Stavroz on Creating, Producing, and Performing Their New EP Kick Up the Dust - Music Production Podcast #350

Stavroz is an organic and cinematic electronic music group from Belgium. The award-winning 4-piece combines DJ-style electronic performances with acoustic instruments such as bass, guitar, wind, and brass. In December 2023, they released their Kick Up the Dust EP, combining a variety of styles, moods, energies, and instrumentation.

I spoke with Gert from Stavroz, whose varied role in the band includes mixing, producing, and performing brass instruments, among other duties. Gert takes us through the band's creative process beginning with song creation, jamming, recording, and live performance. 

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Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:02.984)

Hello everybody, welcome to the Music Production Podcast. My name is Brian Funk. This is the show about all things making music. And today on the show I have Gert from Stavros, really cool organic electronic band that's been just coming off tour and just released their new EP Kick Up the Dust, which I've had the pleasure of listening to and really enjoying some awesome production stuff and just...

great overall vibes coming out of that music. So I think if you haven't heard it yet, you'd really enjoy it. Gert, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Gert (00:39.121)

Happy to be here, Brian. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having us. I'm just representing the three other band members here as well right now.

Brian Funk (00:41.632)

My pleasure.

Brian Funk (00:47.614)

Right, so you're one fourth of the band. Congratulations on the new EP, by the way. That just came out very recently, yesterday, I believe. So that's a huge accomplishment. I know that must feel pretty good.

Gert (00:53.795)

Thank you. Yeah.

Gert (01:00.172)

It's good to have it out the door. So, uh, yeah, it's, uh, been in the works. Like, it always takes a while. You know, I guess most people who listen to your podcast are music makers. So all of you know how it is.

Brian Funk (01:02.943)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:11.276)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:19.302)

Right, right. Yeah, sometimes the stuff that gets released is almost old to you by the time it gets released.

Gert (01:26.848)

Oh yeah, there were a couple, there's two songs on there that are definitely, yeah, three years old, maybe four years old. So, yeah, they've been catching some dust on my hard drive. So we kicked off the dust, kicked up the dust, however. Kinda, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:33.98)

Okay. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:40.59)

Hehehe

Right.

Brian Funk (01:47.886)

Literally, yeah. Well, that's got to be a great feeling. And I always like to remind anyone, it's a huge accomplishment. Anytime you release things, most people that start making music never get to that point. And to find your way through, it's never easy, no matter how many times you do it. And I haven't spoken to anyone on this podcast that's told me, it's very easy. I just show up and the albums come out of me. And so...

Remember everybody that it is a huge accomplishment and also for you guys, you know, I hope you're celebrating and enjoying in that very much

Gert (02:24.452)

Yes, yes, most definitely.

Brian Funk (02:27.274)

So you said you're one fourth of the band. Do you wanna tell us what your role is exactly in the group? This is interesting today because bands are so, what is a band anymore, right? It used to be pretty simple. I play the guitar, I play the bass. And now, you guys especially have some interesting overlap, I'm sure too.

Gert (02:36.433)

Um.

Gert (02:49.396)

Oh yeah, it was definitely. It's been not easy to figure out which role belongs to who. And just like you say, there's overlap. And it's not like The Beatles anymore where you have two singers and then a drummer and the bass and then the guitars. We have bass, we have guitar, we have some horns, like we have a saxophone, we have a trumpet or rather...

Brian Funk (02:58.094)

Hmm.

Gert (03:18.676)

Cornet, which is a shorter, smaller version of a trumpet, which I play. Yet, since we're mostly into the organic, I automatically say organic, into the electronic slash organic scene, music.

We don't necessarily need guitars. We don't necessarily need a bass guitar. We don't even necessarily need horns or wind instruments or whatever, because we have a computer. So as a result, some music is made on computer exclusively, and there's no horns, there's no guitars even coming into the songs. So...

Gert (04:10.328)

then it becomes a little bit of a challenge, like how are we going to bring this in a live situation? But we can chat perhaps more on that later. But my role specifically is basically I kind of operate the studio, so basically when we get together, all four of us in the studio, I'll be at the controls of the Ableton.

In our case, that's the DAW that we use. And we'll record everyone's ideas or we'll try and come up with some stuff. Sometimes it's all four of us in the studio. Sometimes it's going to be two by two, like two of the musicians get together in their own home studio or in one of their home studio as well.

Brian Funk (04:47.734)

Hmm.

Gert (05:08.212)

Sometimes someone just comes up with something by himself and then afterwards we kind of jam over that idea that musician has already kind of worked out. So there's many, many different ways of getting to a result. There is no one right way that some songs come to existence after a jam.

where all four of us just pick up an instrument. And other times it just comes from sitting behind the computer and trying this and that and that and that and weeks pass and you're getting kind of banging your head against the wall because you're thinking this is the shit. We just need to finish it. We're at 85% but that last 15% is.

It's not coming. So I'm guessing seeing by your smile, it's recognizable to you as well.

Brian Funk (06:14.502)

Oh yeah, once you get the first 85% done, you can work on the second 85%. That's how I see it.

Gert (06:24.674)

Yeah, so there's many different ways that we go about making our songs. My role is basically, or the studio where I live is where we will eventually, all of it arrive and receive final treatment. So the mixing is going to happen here.

Brian Funk (06:46.05)

Hmm.

Gert (06:50.1)

Sometimes also the mastering. So for example, for the last EP that we did, I did the mixing and the mastering. All also in the studio. And then other than that, yes, some trumpet, like I mentioned earlier is on my plate as well, but limited amounts.

Brian Funk (07:05.355)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (07:09.366)

Right? Yeah. Yeah, I've seen some videos of various types of wind instruments actually with you guys. And it adds a really nice texture. It's, you know, the air, the breath of the human voice even, I think is just a helpful ingredient to start bringing, especially music that is kind of living in the computer. It brings it to life, literally breathes life into whether it's a singer and especially like a wind instrument like that.

It's a very nice touch. I enjoyed that a lot about your music.

Gert (07:43.76)

I appreciate it.

Gert (07:50.104)

It, I guess it just happened. It came a little bit from a background of, well, I don't want to call it a background, but, um, as Brandt, uh, my buddy who originally actually started Stavros and then pretty much, uh, instantaneously came to me and said, like, Hey, let's do this together. He had this, uh,

love of Balkan music back in 2012, 2011. There were some good artists at that moment like also Goran Bregovic and these types of artists. So we started out with trying to make some of these Eastern European influenced electronic music. So we were in one hand, we were into

the old Bukaschade and this minimalist German techno, minimal techno kind of vibe. And on the other hand, the very full and rich Balkan songs with a lot of wind instruments, horns, like very opulent and very present. So kind of found a...

way to balance that somehow, I guess. That's where the horns came from and still are coming from. And that's also where sort of the name came from, the name of Stavros, as it is a name that is, it's a Greek name and it's more common in East and South, Southeast of Europe. So, hence a little peek into that.

