Delta Heavy Interview

We catch up with Delta Heavy ahead of their up coming, and much anticipated Australia tour.

Hi ben, how are you?

We’re very well and really looking forward to embarking on the upcoming tour.

Where are you writing to us from?
Our studio in London, where Si and I are currently locked away working on our album.

Your origins are quite common – meeting at school or university, finding a mutual interest in music and joining up – so would you have made music as individuals if you hadn’t have paired up?
Si was already on that path when we started working together so he definitely would have worked with music in some capacity. If I hadn’t made music its self, I would have definitely worked in the industry as music has been my passion since my early teens.

Where is this debut album of yours then? What stage are you at with it?
I’d tentatively say that we’re approaching the final stages with it but you never know – some tracks on the album have come together in a really short time and others have taken quite a bit longer to put together. We’re not rushing it.

Was it your intention to hold it back?
Not at all but we’ve always adhered to a work ethic of quality over quantity and we’ve always said that we wouldn’t release anything that we’re not 100% happy with. So at the moment we’re just working hard to make sure that what we put out is the best it can be.

You’ve said yourself that you’re one of the heavier hitters of the game, so is there pressure on you to deliver the same with your debut album?
Not for us. To an extent we feel we have already done a lot of harder sounding music and as we’ve grown so have our tastes in production. That’s not to say that there won’t be heavier tunes on there but writing an album gives you the opportunity to experiment and you need to create something that listeners can enjoy from beginning to end and take them on a journey. 12 banging tracks in a row can make you feel like your standing still.

You’ve expressed your desire for more song-based tracks, which we can already see with ‘Reborn’; who have you worked with on the album to create this? Who is providing vocals?
We have worked with a variety of new and undiscovered talent but we’ll leave that under wraps for now as we are not finished yet!

Is there still the theme of space travel? Where does your inspiration of sci-fi come from?
There may be a few tracks with space concepts but overall I think this album will feel a bit more land based. All those names are from me – I’m really interested in science and watch documentaries on space and the universe quite a lot. It is good to be able to give a track a concept and hopefully a bit of drama and suspense captures people. Watching Interstellar recently has definitely renewed our interest in this theme.

Do you aim to have the same theme for your DJ sets? How much do visuals play a part?
No our DJ sets are all about playing the music we like. Visuals don’t currently play a huge part but we’re looking to change this in the future.

There are high expectations for your set at LaDiDa in Melbourne on 3rd January; having toured Australia before, what expectations do you have?
Australia has always been a great place to play for us with very enthusiastic crowd responses so I have high expectations.

Will you be doing any sightseeing? What would you like to do if you have time off?
The tour is pretty tight with 6 shows in 6 days but Melbourne is the last show so once that is done I’ll have a bit of time to chill and check out the city which I haven’t been able to do until now so I’m really looking forward to it.

It’s a pretty memorable way to kick off 2015; what does the rest of the year hold for you?
Finishing the album is the only thing on our minds at the moment.

What do you miss about home when you’re away during the festive season?
Christmas at home is always a great time to be with my family so I’ll miss that this year but on the flip side it will be very nice to get some sunshine and break up the endless UK winter.

What was your favourite set of 2014?
Hard to pinpoint one stand out favourite but some highlights were Governors Island in New York and over in Perth at Villa wrapping up our last Australian tour earlier this year.

Catch Delta Heavy at the following gigs around Australia

Delta Heavy : December 26th: Sydney – Courtyard (Ivy)
December 29th: Gisborne NZ – Rhythm & Vines Festival
December 31st: Perth – Origin Festival
January 1st: Adelaide – Play NYD Festival
January 1st: Brisbane – Jubilee Hotel
January 3rd: Melbourne – LaDiDa