to be part of that movement, especially in the earlier days. We’ve seen a lot of friends go on to have amazing success, all starting from their bedrooms and now making a living from doing music. I don’t think any of us at the time foresaw that happening. We were all just content to be making tracks for our Soundcloud pages, with no ambition past that. We’re totally grateful for the platform Eton Messy provided for us at the beginning, it made getting our music heard by our audience so much easier.
How would you characterise the dance music scene at the moment?
B: The more popular the particular style of dance music is the more diluted that scene then becomes. Whilst there is still such a buzz around the music at the moment there are so many new artists coming through, which is great but it does make finding those gems that little bit harder. It’s great to see house music flying high once again though. It’s a genre with so much history and it’s a real privilege to be part of its world.
You had your first live tour last year. How did that go?
B: It was an amazing experience! We love performing live. There is something special about seeing you music come together like that. It’s something we never considered for the Blonde project at the very beginning, but as time went by and our music became more and more song based, it seemed to make sense. Off the back of the last tour’s success we are looking to plan a second one soon, so watch this space!
Could you tell us a bit about how your writing process usually works?
B: Every track is different but more often than not the initial ideas come from writing sessions with songwriters, and once that early seed of an idea has been found we work it up into a full track. It’s usually at this point that we begin the process of finding the feature vocalist, that is if it hasn’t been written for a particular singer in mind.
TM: So far, you’ve used different vocalists on each of your tracks. Is there a reason for this?
B: We love to collaborate, it’s what keeps the music interesting and only adds to each tracks character. Whilst our music has a somewhat trademark sound across our productions having the same style of vocals on all our music has never been appealing to us. For one track an RnB style vocal may fit better but then on the next one a massive diva vocal is what’s needed. I Loved You and All Cried Out are perfect examples of that.
TM: We’ve heard there’s an album on its way. Is that true and what can you tell us about it?
B: It is true, yes! It’s something I think every artist wants to achieve and we are really excited to have an album under our belts. We’ve worked with a lot of talented artists on the tracks and it doesn’t feel like we are that far off from finishing it. We hope to have a release date this year.
Catch Blonde and many more amazing house acts at Sunny Side Up next Month.
https://soundcloud.com/blondesound/sets/highlights-mixtapes