Brian Funk (09:43.83)

Right, a little shout out to that, yeah. I like that about what you guys do, because it is at times very minimal, but then it gets almost cinematic and really kind of grandiose. So you guys have a lot of dynamic range to work with, and you take a lot of advantage of that, especially in the performances that I've seen, where you guys get real, almost down to nothing. And then next thing you know, we're kind of like...

Gert (09:44.733)

as well.

Gert (10:09.915)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (10:12.466)

everything's out, all the bells, the whistles and everything is going. Thanks for an exciting journey as the listener and I'm sure as an audience member as well.

Gert (10:16.372)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gert (10:24.552)

I would love to be able to see it from the point of view of the audience. Of course we can videotape it and then watch the entire show, but I don't know, it's still different to really live it as an audience member to see it. Because when you're on stage yourself, you're so much so deep in it.

Brian Funk (10:29.142)

Hehehe

Brian Funk (10:37.634)

Yeah.

Gert (10:50.512)

and you're doing something that you will actually never witness the way someone else witnesses it. So it's a very weird paradox somehow. You're doing something and you have to trust other people to like it.

Brian Funk (11:00.502)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (11:07.846)

Yeah, I know it. You gotta go by their reactions. I mean, I know that feeling playing in bands doing live performances. It's, you know, it's kind of like the curse of the band. You don't ever get to be in the dance if you're in the band. Or you never get to experience what it feels like from that outside. You're always, there's this weird thing that happens that you have to be lost in the music to some degree, but you also have to

be paying attention as well to what's going on and making sure things are running as expected. There's this kind of letting go and also holding on that as an audience member, you can just kind of let whatever's happening take over in a certain way. It's the curse of us. We don't get that.

Gert (11:57.588)

especially...

Gert (12:01.22)

And you make a good point. And especially in the electronic music scene where you're on dark dance floors with flashing lights, sometimes a bit more than other times, but it's really more about the hypnotizing feel. At least it is for me. When I go out to party, I prefer the...

Brian Funk (12:07.523)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (12:20.875)

Right.

Gert (12:30.544)

I like that it's repetitive, basically, the type of music that we do. And the whole night becomes a journey. So I like that you said earlier that our music can turn into a journey, and that is exactly what we're trying to do. Make people basically do a DJ set, or make it appear as it is a DJ set.

but we're performing it live. Uh, we have instrument on stage and from the first second to the last second, we kind of really put everything together, make all the puzzle pieces fit, make sure the transitions work out the way we want them to do, the way we want them to.

Brian Funk (13:01.951)

Right.

Gert (13:23.668)

When we transition from one song into another, what is the key of the next song? How do we go to that key? So sometimes we even rehearsing more on the transition than on the songs themselves. Because there's different energy from one song to another. There's different intensity. There's different tempo. So it's, it's a continuous.

Brian Funk (13:30.126)

Hmm.

Gert (13:53.444)

journey for us in order to make that journey and to make it work as well. To make it fit. DJ sets are also like that. It's about intensity, it's about energy, it's about bringing more energy and then knowing when to decrease and when you've given enough. Yeah, that's...

Brian Funk (13:59.26)

Mm-hmm.

Gert (14:22.836)

That's a bit of an exercise that we've been going through to learn. And we are blessed that we have two DJs on board and two proper musicians, like who are very skilled at their instrument. And I don't count myself to, even though I play trumpet on the stage, I don't count myself as the classic band member. I was always a DJ, same as Esbronth.

who originally started Savros that I mentioned before. We're the DJs, we're the guys that come from this more minimalistic, techno-ish kind of vibe. And then there's Peter and Maxime, and they are coming more from the rock bands. So they know how to be on a stage, they know how to behave there, and how to operate in a band.

Brian Funk (15:02.819)

Hmm.

Gert (15:21.988)

So it's a good balance that we're two and two and we can kind of show to each other what is our world and that the others pick up on that and vice versa.

Brian Funk (15:38.05)

Hmm. Yeah, that's interesting. It's a smooth way to bring things together. Um, I come from a more like rock band background myself playing guitar and making songs, you know, they kind of like these self contained things. Um, as I've gotten more into the music production recording and playing around with synthesizers, electronic music, I've grown to really appreciate the way things are woven together.

So a lot of times with the rock band, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, here's our song and it's done. Thank you. Thank you very much. And like, and now like the show stopped and then we move on. Here's the next song, right? But finding ways to just kind of make it a cohesive thing. I mean, when I watch your performances, it's almost hard to tell when the songs change. It just sort of morphs and transforms. And I really like that.

as far as like playing in rock bands, I enjoy figuring out ways to work that kind of stuff in, even if it's just you're making noise before you connect to the next thing. Because it does help you pull things together and they're also, those are nice points to bring the dynamics down or change the energy a little bit so that you can bridge to the next, you know, leg of the experience.

Gert (16:49.2)

Yeah.

Gert (17:02.686)

Yeah. And that's why it becomes important to just rehearse those transitions as well. Sometimes we have people asking us, do you play the same set every time? And

Brian Funk (17:13.933)

Hmm.

Gert (17:22.192)

It's tempting to then say, oh no, every time is different. But basically, yes, theoretically every time is different because we leave room for improvisation and one single melody line doesn't have to be the exact same melody line the next time. But the sequence of songs is going to be basically exactly the same. From Friday to Saturday.

It's going to be the same. If you're coming to see us Friday in December, and then you see us again on the Friday in July, we're going to have made some changes by then because this live show is always evolving. We're always throwing out songs. We're changing, my apologies. We're changing sequences of songs in order to try and optimize.

the energy levels, the intensity, like I said before. But in general, if you see us twice in one week or in two weeks, most probably, the sequence of songs is going to be the same. What will be different is improvisation moments, your surroundings, the energy levels that you get with interaction with the crowd, these types of things.

Brian Funk (18:33.478)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (18:44.738)

Hmm. Yeah, you kind of know where you're going, but you might take a different route, like driving a different way to get a different view once in a while. Hmm. Well, that's nice because I guess you really do, you know, obviously you're playing with four people, you need to have some understanding of where we're going. We can't just take it out of nowhere every single time. That would cause a lot of confusion. But the

Gert (18:54.044)

Yeah, yes indeed.

Brian Funk (19:13.874)

opportunity to have some legal room and how you get there must keep it more interesting even for you guys as far as it's not just this kind of routine where sometimes when you do that, I mean it's nice to get your set down and your performance down real solid but sometimes you forget to go into the song and you're just going through the songs if you know what I mean so I think that's a smart way to maintain that.

Gert (19:42.07)

Yeah, we don't want to over-rehearse as well, not because it is our intention to keep it, to keep us on our toes or anything, also because we'd rather perform than rehearse all the time. And after a while...

Brian Funk (20:00.736)

Hmm.

Gert (20:04.108)

we get good at being efficient in rehearsing. And sometimes a performance is a bit of a rehearsal as well. Sometimes something goes wrong and then we're, we have to fix it in the moment right there and then, uh, so those are also one of those moments that you're like, okay, the sound card just dropped and

Brian Funk (20:19.64)

Mm-hmm.

