Eskei83, Drunken Masters recently teamed up with Gunjah on a powerful new collaboration entitled simply “Rave” and it is a beautiful piece of music. I dug the song so much that I wanted to ask the guys a couple miscellaneous questions about themselves. Check out the collab below and under that see what they had to say!
How long have you all been making music?
Eskei83: I started DJing & making music at the age of 16, but focused on DJing really fast and did only mixtape edits and bootlegs for my sets for a while. after that it was remixing to have special edits of songs I could recreate live for my shows and during the last 5 years I concentrated on making own original songs.
Drunken Masters: We both started pretty early with some instruments and DJing when we were Teenagers. After school we decided to join forces and started the Drunken Masters Project with our first mixtape in 2006.
Who are some of your guys musical influences? What got you into creating music?
Eskei83: At the very beginning I was influenced by guys like DJ Premier & DJ Jazzy Jeff that always had scratches in their production and also been good club DJs. That's why scratching and DJ elements are always a big part in my production. Later on it was guys like A-Trak, Boys Noize, Hudson Mohawke, Keys N Krates, Tropkillaz, Craze, RL Grime, What So Not – most of them have DJ elements in their production too.
Drunken Masters: There are too much to name them all, but we were definitely big fans of DJ AM, 2manyDJs, Justice, sebastiAn, Boys Noize, Chromeo, RATATAT and all the guys Eskei already named. We are also influenced a lot by old an newschool hiphop music and always try to combine it with current music styles like we did with „Louder“.
What software do you guys produce music in?
Eskei83: I use Ableton. I was on Cubase for a long time but switched to Ableton when Serato, the DJ Software I'm using came up with a link feature between both, called the Bridge. I was using it to perform live remixes with Ableton & Serato on my shows and noticed how dope it is to create and never went back to Cubase.
Drunken Masters: We started producing music using Logic first and changed to Ableton three years ago because it is more easy and faster to sketch new ideas.
What hardware do you use live?
Eskei83: I use a traditional DJ setup: two turntables and a mixer. I play Vinyl records with the help of the Serato DJ Software on a Macbook Pro. The DJ Mixer is the Pioneer DJM S9 that came out 2015 and I helped creating. That's why it fits 100% my needs and I have everything to play live and recreate my tracks & remixes with the pads on the mixer.
Drunken Masters: We still play with four turntables using Serato DJ and two Pioneer DJM S9.
How did this collaboration come about?
Eskei83: We do a lot together because we are running a label called Crispy Crust Records based in Munich. I started the track back in 2015 when I heard my friend Gunjah's new tune “Rave“. He's a techno DJ and I organize my own events in his clubs from time to time. When I heard his “Rave” version I was in love with the melody and I knew it is a hit. But the problem was that the style of the track doesn't match my sets, so I had to remix it. After I tested the remix on some of my shows it went so well that I thought about releasing it as an official remix, but than I handed it to the Drunken Masters who pushed the tune to another level with the elements they added and we had a new track based on Gunjahs version.
Where did the artwork's inspiration come from? Who did the art?
Drunken Masters: We found this guy “Giovanni Bettachioli“ on tumblr and asked him if he has an idea for the cover. He nailed it!
What's the typical day for you all in the studio?
Drunken Masters: We usually just hang out in the studio with producer friends and try to find new ideas by listening to new music and drafts.
Eskei83: I do a lot when I'm on tour. I'm inspired when I have people around me or when I have to prepare for a special gig. I made the first version of Rave in a couple of hours in a hotel room in Bangkok. To finish the track we had a session at the Red Bull studio in Berlin. Since we are all from different cities it was easiest to meet there and jam. we also came up with another idea at this session.
Tell us something unexpected about yourselves..
Eskei83: when we went on tour together 2015 our tour bus driver told us that we are the most boring band he ever drove in this bus ?? we were all super chilled, no sex, drugs & Rock'n'Roll attitude and super focused on our gigs. He was really surprised because our fans go totally crazy on our gigs and it can get really wild, but we were sitting in the bus after each gig like nothing has happened.
Thanks for your time fellas, looking forward to hearing some more quality music in the future. In the meantime we'll have “Rave” on repeat here at EDM Sauce!
