Disciples are a London based production trio creating House and Electronic music. Well known for their mondial hits ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ with over 2 billion plays across all streaming platform and ‘They Don’t Know’ with over 100M plays, the trio now have a new single ‘All Mine’ dropping on August 16th. We had the chance to chat with the group ahead of their appearance at Indiependence Festival this week. Enjoy while listening to their recent single ‘No Ties’.
WWD: Over the last few years, how has your sound developed?
Over the last few years I think we’ve matured a lot to the point where our music is changing, because we get infused with different types of music like house, R&B, hip hop… We feed off peoples energies as well so over time we’ve seen a lot of different cultures and music so our style has just matured. When you hear songs like No Ties, you can hear a real funk element on there, and when you hear our latest single as well. There is a massive change in how we’ve developed from ‘How Deep is Your Love’ times until now, and we’re excited.
WWD: What are some of your earliest memories in electronic music?
Luke Mac: For me personally, my mum and dad used to take me to Ibiza from when I was like 7 or 8 up until I was like 12 years old because they were big house heads, they were ravers so they used to go on couples holidays and they would leave me with the other couple while they would go out and rave. There was always a lot of house music and funk playing in the house when I was growing up so those were my earliest memories. But when I really got into it and was taking it seriously and saying ‘okay I wanna be a DJ’, it was probably around the time when I was looking into Swedish House Mafia, and all three of us were really into Swedish House Mafia so that helped towards making Disciples as well.
WWD: Tell us about your new single ‘No Ties’ and the concept behind the video.
We all love it. It does what it says on the tin – we put out something that was respectable in a sense of saying it keeps the Disciples fans happy, but at the same time it shows us evolving vocally as well because our we’re on the song and making the beat, we did everything ourselves from scratch so that’s a mature one for us.
The concept for the video actually came from when all three of us were in Shoreditch House and we took a picture in the photo booth. We were just having fun and cracking jokes and we all thought ‘what if there was a video like this that shows the crazy side of a photo booth, like when girls/guys go in and they’re all laughing, joking, doing wild stuff’. How can we make a crazy video with all these crazy things happening in just one still frame and we were able to do that with ‘No Ties’, so yeah it was a great video, it was a great concept from us as well. Normally we let other people do our videos concept wise but this was an inside view of what we think a photo booth should be like.
WWD: You’ll be at Indiependence festival this year, what can we expect from your set?
Indiependence festival will feel like the same energy as every other show has been feeling for the last couple of months. We’re not gonna change anything, we just like to give that same type of energy when we go around the world. We just try to let everyone see what we can bring to the table. We might have a few songs that we don’t normally play – a few exclusives for you. So, new music, same energy, same Disciples feel. That’s it really.
WWD: What kind of preparation do you do before a show? What happens in the leadup to a Disciples set?
We don’t really change anything – it’s always just chilled out, getting ready to deliver that energy and a good show to the crowd, it’s all about the energy man. We’re there for them and because of them and we have to deliver something for them to feed off.
WWD: How does your track selection for sets change, depending on whether you’re playing at Pacha in Ibiza or a festival?
I think in clubs you naturally get deeper and darker. For instance if it’s like 4 o’clock in the morning and it’s a tight space, that’s more of the energy we’ll bring – especially Gavin. Gavin loves to bring a different energy to the table, more darker. But it’s always straight energy, we want people to have a good night out or a good day out, and the best way to do that is keeping people there. They have so many opportunities to go other places. If we’re on the main stage or if we’re in the tent, we just try and keep the people there and that energy from us keeps people there, regardless of what songs we play. I can play Baby Shark and they’ll still stay there.
WWD: You have a packed tour schedule throughout the rest of the summer. Do you ever feel like you need a break/wish you had more time in the studio, and how do you find balance?
Actually we have a packed schedule but it’s never packed to the point where we’ll say, nah we don’t wanna tour anymore, so I think personally it’s a great balance. We’re in the studio a lot now, we weren’t as much before but we are now, and we’re still touring the same amount so there’s a happy balance. There’s a lot of DJs who just tour tour tour and they don’t put out music that’s good for the soul. The other day it was quite funny, Steve Angello put up something about telling fans to be patient because churning out music inconsistently, you’ll end up failing before you actually start. So I replied to that and put it up on the Disciples page, and he actually replied to that saying thank you, because people don’t really understand the importance in taking time and putting out good music.
WWD: What has been your craziest tour moment?
Wow, there’s so many! You wanna know what really goes down. Touring wise it can be crazy, I think people that don’t tour think it’s just rockstar lifestyle 24/7. We’ve been in rooms with no air conditioning, you can’t breathe, it’s hot and we’re so tired. It’s like 5 in the morning, you can’t sleep because the flight is at 7 in the morning. Sometimes it’s not glitz and glamour. But on the other hand, you go to places like Ibiza and Dubai and America, and you get to see the world. So at least you’re touring the world for people that wanna see you and paid their money to see you and give them a good show. But yeah it goes down every time. There’s more I could tell you but it’s like 12am here.
WWD: As you’re a trio, do you feel that it’s less important to collaborate with other artists?
No, I think it’s always great to collab with other artists. For us we’ve been in such a bubble for a long period of time – we’ve only really collaborated with one other person producer-wise and that was Calvin Harris. So if we wanted to collaborate with someone else, it would be someone who is a completely different kind of producer. Maybe a Daft Punk or maybe someone like Mark Ronson. But generally, we just focus on collaborating with each other as a trio. It’s always a collaboration which can sometimes be hard because there’s three different dynamics, but at the same time the one thing we all love is good music. As long as we put out good music we’re happy.
WWD: You’ve already accomplished a lot in your career, is there anything else you would like to achieve soon?
There’s so much more. I don’t even think we’ve scratched the surface with what we want to achieve. And that applies to us as a three and as individuals, we’re just here grinding man. We’ve got so much more to do. That’s why I’ll go back to what I was saying about quality music because stuff like that never dies. Everything can change within three minutes. If you put out three minutes of magic music, your whole life can change. But yeah, there’s so much more to learn and so much more to do.
Follow: Disciples