Gert (20:31.38)

Do something, you know, try to not have entire silence or maybe the electricity of the entire house just stops and then you have to pick it up from where will you pick it up? So there's always these moments where you're challenged and that's in the moment itself it's nerve-racking. But

Brian Funk (20:32.59)

Right.

Brian Funk (20:44.983)

Mm-hmm.

Gert (20:59.872)

it pushes you to find creative and good solutions.

Brian Funk (21:05.628)

Now, let me ask you a little bit like technically what you guys have going on. You said you've got like Ableton Live running. Is it just one Ableton Live rig or do you have more than one?

Gert (21:17.98)

We have three at this point. Yeah. So three of the four musicians on stage have Ableton and we all sync through Link, which is the option of, yeah. Yeah. I'm just a connect.

Brian Funk (21:19.27)

A of three. Oh wow.

Brian Funk (21:29.654)

using link to do that. That's cool. So link, so in that way, I'll say it for people listening to, link is sort of like a wifi connection between your computer, it could be your phone, it could be various apps and DAWs where they all understand the timing. It's as if somebody's counting one, two, three, four, two, three, and um

individual computers can start and stop and change the tempo, slow things down. So you have like a lot of, it's like, it's such a cool idea because it's more like the way people play music together. And that if I speed up, you're going to come with me. So when I raise my BPM, your BPM goes up as well. So that's, that's really cool to hear that you guys are doing that. Um, and that way too, you have, I guess.

Like you said, if one of the sound cards go down, you have something else going still.

Gert (22:38.615)

We could have something else going. We don't have, after 10 years, we don't have a backup system. So sometimes a sound card crashes or just stops working or has bad connection. And depending on which sound card it is, that musician is without his...

Brian Funk (22:46.72)

Uh huh.

Gert (23:01.632)

two on stage. If it's mine, it's tough if it's anyone's hard drive, obviously, because you have a problem to solve right then and there. On my computer, we have basically the backbone of the entire live set running, so all of the drums, or most of the drums, will come from my computer, from my sound card, from my Ableton.

Brian Funk (23:03.964)

Like a...

Brian Funk (23:12.415)

Mm.

Gert (23:31.696)

And then some extras as well, perhaps a 808 bassline or whatever it might be, or some synths that we don't have enough hands to do it ourselves or joining or in the background or some pads or something. So if my sound card drops, a lot all of a sudden disappear. So often we're left with some keys.

a bass guitar and a guitar or perhaps a saxophone or a trumpet if you're just in a song that has one of the horns or wind instruments in it or something. So that can be challenging obviously. But like you said, the link system allows everyone to be synced.

Brian Funk (24:18.013)

Hmm.

Gert (24:30.652)

or brings up the tempo, all the others follow. And as a result, also, for example, the drum computer that is on the other side of the stage with my buddy, Esbrandt, will follow. So he can just very easily not really care about what tempo we're in, and it will just follow. And there is some moments in the live show where we do actually...

change the tempo quite a bit, where we go from 75 bpm to like 140 or something. So that is a large amount of changes for a tempo. So it's important that we have that function and it's also a lot of fun in the studio, especially when you're making electronic music and you're synced.

Brian Funk (25:08.552)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (25:12.986)

Yeah, it's substantial.

Gert (25:27.452)

And you can just play around with some loops that you're making. You don't have to worry about anything because everyone is going exactly and in the right temple and, and it doesn't sound like one major chaotic.

Brian Funk (25:35.735)

Mm-hmm.

Gert (25:47.144)

uh yeah like a chaos of sounds just one big ocean

Brian Funk (25:56.594)

Right. Yeah, and it's nice that there's no one that's like the boss, the master, and the others are the followers. And that way you can have that freedom, just like real musicians. It makes it much more musical. It's so much fun to do that. I'm happy to hear you guys are making use of that. It's fun. So.

What about the guitars and the bass? Are they running through the computers being processed that way? They have separate amplifiers? Are they outside of that system?

Gert (26:33.412)

The guitar, since recently the guitar is in that system. It goes through, so Maxim's guitar is connected to his sound card. And then the output of the sound card goes straight into the mixing board that we also, excuse me, straight into the mixing board that we also have on stage. It used to not be like that.

and I'm trying to remember the reason why we did it. I believe to have some more options when it comes to effects. So you wouldn't have to bring this pedal, that pedal, that pedal. And that makes it easier to travel as well. And it allows a little bit more versatility as well, because it will allow for a magazine to use a midi.

Brian Funk (27:13.404)

Mm-hmm.

Hmm. Right.

Gert (27:31.604)

controlled device, whatever it is. In his case, it is a midi twister, midi fighter twister, one of those like black squares. Yeah, to just manipulate whatever effect he wants to manipulate by hand without having to use his feet and things like that. So that's why we are running the guitar through his sound card.

Brian Funk (27:39.354)

Mm-hmm. It's like 16 knobs, right? Yeah.

Gert (28:01.044)

The bass guitar just goes into a DI, DI goes straight into the mixing board. The M32 is what we use, the Minus M32. And just like that, the trumpet and the saxophone also go straight into the mixing board. Yeah, that's pretty much how it goes. And then Esbron's sound card is actually the mixing board.

So he has, he's the third one to have Ableton running. And he basically just connects to the M32 with USB and the M32 is going to pop up in his Ableton and it'll be his, his device and he can have whatever he does in Ableton immediately on a fader right next to him on the stage.

Brian Funk (28:50.066)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (28:57.29)

All right, so he's performing the studio, basically. That's his instrument. All right.

Gert (29:02.84)

Yeah, indeed. Every possible sound source ends up with him. And he does a mix on stage, kind of like Underworld has been doing it for years. I don't know if they still do it like they used to do it 20 years ago, where they have this big, big analog mixing board on stage. Perhaps they also switched.

to digital boards now to have a bit easier. But yeah, that's how we try to work.

Brian Funk (29:33.95)

Yeah, a little lighter and yeah.

Gert (29:46.82)

And then other than that, he also adds some keys, some extra drums, some triggers, some samples also with his Ableton and keyboard and a little drum computer as well. Besides him.

Brian Funk (30:06.458)

So if you guys all have that kind of versatility, I can understand why it's hard to really define your role in the group. You know, you're not the bass player. Well, maybe you have a bass player, but maybe that was the one bad example for you guys. But you have all of those other spots that can be... you can change your own live set, you know, anytime you want to fit whatever you need to do, and so can the other members.

Gert (30:17.696)

Thank you.

Brian Funk (30:36.68)

That's some powerful flexibility.

Gert (30:39.924)

We're very, very dependent on our own, on ourselves. We can pretty much make it as easy for ourselves as we want, or as hard on ourselves as we want. But the most important thing is when we make changes, we just need to... Just the four of us need to be informed. That's it. We don't travel with the front of house engineer.

