Hermitude Interview

Having known each other since they were teenagers, Hermitude started off in the Blue Mountains. Now with a few albums under their belt, the Hip Hop stylings of Hermitude are out there. Playing at this year’s Subsonic, we caught up with Luke Dubs and El Gusto for a quick chat.

You’ve moved from Hip Hop sound to a more electronic sound these days, what’s the reason behind this?

Our music is constantly evolving and the same goes for the equipment we use to write. We’ve written this latest album in our own studio in Sydney with a fairly different setup (we’re surrounded by synths!). We’ve noticed the effect of this new studio on our sounds compared to our previous records.

Your new single ‘Speak of the Devil’ sounds like a great summer-time track, what were your influences behind it?

Speak of the Devil came about after we had been writing for a few months and realised that we had a lot of cool songs but there wasn’t an upbeat playful track on the record yet. We sat down and Speak of the Devil just fell out of us, the majority of the song was written in one sitting. I think these are usually some of the best songs, the ones that almost write themselves. We started writing the lyrics (a rare thing for us) and once we were happy went round and reworked them with lyrical maestro Urthboy. All we needed now was the right voice. Enter Chaos Emerald, a young Sydney Artist who had enough energy to power a small country.

Are you looking forward to your upcoming tour?

Indeed we are. It’s been a while since our last tour and we’ve got a whole bunch of new tunes that we want to road test!

Are you looking forward to Subsonic Festival? Who will you be wanting to catch whilst you’re there?

We had a mad time last year at Subsonic. It’s a killer festival in a great location. We’ll be checking out Charlie 2na, Thandmentals, Spoonbill, Resin Dogs and I’m sure a bunch more.

How will you be ringing in the New Year?

We’ll be down at Pyramid Rock Festival this year eating Gustos birthday cake and getting loose.

Click HERE for your chance to WIN tickets to see Hermitude at this years Subsonic Music Festival 2011

By Hannah Shakir