Image via Jordan Munns //
Set Mo are entering 2022 hard and fast.
It’s been a long road for Sydney duo Set Mo (made up of Nick Drabble and Stu Turner), the two dance maestros lighting up dance floors across Sydney and country as a whole ever since they burst onto the scene in the mid 2010s. But as with all artists over the past two years, they’ve been forced to bunker down and regroup, the two producers locking themselves in the studio and pushing the limits of their sound while they awaited the return of dance floors (PROPER dance floors). And now, they emerge with the first fruits of their labour in their latest single ‘Feelings’ and a remix of Fred Again..’s ‘Tate (How I Feel)’, along with a laser-focused mindset for 2022.
Just listening to ‘Feelings’, the word ‘euphoria’ springs to mind. Don’t get me wrong, early favourites like ‘I Belong Here’ and ‘Fault Lines’ were bursting at the seams with such a feeling. But the energy and magnetism the new track is filled with over its three-minute runtime is on a totally new level for the Sydney duo, and after digging into the new record with them, we’re guessing they’ve got plenty more similar heaters locked and loaded.
We caught up with Nick and Stu over Zoom to chat about the new single, the return of dance floors and what makes a good sunrise set. Check it below.
It’s busy times for you guys! You’ve just dropped a new single ‘Feelings’ and you’ve got a remix of Fred Again…’s ‘Tate (How I Feel)’ out. How are you managing it all?
Stu: We’re so excited. It’s all been so uncertain for the last two years and the only thing that we could control was being in the studio and writing music. So, that’s all we’ve been doing. And ‘Feelings’ is the first single we’ve finished from everything we’ve written. So, we’re excited and we’re hoping fingers crossed that this is the proper opening.
You guys didn’t put any music out during all the COVID madness of the past two years. Has everything gone into these new tracks coming up?
Nick: I think we were in some ways. We were fortunate in that, at the beginning of 2020, we had put aside six months off touring to just start writing new music. So, we were lucky we hadn’t planned heaps of touring in 2020. And when COVID hit, it didn’t really change what we had planned on doing. So, we just bunkered down and started writing.
We had a pretty clear vision of what we were trying to do, but we also had new gear we were experimenting with. So, it meant we could have fun and there was no pressure to get a new single out. Rather, we just said to ourselves, “Let’s just write as much as we can”. Then, at the end of that process, it became pretty clear what the sound was and which tracks were strongest, and we’ve just been zoning in on them since.
Over the past two years while working on all of this new work, have you just been putting no limits on yourselves as producers while in the studio?
Stu: Exactly, man. We’ve just been vibing. It’s been the first time in the last five to six years that we’ve had a break from touring and we’ve just been able to spend all of our time in the studio. And as Nick said, we had new gear and were organised with a whole bunch of our samples and everything.
We even made these drumkits off sounds we’ve been using on and off for the previous album and singles. But basically, we just grabbed all of our favourite sounds and put them in this big kit and were like “All right. Now that we don’t have to think about any of the production or anything. Let’s just vibe out. Let’s just write and see what comes out of it. And then, at the end of it, piece it all together and see what tracks we have”.
Nick: I think those limitations actually helped our creativity by limiting ourselves to a few key pieces of gear and building these little sample libraries of what we wanted the next album to sound like. It meant that when we were writing we weren’t wasting time figuring out what to use or how we wanted things to sound, but that we could just be creative and actually write the music.
Sometimes you can get lost in a million plugins or drum sounds. But as soon as you limit yourself, it almost lets you be more creative because you’re not worrying about all of that stuff.
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When vibing in the studio together, did any themes emerge, whether that be thematically or musically, where you were like, “We might follow that and see where that goes”?
Stu: For sure. We had a couple of months off before diving into writing, just as we were finishing up touring, where Nick and I went “All right, let’s just take some time.” We were getting pretty burnt out from releasing a track per month in the lead up to our last album and then going into building a live show and then touring that show for over a year straight.
This time, we were like, “Let’s just pump the brakes. Take some time for us personally.” We’ve been through a lot personally, individually, and then obviously all of the exciting stuff with Set Mo. We just said to ourselves, “Let’s just take a breather and reflect on the past 18 months on everything exciting that’s happened.” We lost some people close to us, some grandparents and I went through a pretty gnarly breakup, and Nick started a family. There was just so much happening and that had already happened that it caused us to be like, “Let’s just take a minute to step back and appreciate everything that’s happening in life.”
All of that became motivation and ammunition behind the ideas we were exploring this time around. So yeah, there’s a much stronger conceptual thread time between everything this time, which is pretty exciting.
Listening to ‘Feelings’ and your Fred Again.. remix, the word ‘euphoria’ keeps coming to mind. Was that a feeling you were actively going for in those studio sessions? Especially after reflecting on everything and going in with all the ammunition you mentioned?
Nick: ‘Feelings’ was actually the last song we wrote. It’s over a year old now. It’s the last song we wrote at the end of 2020 before Christmas and New Year’s and we were fortunate to have a few gigs over that little period, although a bunch still got cancelled as they just have in the last two years.
But I think we felt good going into that song. We’d been writing all year, so we were definitely in that mindset and were like, “Let’s just write something really fun and positive. Something that will work in our DJ sets, that feels like summer.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlIEbI4H6qU
You’ve been playing ‘Feelings’ in your sets for a little while now. What’s it been like seeing the reaction to it develop over time?