We don't even travel with the roadie. Most of the time we don't even travel with the tour manager or anything. So our roles are very defined even outside, well, defined, defined and not defined, not defined on stage because like I said, we can make it as easy and as hard on us as we want. Off stage, one person will be more occupied with.

making sure we're on the right time at the train station or at the airport and another person's got to be like, okay, let's make sure we collect the receipts because we have to make a budget for this tour so we can know how much wages can be paid to anyone. That's obviously a different part of the music business outside of the production itself.

Brian Funk (31:40.974)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (31:54.687)

Right.

Gert (32:06.12)

But yeah, lots of versatility and not many people we have to give responsibility to other than ourselves or have to even keep up to date.

Brian Funk (32:24.138)

So I guess you guys are pretty clear with each other. Okay, your job, the non-musical job here, is you said collect the receipts. So you guys have those roles all discussed and worked out with each other.

Gert (32:38.892)

Let's say it grew naturally.

Brian Funk (32:40.79)

Yeah, right. Well, I think those are important things to get straight when you're in groups of people because when they get unspoken, that's when misunderstandings happen, that's when expectations aren't met, and a lot of times that's where the drama starts happening and the resentments start happening. And it's a hard thing having four people.

do anything in life, right? To have four people do anything together in life takes a lot of coordination and a lot of trust and a lot of responsibility taking. So it's understandable for you guys to have been together playing 10 plus years now. It's something I'm sure you had to get right. Ha ha ha.

Gert (33:31.836)

Yeah, it goes with ups and downs as it does in any relationship.

Brian Funk (33:37.175)

Yeah.

Gert (33:46.404)

Well, let me just say I'd be very surprised if you never have an argument with anyone around you.

Brian Funk (33:52.378)

It's either really, really good or really, really bad. But it's true. If you haven't come to an agreement over say the household chores, then if I look and see the dishes aren't done again, I might start getting resentful and that's unhealthy, it needs to be discussed and worked out. There needs to be an understanding.

Gert (33:57.092)

Yes.

Gert (34:18.468)

That has been definitely something that we have learned throughout the years to try and also communicate to each other and then also receive that communication in a constructive way. In a way that you realize only the good intentions of the person sharing his frustrations or...

whatever it can be, you know, because at the end of the day, we just have to trust each other that we have the same goal, the same eventual goal in mind. And that trust is definitely there. I mean, there is no one in the band that's like, that's putting his ego first. There's no one trying to earn more. There is no one really trying to cut.

Brian Funk (34:49.902)

it.

Brian Funk (35:01.174)

Mm-hmm.

Gert (35:16.832)

corners or anything, everyone is aware of each and everyone's position in the band, the responsibilities and...

Gert (35:32.752)

And I like to believe feels good in that place. And if they do not feel good in that place, that they have the liberty of talking about.

Brian Funk (35:41.038)

Mm-hmm. So important. So important. I've found that is almost the secret to keeping it together. You know, that you can be open. The ego has to just be let go. You know, once you're a group, you're a group, right? So that should be the most important thing. And it's good to hear you guys have...

figure that out and have those relationships with each other. It's hard to find. So it's precious and important to nurture that and make sure it stays that way.

Gert (36:17.863)

Yeah, it's been a journey. Also that.

Brian Funk (36:21.106)

Yeah, lots of journeys in this whole thing, right? I'm curious about the journey of the song too. So if I had to guess, it sounds like it's kind of, you know, you guys are a band, really.

You just have more futuristic instruments than we are used to hearing. So maybe in like traditional terms when we say band, but, um, do you guys tend to perform out the songs, jam them out, and then they start getting recorded that way? Is it, or is it more they get recorded first? Like if you were in a band, right? You kind of work them out, work them out. Then you go to record.

Where do you guys fall on that continuum? Because sometimes the songs are produced fully, recorded, and then we figure out how to play them.

Gert (37:22.058)

We're on both sides of that spectrum. Sometimes we'll make something and finish it entirely in the studio, and only then will we add it.

to our performances. Sometimes we make something in the studio that is not finished yet. And we're very excited and we're like, okay, we're gonna play this in our next live performance, change the live set, jump in the Ableton, add it in, and then we'll start playing it. And as we play it, we will just step out of, you know, we have these improvisation moments, the moments of freedom.

And we'll stumble on ideas that we kind of... We stumble on them and then we look at each other on stage and we're like, yes, we're next week in the studio. Yes, yes, okay, let's do that. So we'll have these kind of happy accidents happen to us on stage as well, even before a song is finished.

Brian Funk (38:17.11)

Hehehehe.

Gert (38:32.432)

And then even beyond that, we have songs, songs that we play live that will never be released, that will even never be properly recorded, just because they work well live. And there's actually, there's one example that we had tried to record in the studio.

And basically we were disappointed with how it turned out. Because live it is powerful and it hits the spot. And then as soon as you sit down in the studio, it kind of falls.

Brian Funk (39:07.234)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (39:11.338)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (39:16.246)

Hmm.

Gert (39:19.548)

it goes nowhere or it doesn't have that same intensity, that same...

Gert (39:26.748)

Yeah, it doesn't... it just doesn't work. It doesn't fit so well on a record. It fits much better on the stage. And that's also something peculiar. That was also a good lesson to learn, basically.

Brian Funk (39:47.418)

some things are best left for the performances. Just don't find the home in the recorded material.

Gert (39:52.42)

Yep.

Gert (39:56.984)

No, no peculiar sometimes how that goes. Because we were thinking originally this song always works very well when we play it live. So we should record it and put it on our album or our next EP. And now I have a recording on my hard drive in the studio. And it's going to remain there forever.

Brian Funk (40:01.496)

Yeah.

Gert (40:23.232)

because I don't know, it's too clean perhaps, or we have been trained so much into this live version of that song that it will never bring us what we're used to, never bring us that energy or never bring us that same feeling when it is recorded as when we play it live. It's a sort of...

demo love, I believe. I don't know if that is, if that's the same term in English, but in Dutch we have a term it's called demo love when someone...

Brian Funk (40:54.411)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (41:00.661)

If.

Yeah, we say like demo-itis where you kind of, you fall in love with the kind of idea of it. You know, it might be something about the energy you had when you first... Usually it's a recording though, it's a little bit the other way around, but the energy of that recording, we just... You know, it's the day we wrote the song and there's something there. And every time we try to recreate it, it feels like, you know, staged or something.

quite capture that. Yeah. I could see that. Yeah, right. Like it's just, it's like a drawing of the scenery. You gotta go see the scenery. But I could see how that would work too with performance because, especially if there's some wiggle room and how it gets performed every time. So where you might do it a little bit differently each time. And there's this sort of...

Gert (41:33.172)

Yeah. Like a bad clone.

Brian Funk (42:03.246)

realm of possibilities you can take, but as soon as you record it, it's one. It's one path. And now it doesn't have that sort of potential to go this way or that way on a given day. It's almost like the undemo, the unknown, the possibilities of it are so fun. I have songs like that too that I have for live performance that...

