10 Questions with ... Above & Beyond

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/aboveandbeyond
Twitter: @aboveandbeyond
Instagram: @aboveandbeyond
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCVE-ybBDg3UHSUylEVdPAsw

Soundcloud:

1) For those that don't know, who is Above & Beyond?

I'm Jono [Grant] ... and I'm Tony [McGuinness] ... and back in London is Paavo [Siljamäki].

He had our studio in pieces today, tweaking some stuff with the sound.

2) You just did a big show in New York City at Barclays in January. What was that like?

It was amazing! We didn't know what to expect; we've never been to that venue before. The sound seemed amazing from everyone who sat out front. It was great to try out some of the new visuals for the new show ... lasers, surprises. That's the thing there were surprises for us, too. Confetti is great because it's kind of confetti 2.0, where these pieces of our album cover fly out at the end of the gig. People take them home. It's pretty cool, I say.

3) It's an exciting time for Above & Beyond, your brand new album, "Common Ground," which is your fourth electronic album, recently had a debut at #3 on the Billboard 200 album chart and has gone to #1 in 16 countries.

Yes, very exciting; it's going very well. We've done better than we've ever done before in the American market, which is extraordinary! And the tour is going great.

4) Where does the name of the album come from?

The name of the album, I guess, the last three albums have all been informed by our community of fans. "Group Therapy" was a description of the second album that we made because for us, it felt therapeutic to make music. But, it very quickly became this description for the way that our fans interact with us.

We fit the description of that reality. "Common Ground" is a description of a piece of philosophy that we all feel ... and it's a shame that we need to express it verbally. The world has become a very divisive place. The Internet has affected people's views and positions on things. We now have a political system on both sides of the Atlantic [Ocean] where it's more like a war than a negotiation. Everyone is getting so obsessed with labels, nationality, out of Europe, in Europe, and countries splitting apart. The idea that we need to be in smaller and smaller groups really flies in the face of our world. Sometimes we fly around to countries that are at war with each other, yet I find very smart people and similar needs and aspirations and respect for the music. We're trying to point out that even with all these labels and separations, it's possible to find common ground with anybody. Indeed, it's one of the things that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom; our ability to do that. We just encourage people to do that with our music.

5) The group is from London, the current single, "Northern Soul" is about an American City. How'd that happen?

Jono: It's about Detroit, yeah! We have been going to Detroit for a long, long time. We've been aware of Detroit all our lives. Anyone who has paid attention to where music comes from, we all know the soul labels in Detroit and the town of Motown. Later, obviously, was Detroit Techno, which I guess is bigger in the U.K. So it's a town that has given so much to the world, not to mention the car business that was there -- shiny chrome hubcaps and white wall tires -- everything comes from Detroit. It went through a terrible time. What we experienced when we went back there, the city that has his rich and glorious past, which maybe people are forgetting, but is fighting back. The city center is being rebuilt and renovated. Friends of mine opened a music university a little while ago called Detroit Institute of Music Education: DIME. It's a place we have some affinity with. Got involved in the Urban Farms project, which is where we've been using vacant lots where houses used to be. They turned them into farm land to grow vegetables and provide social spaces for communities in the absence of shops, which have all disappeared. And this song, I guess, is an attempt to put all of our feelings about the history and the resurgences of the city. And it almost sounds like a love song about a person, but it's Detroit personified.

6) When Above & Beyond started; how did every body meet? How does the name Above & Beyond come about?

Jono: I met Paavo at a university, and it turns out both of us wanted to start a record label and we are both into Dance music. One day I carted all my gear into a taxi, and took it a mile up the road to where he was living near our university. We made the first ever record together, "Anjunabeats Vol. 1," which was a self-tilted release on the label, Anjunabeats. Meanwhile, I'd been making sound-design sample CDs for Yamaha, and basically Tony's brother bought one of these CDs and got in touch. It turned out that him and his brother were making music together any way and wanted us to remix a track. So Paavo and I remixed one of their tracks. Then, Tony got offered a remix and he fancied doing it with us. He got offered a remix through Warner [Bros.] Records, a track called "Home" by Chakra. The guys who produced it are The Space Bros. We did the remix together and while we were making it, Tony pointed at the wall and saw "Above & Beyond" on my wall 'cause I had printed out this thing off the Internet. That's what we should call it, Above and Beyond! And that's kind of when Above & Beyond started.

Tony: But it was a name for the remix at the time. We needed to give the remix a name. I remember thinking we don't need to give ourselves a name. There wasn't really a plan for it to extend beyond that first remix. Jono and Paavo were the Dirt Devils at the time, and we were Anjunabeats, doing all these things. I guess we got lucky because Above & Beyond felt right to us at the time, but maybe we hadn't thought it through. It described a little bit what we are trying to do make it sound really, really great and be better that anybody else. But the thing that really helped us was it was at the beginning of the alphabet, so we ended up getting in on a lot of polls higher than we would've done because when you list the Top 100 records of the year, we're like third or fourth. We ended up getting Tune of the Year on an Armin's radio show in the beginning -- I think more often than we should've done because we were at the top of the list!

7) Because I was in your studio in October, what's your favorite keyboard?

Tony: Oh God, pick one ... probably the Moog Mini Moog or the Roland Jupiter 8

Jono: I would say the Roland D 50 because it's the only one I have left

8) If you could give one piece of advice to an up-and-coming artist, DJ, producer, what would it be?

Tony: Be yourself.

Jono: I was going to say exactly the same: Be yourself at all costs.

9) Something breaks ... you fixing it or hiring somebody?

Jono: Fixing it.

Tony: I'm going to hire somebody ... I'm going to hire Jono ... I see!

10) Before you go to bed, you watching TV or reading a book?

Jono: Reading a book.

Tony: Yes reading a book.