Since forming in 1997, Mike Kay and Steven Harding aka Milk & Sugar have lived a career most DJs would dream of. They’ve performed globally alongside dance royalty such as Frankie Knuckles and David Morales, remixed on request for the likes of Jamiroquai, Janet Jackson & Ben Pearce, and have continued to supply dance floors with a steady stream of powerful hits, both via their own imprint, Milk & Sugar Records, and revered labels such as Enormous Tunes, Positiva, Ministry of Sound + many more. 

Adding to their string of 2020 releases, the prolific German house duo have recently delivered their brand-new single and club mix ft Paul Gardner & Peyton, ‘You Can’t Hide From Yourself’ – out via their own Milk & Sugar Recordings. When We Dip caught up with the legendary duo to get the lowdown on their new release and much more…  

WWD: You’ve been producing music and DJing together for over 20 years! What’s the secret to your long-lasting relationship and what have been your most significant career highlights? 

We think it is very important to have a goal in your life, and in our case, it is our passion for music and the music business. We are not only running a DJ and production team but also a label, and we are glad that we are working with so many great artists like Alaia & Gallo, Sebb Junior, Hatiras, Cassimm, Full Intention, Angelo Ferreri and many more talents who have already released on our label. When you stay inspired and your passion is your work, it does not feel like working at all. 

WWD: You’re both from Germany. How would you say the scene in your home country differs from other countries and where in the world has your music been the best received? 

Yes, our Homebase is Germany, but when we started in the mid 90ies most people there were into techno, and it was very hard to break through as a house act. Nowadays we have pretty much the same scenario than in 1998 when we started. Very few house clubs and techno is all over the place. Strange, but true. Things changed in our country when we started playing in Ibiza at Space in the early 2000 era and we were then received as an internationally successful project. Before the Pandemic, we’ve been playing more than half of our shows outside of Germany, and we had great parties almost everywhere. We played many shows in Brazil, which is one of the most amazing countries in the world, but also Russia used to be great in terms of clubbing.  

WWD: Your infectious new single ‘You Can’t Hide From Yourself’ features Paul Gardner (one half of Soul Avengerz) and Peyton. Please tell us a bit about how the record was made and what it was like working with Paul and Peyton? 

We’ve been friends with Paul Gardner almost since founding Milk & Sugar, so it was more of a natural process doing something together. Paul and Peyton send over the vocal bits and we did the production on it.  

WWD: You’ve had hundreds of releases; what release took the longest to make and why? 

It was probably the making of ‘Stay Around’, that record was supposed to be the follow-up on our 2003 hit ‘Let The Sun Shine’. However, ‘Let The Sun Shine’ became so big and we needed to release several remix editions, so ‘Stay Around’ did not get any attention at all. Only years later – in 2007 – we re-released the track on Subliminal, and it then became another great record for us, especially in Brazil.  

WWD: How do you find running your own record label – Milk & Sugar Records – and how have you adapted to succeed within the current climate? 

We’ve been very busy in the studio and also on the label side since the Lockdown. Except that we work from home more often there is not a lot that has changed except that there are no more shows to promote new releases. We found that downloads on Beatport have slowed down a bit – which is probably because most DJs aren’t playing at the moment and don’t need any new tunes. But streaming has gone up as more people stay at home.  

WWD: What positive things have come out of lockdown for you? 

We’ve been quite busy in the studio since the lockdown, and we’ve also learned how to master livestreaming in the past months. It may sound weird, but we’ve discovered a lot of cool places to hang out in our area, especially around the big lakes south of our hometown Munich. 

WWD: Over the years you must have seen a lot of change in the industry, it would be great to have your insight into where you see house music in 10 years’ time?  

It is very hard to say, as streaming is changing everything. From a DJ perspective, we personally like to buy records and own them. We can’t imagine using streams to play, but more likely this will be the fact. 

From an artist point of view, you have to find your gap in the streaming universe. So, it will be essential to have a professional social media back ground and many followers at your streaming providers. 

WWD: What other releases do you have in the pipeline? 

We have some great new release scheduled. We are working on a new single and we have a few remixes in the pipeline. Qubiko has remixed “You Can´t Hide from Yourself”, Mattei & Omich “You´ve Been Gone To Long” and Purple Disco Machine delivered a great remix of “Let The Sun Shine”. We will also release some new bits from CASSIMM, Mattei  & Omich, Hatiras & Sebb Junior, Alaia & Gallo, Andrey Exx, just to mention a few. 

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Buy their latest EP HERE