Gert (42:19.506)

Yeah.

Gert (42:23.687)

Yeah.

Gert (42:27.965)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (42:31.13)

I've never actually recorded definitively. I have lots of recordings of different performances, but sometimes they go a little bit different. And now that song exists in all these kind of alternate universes. There's these different parallel dimension versions of it. And to me, they're all the song. They're hard to just say, it's gonna go this way.

Gert (42:55.877)

Yeah, it sounds familiar.

Brian Funk (42:59.644)

It's kind of a cool thing. And you guys have a way of working together that kind of allows for some of that in both directions where you can have your kind of definitive recorded stuff, but then also it sort of organically grows out of the jams as well.

Gert (43:19.444)

It can go in any direction. And we've seen proof in the performances that we do and in the songs that we make that...

Gert (43:33.004)

Yeah, everything is possible. You make it in the studio and it's super powerful and it's an excellent, you believe, an excellent DJ track, but then when we play it live, it doesn't work. Or we then move it to a different moment in the live show and perhaps then it does work or perhaps it still doesn't work. And then the other way around and on live performances we play something.

works every time we bring to the studio. There it goes. So, uh, yeah.

Brian Funk (44:06.559)

Yeah, different medium.

Brian Funk (44:12.079)

But it's cool because you guys are proof that electronic music can be live music. It can be interesting in that way. It was kind of a revelation for me when I first realized it. It wasn't until I started using Ableton Live really, where I started saying, oh, I could perform live electronic music. It's just as diverse and interesting as if there were a band up here.

There's all these freedoms, different types of freedoms, I guess, but a lot of room for expression. It's not just, you know, as you kind of mentioned, like somebody asking you, do you guys play the same thing every time? It's not like, all right, track three, play, and it just goes and yeah, I can turn a couple knobs and maybe play a guitar over it, but it's essentially the same thing. It's much more than that. There's so much you can do.

Gert (44:58.442)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (45:11.082)

having multiple setups like that. So it's almost like these stations that you guys each operate.

Gert (45:18.074)

Yeah, that's, yeah, you make a good point there. There's definitely a lot of freedom. And like I mentioned before, we can go as far as we want, and we can make it as easy on ourselves as we want as well. We can make it to a point that we just press play.

And everything else that we do is just wave our arms around. If we want to, we can do it. Obviously anyone can do it. But obviously we would be very sick of it very soon. That's not, that's not why we love music. That's not why you become a musician. Become a musician because you love music, you love playing music.

Brian Funk (45:44.931)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Gert (46:07.624)

It would be a shame to be just pressing a button and then letting go and then collect the dollars. I'm sure it exists as well, it happens. But that's a different topic.

Brian Funk (46:15.852)

Right.

Brian Funk (46:20.814)

Yeah. Well then, in those cases, I think you start to really notice how much the audience plays a role. Because I've had that too, where I'm literally playing the same recordings as I did a week ago, but it feels so much different because of who's there and their attitude and how they're feeling in that night. Where it's kind of mind-blowing. It's like this...

Gert (46:45.212)

Oh yeah.

Brian Funk (46:50.75)

like performing music, however, whatever you want to, if we could just count anything as performance, pressing play or starting with just an instrument. So much of it is about the energy, whether it's the energy you're putting out and the energy you're receiving, this transfer. I really understood that when I found that playing the same recordings night after night yielded such different results. Because the only...

Now the music is in effect with a band you could say, ah, we weren't into it. We weren't feeling it. We messed up a few times. That's why it didn't go well. But, um, it really is so much about the interaction, the environment you're in.

Gert (47:35.113)

Most definitely. And it's always almost guessing where it goes wrong if you do a performance and you're not feeling comfortable after the performance because of how it went. And like you said, perhaps we look at ourselves and be like, oh, I wasn't in it or yeah, sorry guys today was not my day and I screwed up in that moment or that moment. Or

We can not look inwards and look outwards and be like, oh, this crowd here today, this was not the right place for us. Or maybe they were expecting something different. Or you can even go to like the sound system, the engineers here, or why was it like that? Or the acoustics of the room. And I guess that at the end of the day, it's pretty much always a combination of all these factors.

Brian Funk (48:16.238)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (48:31.64)

Mm-hmm.

Gert (48:33.264)

It's never just one thing. It's never just only the acoustics. It's never just one musician playing a couple bad notes or where the bass guitar is not working because it's an active bass guitar and the battery is dead. And it takes you three minutes to figure out that actually it's an active... So it's easy to just after a performance say like...

This was the thing that made it go wrong, but it's never as clear cut as that.

Brian Funk (49:08.692)

Mm-hmm.

Gert (49:11.74)

Nevertheless, it doesn't change anything that has transpired. You can only just learn from it every time.

Brian Funk (49:18.57)

Yeah, that's the thrill of it, right? I've been in performances where maybe for whatever reason, the band is a little tense, uncomfortable, and maybe one member kind of like puts it on a little like, oh, all right, come on, like, you know, let's bring it in, you know, get excited, and then that spreads, and then it comes to life. Sometimes it doesn't go that way. Sometimes people bring each other down and it's a...

it's a big thing to be thinking about just what you're putting out and that sometimes, like you said, there's factors, you know, it might be you're just at the wrong show that people wanted to hear this kind of music. I mean, I've been at plenty of those where it was one style of music and I show up out of left field and doing something totally different. It's just not going to work sometimes.

Gert (50:17.143)

Yeah, right place, right place, right time. Wrong place, right time. I don't know. Everything can happen.

Brian Funk (50:23.059)

Yeah.

Right? Yeah, something funny is happening in the news that day.

Gert (50:31.633)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, true.

Brian Funk (50:33.77)

I want to ask you one fun thing about looking at the live performances you guys do. Sometimes you're at festivals in front of people. And then there's a couple here where there's one that looks like you guys are on a little island. I didn't quite get where it was, but there's an overhead view of this. You guys are kind of outside in the wilderness basically and right on the water.

And then there's the one at Fort Saint, is that Einart? Fort Saint Einart in France. Yeah.

Gert (51:11.364)

Saint Inar, I think is how you pronounce it. Something like that. Yeah, that is of Cercle. Yeah. The one...

Brian Funk (51:17.95)

And there you guys are like on top of a, I guess a fort. Right? So, way different. I mean, now you don't have that audience interaction but you do have this like nature interaction going on, this environmental interaction. Yeah, just curious like what that's like, how that feels for you guys when you, on one hand you have all this energy coming at you from other people and then.

Now it's just the group in this interesting place.

Gert (51:52.46)

It's... Yeah, it's a big difference. It's a big difference because there's the difference between having a thousand people in front of you versus having...

Gert (52:06.488)

just a forest and surrounded by a lake and especially also a lot of mosquitoes in that one video you mentioned earlier. No, but yeah I seem to notice that we play more as we would do a recording when we don't have an audience. So everything is cleaner, everything is sober there.

