“Before we started to get money from shows and syncs and stuff we had a massively slow computer and we didn’t have the equipment we wanted or, more importantly, needed,” Ruttner says. “There’s always gonna be stuff you want, but compared to a year and a half ago, we finally have a studio set up just the way we like it. Having your work slowed down due to technology is frustrating, so now our work flow is a lot more efficient.”
While earning them a solid following as DJs in their own right, The Knocks’ production skills have also seen them producing original material for Katy Perry, Britney Spears and Marina & The Diamonds, as well as a host of remixes – and their breakthrough singles Make It Better and Dancing With The DJ launched them out of the studio and onto some of the biggest festival and club stages around the world. The duo have shared the stage with an impressive roster of artists – Deadmau5, Skrillex, Big Boi, M.I.A, Tiesto, Martin Solveig – and they played as part of Jay-Z’s Made In America festival. But the next album The Knocks are working on (some of which will be road tested on this upcoming tour) is a departure from their earlier, pop-driven sound.
“Our music now is a lot more free; we can just do what we want,” Ruttner explains. “It’s still early days for this album, but it’s sounding a lot more like a dance record than our last record. It’s more track-based and less song-based; there are a lot more songs that don’t have that verse-chorus-verse structure of a pop song. We’re not at any point on a release timeline; we’re just at the point where we’re seeing what works. As soon as we get an end date then we’ll get moving towards it, but for now we’re able to be relaxed.”
Having produced music for artists ranging from the underground to ultra-shiny pop, Ruttner explains that he and partner James “JPatt” Patterson never really think consciously about what will sell. “We’ve been getting a lot more involved in that dance music world in the shows that we’ve been playing and when we DJ. It’s just what’s coming out while we write this,” he says. “There’s not really any level of conflict there between money and creativity. We’re lucky enough to have a label that lets us experiment a lot with our own sound, so there’s no push and pull between us. We just get to sit on the sound that we’re creating.”
Their live show is full of a house party vibe, and more organic than might be expected. For their gigs in Australia, which in Sydney will see them headlining Sosueme’s Christmas bash at the end of the month, the pair are bringing out a range of instrumentation, ensuring it’ll be more than a two-turntables-and-a-microphone set. “Our live set-up is full of instrumentation,” Ruttner says. “We’ve got guitars and keyboards as well as drums and live vocals, but the energy of it is still kinda like a DJ set. It’s non-stop and there’s no breaks between the songs; everything just mixes into the next part. And there’s no extra players – it’s just going to be the two of us.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