Brian Funk (52:15.725)

Ha ha

Gert (52:37.924)

uh, in contrast to when we have a bunch of people in front of us that are shouting at us and just throwing all their energy on us. And that just makes you play differently. That makes you behave differently. That makes you, that makes such an enormous difference. So if you see that video.

Brian Funk (52:53.601)

Hmm.

Gert (53:04.624)

of us at the lake or of us in Port Saint-Henard, it's going to be, yeah, it's gonna be very different. So you might see us first online and then see a performance of us and you probably be surprised. It happens sometimes that people come up to us and say like, I did not expect this level of

Brian Funk (53:26.595)

Yeah.

Gert (53:34.792)

By her. Actually. Just because of her.

Brian Funk (53:36.006)

Yeah. Well, there's a performance I was watching, literally, your guitar and bass player are jumping up and down with the music. They're not doing that in the forest on the lake. It's much more focused. And I know for my own self, when we practice, it's much more trying to be deliberate about what you're playing. But then when you get out there, things get wilder and messier and

Brian Funk (54:05.982)

in exchange for that energy. It's like a fair trade, I feel. It's worth it, you know, to play a little sloppy, but we're gonna go a little wilder today and maybe connect a little, tap into that energy of the night.

Gert (54:18.201)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gert (54:24.896)

Yeah, for a long time I underestimated the strength of that. Me personally then, I'm not speaking on behalf of the band because there's people in the band who very well understand the value of that energy and of giving that energy and maybe playing a little bit more sloppy in return. But, you know, like you said, that's a fair trade and I definitely agree. For me, it took a while to...

I understand that there is such a thing as energy on a stage and as it translating towards the audience. I myself am not the biggest dancer, I'm not the most enthusiastic person at a performance.

When I'm in the crowd myself then, if a band is playing and I love their music and they will just be standing still, I wouldn't mind, I'd be just enjoying the music. For example...

Gert (55:41.392)

most extreme example would be Kraftwerk. There's just the guys standing behind a lectern pretty much doing god knows what and just standing still most of the largest part of the performance. Or there's Moderat. That is also... Okay, there's a little bit more action going on but it's also just three guys in their own station.

Brian Funk (55:45.219)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (55:50.507)

Right.

Brian Funk (55:57.899)

Yeah.

Gert (56:09.844)

not necessarily jumping up and down and being trying to interact with the crowd so heavily. So this is the stuff that I kind of connect to. And it was eye-opening for me to notice that energy coming from the stage is a thing. And it translates to people. And then...

people, the audience, give that back to the band. And it was only by being on stage myself that I understood that energy actually comes back to you as an artist, as a musician. And then it feeds you to go even further again. So it's, for me personally, it was an exercise in letting go and letting go of just, you know.

Brian Funk (56:53.109)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (57:06.872)

Hmm.

Gert (57:10.332)

I'm here to have fun and I hope you're here to have fun as well. And let me give you some encouragement, you know, just let it out. And it's amazing to see some people all over the world, just confidently throwing themselves in the audience and not having a care in the world. That's a, it's a beautiful thing.

Brian Funk (57:16.682)

Right. Yeah.

Brian Funk (57:35.175)

Hmm.

I think that's something we're kind of chasing a lot of times when we go to a concert, when we play a concert, when we experience these things is we want to sort of just get lost in it and taken away and whatever worries and problems we have are going to wait. They'll be there when we're done. They'll wait for us. But for now, you know, it's just about this thing. I think being a guitar player, you're kind of lucky because you have...

movement. You don't have to stand in the same spot. You can walk around with your guitar a little bit. You can roll around on the floor with it if you want. Whereas certain other instruments, if it's a keyboard or some kind of controller, electronics, you're a little bit more stuck behind it. And guitarists are lucky because we get to kind of run around and the foolishness is almost built into the playing.

Gert (58:32.82)

Hehehe

Yeah, we have our band members sometimes just wandering off, heading out into the audience and just standing there playing with people around them. So yeah, the Liberty is amazing. Stressing about the jack cable, making sure that it doesn't get disconnected or it is long enough.

Brian Funk (58:45.883)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (58:53.666)

Where'd he go? There's only three of us now. I hear him.

Brian Funk (59:03.582)

Yeah. Right.

Gert (59:05.056)

for him to journey God knows where.

Brian Funk (59:08.874)

I saw a band not too long ago, a band called Idols, a really fun rock band. And their guitar player was out in the crowd and being held up. And they had a guy, I assume he was hired by the band just to feed the wire to his guitar. Like his job is like, he's going to go out there and his job is to make sure the cable has enough slack and isn't going to get pulled out. I was like, that's so cool.

Gert (59:27.072)

Hahahaha

Brian Funk (59:38.506)

realize like this is part of what we do. We're gonna get in there with everybody and we need a guy to do that for us.

Gert (59:45.33)

And.

Gert (59:49.088)

And I'm also surprised to see how people, how the audience is somehow also aware of that. For example, you can, well, on one hand, definitely respectful, but on the other hand, and this would just me personally, it would pass me by. If you have an audience here, let me try and make a little horrible visual presentation.

Brian Funk (59:57.302)

Uh-huh. Like, respectful of it.

Brian Funk (01:00:15.662)

Thanks for watching!

Gert (01:00:16.872)

guitar player steps off the stage, goes to the audience and goes around and comes back on the stage like this. The cable is behind these people. So try and get the cable from behind them and you're kind of stuck actually. But many of these people just realize like, oh yes, well, we're going to make sure the cable is actually going this way. And I see it often happening if they're passing it over their heads back to the front of the stage.

Brian Funk (01:00:31.037)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:00:38.706)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:00:42.667)

Yeah, that's so cool.

Gert (01:00:46.424)

It's amazing how often this actually works out excellently.

Brian Funk (01:00:49.678)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:00:54.138)

Yeah, how often do crowds of people in that state of high energy cooperate and work together to solve a problem like that?

Gert (01:01:04.54)

Yeah, yeah, I'm surprised to see how present they still are, how they know what's going on and how they can be even proactive.

Brian Funk (01:01:17.886)

Yeah. Do the job of the roadie.

Gert (01:01:22.204)

Yes.

Brian Funk (01:01:23.958)

That's cool. They must enjoy what they hear because they want it to keep going.

Gert (01:01:28.604)

Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Maybe it is that trust in them that they're like, all right, maybe I get to do something again this time.

Brian Funk (01:01:38.046)

Yeah. Now I wanted to ask you a little bit about just this idea of combining electronic elements in your music with more acoustic stuff. So sometimes I find it's a little difficult to get them to work together. And I think this has to do with the fact that our acoustic instruments are

not precisely in tune all the time and they're not precisely in time and they have, they're recorded with a microphone so they have their own kind of atmosphere to them whereas if we're programming stuff into the computer it's right in tune if you put the tuner up it just locks right in there center exactly the note you want and if you're programming it these notes are right on the grid where they belong.

Brian Funk (01:02:38.334)

It's like they're just from different worlds. And when I listen to them together, they just feel like they're not the two things playing at the same time, but they're not together. Um, you guys do a really nice job of blending all of that. Where it's sometimes you can't even tell, you know, what am I hearing? That's an acoustic instrument. What is that synthesizer? Is that a flute? Is that like, what's going on? There's a nice, um, cooperation between those elements.

Gert (01:03:07.967)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:03:09.29)

Is this something you give much thought to? Do you find it challenging? Is it just working out the way you guys play?

Gert (01:03:20.537)

It was challenging at first when we did Stavros tracks, but I think we kind of found our ways to deal with that and I think a large part of it is, it starts with what samples you work with. So on the electronic side, you have to adjust your electronic side.

to the acoustic side, you cannot adjust your acoustic side because you only have what you have. I mean, especially when it comes to horns or wind instruments, they sound the way they do. You cannot make a trumpet sound any different than a trumpet or you'd have to use like a surdin or...

French word I'm using now, you have to use these cops, but it's still a trumpet. It still has the same characteristics basically. So I believe the trick for us was in using and finding samples, drum samples mostly, and synth sounds that glue with these acoustic instruments.

and find the right space for them also in the mix. And a lot of this, we were inspired by Stiming, who was already on your show in the past as well. He's the, I don't know if he realizes it, but I think he's the master of this, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:05:04.13)

Hmm. Yeah.

Gert (01:05:17.612)

organic sound of making an electronic sound, an electronic song sound like it's coming out of real life, like it's not even coming from a computer or from machines. And there's this even a whole genre grew from it and they call it organic house.

Brian Funk (01:05:19.648)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:05:36.394)

Right.

Gert (01:05:48.568)

And as far as I'm concerned, he's the guilty one. He's the culprit. No, he found a way or he was definitely an innovator in how electronic music can sound. How it sounds round and full and how it can sound acoustic, but at the same time have that.

Brian Funk (01:05:54.19)

Hehehe

Gert (01:06:18.04)

electronic power. And that's where, yeah, like I said, that's where we had a lot of our inspiration, simply

figuring out what type of kick drum to use, what type of clap to use or snare, you know, and once you figure that out, you're already a long way because these are the elements in the songs, especially in electronic music, these are the elements that will return most often, the kick, the clap and the hi-hats, if you use hi-hats.

Brian Funk (01:06:46.514)

Hmm.

Gert (01:07:02.608)

and kind of try to give them an acoustic overlay but underneath give it the electronic power. So yeah, it's...

Gert (01:07:24.265)

That is what I kind of guess it boils down to, basically, leaving space for those instruments.

Gert (01:07:36.642)

and adapting the samples and sounds, the remaining samples and sounds of the song to that instrument.

And after a while you get so acquainted to these samples and to these sounds that you just go directly to them and then you create something and Afterwards you add an acoustic instrument that it just fits Because we've done it a couple times in the past or many times in the past depends And that's kind of how we try to go about it

Brian Funk (01:08:21.214)

Yeah, makes sense. Right.

Gert (01:08:21.917)

Well, there is no one surefire way to do it right. Well, alt F4.

Brian Funk (01:08:28.342)

You don't have like the keyboard shortcut. Okay, I'm gonna give that a shot later.

Gert (01:08:40.623)

That was it.

Brian Funk (01:08:43.742)

Look at that stemming shortcut.

Gert (01:08:47.564)

Yeah, or control alt delete. Don't try the alt F4 as well if you're trying, if you're doing something important.

Brian Funk (01:08:51.846)

Uh oh.

Brian Funk (01:09:00.091)

Yeah, well, it does make sense because it's a little bit... you have more room with those sounds to take them back into the world, whereas it's hard to, unless you're really over-processing things and making your acoustic instruments sound kind of unnatural, which I suppose is another direction you could go. Not if you want to keep it.

organic. You want to have that kind of feel to it.

Gert (01:09:31.976)

Yeah, otherwise you venture into the realm of synthesizers, I believe. If you're going to be adapting a guitar and then you perhaps run your guitar through a pedal that makes it sound like a synthesizer, then just, I mean... Okay, yeah, sure, it can get some crazy results, but you perhaps might as well use a synthesizer or...

Brian Funk (01:09:38.038)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:10:00.578)

Hmm.

Gert (01:10:02.384)

I don't want to say it defeats the purpose and these pedals definitely have their value for sure because we've also done amazing things with them and unexpected things happen. But that is not the conversation here that we're having. It's more about making sure that sound of a guitar, the sound of a guitar, not the

Brian Funk (01:10:30.083)

Hmm.

Gert (01:10:30.844)

changed and affected sound of guitar fits into electronic music. Someone else that is very good at this is Nicolas Jarre for example. These acoustic elements bringing them into an electronic environment but I would actually almost say it in the other way around it's...

Brian Funk (01:10:40.851)

Mm-hmm.

Gert (01:10:57.356)

not bringing the acoustic elements into electronic environment, it's adapting the electronic environment so it fits around the acoustic elements. That's kind of, yeah, that's what I'm trying to get at. And for example, Dark Side of Javar is also like electronically enhanced and infused acoustic music.

Brian Funk (01:11:07.553)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:11:12.717)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:11:26.647)

Mm-hmm.

Gert (01:11:27.169)

or electric music, electric guitars is also one of those really excellent, excellent music producers obviously.

Brian Funk (01:11:38.959)

Yeah, it all feels like part of the same world. It's something I love about what you guys do. There's classical guitar, there's piano, you hear flutes, horns, various other, you know, bass guitar. He's always got his Fender Mustang bass, which I thought was cool going. And, um, it all feels together. You guys are creating this world.

Gert (01:11:42.634)

Thank you.

Brian Funk (01:12:07.122)

It's a world, it's not these separate things we're trying to stick together. It all comes together as one thing really nicely. And that's hard to do, you know, you bring in lots of separate things and a lot of different types of separate things. And for it to become one is really good. It seems like you guys have that on a lot of levels with how you work together, even the stuff you're talking about outside of the band.

Gert (01:12:16.073)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Funk (01:12:36.066)

this oneness we're going for. And it's pretty cool how that's the magic of playing music with other people, I guess, where you can bring a number of individuals together, a bunch of ones together and get a bigger one than it would be if they were all separate. Greater than the sum is greater than its parts, whatever that expression is. I'm losing my

Gert (01:12:36.158)

No.

Brian Funk (01:13:06.983)

It becomes a bigger thing than the separate things put together.

Gert (01:13:09.888)

Well, 2 plus 2 is 5.

Brian Funk (01:13:12.762)

Yeah, yeah, this kind of thing, right?

So I think Kick Up the Dust is everywhere now, right? I saw it on Apple Music and Spotify and you've got YouTube videos as well if people prefer to go there. And you said you just finished up playing some shows so you got some time to prepare for the next leg. And you are doing some more in the start of next year, right?

Gert (01:13:42.887)

Yeah. Yeah, we're going to be heading out to Australia in the beginning of next year and spend some time in the southeast side of the world. I was going to say corner, but there's no real corners on the ball. And then we have the.

Brian Funk (01:13:56.994)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:14:02.418)

Right. If you believe it's a ball.

Gert (01:14:07.704)

I like to believe it. And then we have some performance here in our hometown in Ghent. And...

Brian Funk (01:14:09.074)

I did too.

Gert (01:14:17.8)

We go to London as well. We've got some things.

ready to go. Or we have some places where we're expected to make an appearance. And other than that, I think we'll just be making new music and diving into the studio soon.

Brian Funk (01:14:25.934)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:14:37.858)

Hmm. It's so cool how you guys are able to sort of do both things at the same time, that you build a lot of this improvisation into your set, that I'm sure a lot of these ideas for new songs start getting born on stage and in rehearsals and it must keep it fresh that it's not one or the other. We're playing, we're playing, we're playing until

we can't stand it anymore and then we're going to record, record until we can't stand it anymore. So it sounds like a really sustainable way to do it.

Gert (01:15:08.252)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gert (01:15:14.356)

Yes, and even something that I forgot to mention earlier about how to, where to find inspiration and if it comes from a more rock band environment or more from a DJ background, or it's from jamming together, or it is from just two of the musicians together in the studio.

Other situations have happened as well where, or that, like you mentioned, just that we're on stage and just something magical out of nowhere happens and we know, like, okay, let's keep this in mind. We also used to make a bunch of DJ sets for our national radio here in Belgium.

And we still play DJ sets as well. And this is also an excellent source of inspiration because on one hand, we're finding new music and on the other hand, we're, we're DJing. So we're mixing those songs together and by mixing the songs and mashing them up and sometimes editing them, there's these sometimes really amazing things that

Brian Funk (01:16:17.422)

Hmm

Gert (01:16:38.42)

just also happen. Uh, for example, when we make podcasts or, uh, or podcasts, it's basically DJ sets that we kind of puzzle together in Ableton. So we figure out what is the key of this song, or we have a bunch of songs. And then we say, what are the keys of all these songs? What are the temples of all these songs? And what is a good song to start the DJ set with? And then we'll kind of.

take it from there and we'll combine this first song, for example, it's in G minor. And we'll see what else do we have in a simple, similar tempo. And that is G minor. Oh, this, and this, which one fits best. Okay. Let's try that one. Oh, it doesn't work so much. Let's try another one. Then really like make a very, very defined puzzle that often takes a couple of days to finish just one hour.

of a DJ set. But in these journeys, once again, of searching and trying and trial and error, sometimes something really awesome is hiding as well. Maybe it's an idea for a groove that just shows itself to you because you're combining three songs or you're using...

Brian Funk (01:17:39.025)

Mm.

Gert (01:18:08.18)

I don't know the, the high hats of this song and the beginning of a groove of that song and adding the vocals of song number C, whatever. I just come up with something that you can consider an edit, but then at the same time, uh, is a mashup or it's a remix or it's multiple names for it.

Brian Funk (01:18:21.739)

Hmm.

Gert (01:18:38.768)

Um, but it boils down to the fact that you're just fooling around with songs and you're taking them apart and you're looking at the separate parts and seeing how can they, what is their strength and how can they be of value in a different context and then learn from the, from the results that you get from fooling around and draw inspiration from there again as well. So.

Brian Funk (01:19:05.334)

Hmm.

Gert (01:19:09.44)

Keeping up to date with electronic music or with music in general and playing around with that music, just like literally dragging it into your Ableton and cutting it up or whatever and combining it with other things, can be very rewarding and inspiring.

Brian Funk (01:19:28.682)

Hmm. Yeah, I could see that. You might discover new grooves that you can then start to use in your own music or different textures that work nicely together. It's a cool exercise. And then you have a DJ set too. So, you've also learned about some new music. I mean, there's, it's a lot of rewards out of that one activity.

Gert (01:19:44.477)

Exactly.

Brian Funk (01:19:57.666)

That's a great tip, great advice. Yeah.

Gert (01:19:58.013)

True, true. Not to be underestimated. And especially nowadays with the tools, with all the AI tools where you can just basically import a song into a software platform and it will spit out the vocals separately and the drums separately and this and that.

Brian Funk (01:20:20.526)

Mm.

Gert (01:20:21.908)

What do you need? I'll get it for you.

Brian Funk (01:20:24.613)

Yeah, right. Unbake the cake and take the egg out. It's amazing. I always thought that was going to be impossible, but...

Gert (01:20:28.646)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian Funk (01:20:35.426)

Five years ago even, I was like, it's kind of impossible. Not anymore. Cool times.

Gert (01:20:44.053)

I felt comfortable that our job was not in danger. Well, danger depends on your perspective. But I can kind of understand how AI creates images. Well, I say I kind of understand, but I honestly have no clue. But I figured this is totally impossible.

Brian Funk (01:21:05.514)

Hehehe

Gert (01:21:10.976)

to do this for sound? I mean, how's it going to know how to compress something? How is it going to know how to equalize that type of instrument? How is it going to know what is an instrument even and how they come together and what to give priority? Exciting things are waiting for us.

Brian Funk (01:21:25.387)

Mm.

Brian Funk (01:21:36.414)

Yeah, we've learned if you just show it enough of it, just, I think, um, those capture things we do online when you go to log in and it tells you where's the crosswalk, where's the motorcyle. I think that's part of the training. I think that's what you're actually doing. And uh, I guess it's like everything for us, right? If you practice long enough, you do something long enough, you start to see the patterns and understand it.

Brian Funk (01:22:06.23)

But we can be creative with the tools and the new technologies. That's what we've done all the way throughout history, right?

Gert (01:22:16.784)

Exactly. That's why we're here also making electronic music and enjoying it. Because someone figured out how to make a pure sine wave and how to make this type of shape of a sound. Okay, there you go. Just need a gate and an envelope and a this and an amplifier and okay, lo and behold.

Brian Funk (01:22:21.751)

Mm-hmm.

That's right.

Brian Funk (01:22:31.01)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:22:35.15)

Alright.

Brian Funk (01:22:40.778)

Yeah. So cool. Well, listen, Kurt, thank you so much for your time. It's great talking to you. Really fun to learn a little bit behind the scenes of what you guys do and how it works. Ultimately, I'm leaving this conversation feeling inspired and excited to make music myself. So to me, that's one of the greatest gifts a person can give me. So thank you very much.

Gert (01:23:08.716)

Happy to help, happy to have this conversation and thank you for having me.

Brian Funk (01:23:14.344)

Yeah, thank you. We'll put all the links into the show notes so that people can find all the stuff we've been talking about, your music, the new album, Kick Up the Dust, available everywhere. Thanks so much.

Gert (01:23:25.548)

Yes, sir. Thank you as well, Brian. Thank you.

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