Stu: It’s pretty interesting. We never thought it was going to be a single, to be honest. It was just this track that we banged out thought it’d be a real high-energy moment because we were love playing fun stuff, but it’s hard to find those tracks that are fun without being cheesy.
We were channelling a lot of that noughties house that we grew up on, like Eric Prydz, Bob Sinclar, all that loopy French stuff. And we were playing it out in the sets and it was cranking so hard, so much so that the other track in those sets that we thought was going to be the single got pushed back, just because ‘Feelings’ went so hard. We were like, “Oh, man, this is it. This is the secret.”
Nick: I remember that run pretty vividly. That first run we were pretty lucky in that we supported Crooked Colours in March of last year. And it was a tour of theirs that had been rescheduled where we were the main support, and they were playing a bunch of big venues. So, it was great to test out these songs that we’d been writing over the past year. And I remember the lighting guy for Crooked Colours coming up after the first set and showing us a phone recording of ‘Feelings’ and being like “What song was this!?”
And we’d be like, “Oh, that’s just a little clubby thing we wrote” and he just said, “That track is the one.” I think that was the first time when it almost shifted our perspective. And we were like, “Maybe we need to consider this as more than just a little DJ tool.” [laughs].
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One conversation with a lighting guy changed the scope of the track?
Nick: I think that was the beginning.
Stu: Yeah. We started working with a new team on the management side and they were asking us the questions like, “What’s going hardest at the shows?” And we’d be like, “Well, this one, but it’s not a single, it’s just a club track.” And they’d be like, “Nah, change the perspective. If it’s going hard, rethink. It surely can be a single.” So, that’s how he got to it. It’s pretty funny that we never really thought of it as a single. And then in that like six-week period, three or four different people were like, “Put this one out.”
Nick: Totally, and then we had the beauty of the end of last year where we played a handful of shows and every time we’d play it, we’d see how it went and take it back to the studio to tweak it a bit more for the next weekend. So, we had that beauty in between lockdowns getting to play a handful of shows and getting that feedback from the crowd and hearing it in different contexts, whether it be on a bigger stage or a small club room. And it definitely helps, especially with proper dance floor tracks, to help inform some of those decisions. And, it just got a little bit better, a little bit bigger each week. And then we were like, “Oh, this is a pretty big tune now.”
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As you said, it’s a bit of a change-up, but it also feels like it’s starting a new chapter for you guys. How do you perceive that and how do you see this new phase rolling out?
Stu: That’s a good question. It’s definitely a new chapter. I feel like we’ve learnt more in the last two years about how we write and make songs than we have in all the years prior. I feel like we’ve come a really long way in that regard. And then we’ve built this really amazing team up around us with management and bookings and marketing.
There’s a whole team behind Set Mo now. It is a really exciting chapter. But it’s hard to say, man. We just got to wait and see how it rolls out. But in the group chat this morning, I said, “I’ve never felt so confident on a release day.” Normally I’m like, “Oh, shit. It’s coming out” and will be fully terrified. I think we’re feeling so sure of everything we’ve made and everything moving forward that we just can’t wait to share it all.
As someone who’s seen you play a whole range of venues from Marco Polo to festival stages, it feels like you have a really nice connection to the more intimate dance floors, and that’s where you guys are really in your element. As the stages continue to get bigger, with your Splendour in the Grasses and so on, is that duality something you want to maintain?
Nick: Most definitely. That’s actually something we’ve been talking about a lot. And I think in having that space from shows, we’ve started to miss it all even more. We love just getting out and playing. It’s one of the best parts of what we do.
We love being in the studio and writing music, but getting to play in front of people is what it’s all about. And although the big live shows are amazing, we love a small club gig where we can just play for four or five hours just as much because it’s just a completely different kind of context. And I think because that’s where we started from, it’s something that we never really want to let go of because we just enjoy that so much at the same time.
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Going on from that, you guys have become pretty synonymous with the good old sunset DJ set. Do you have a certain secret or tracklisting for those sorts of sets?
Stu: I think it comes from growing up in Sydney. It’s such a beautiful city. We were fortunate enough to be going to a whole bunch of amazing festivals as punters when we first turned 18 and through our early twenties, just as we were getting into making music and DJing. It’s just a part of our musical DNA, just as a result of living here and growing up here. Yeah. It’s the best time in the city, the sunset
Stu: Harbourlife just keeps coming back to my head. We went to that a few times together just as we were starting Set Mo, maybe even before we’d put out music. And we were just like, “This is it.” Looking at each other in the crowd frothing so hard being like, “This is the vibe. This is where we want to be. We want to be on that stage during this time,” because it’s so fun when the sun goes down. You get the best of both worlds. You get to do the fun vocal stuff and then dive a little deeper, just as all the lights come on and the production kicks in and the sun goes down.
Nick: It leans into that duality that you mentioned. Stu and I have a huge musical overlap, but we do like the funner, brighter, cheekier stuff as much as we love some heavier deeper club stuff. And that’s the beauty of a sunset set is you get to start here and then work your way through and end at a totally different place.
That’s just something that we love doing. You get to show all of your favourites. Whereas, if you’re closing the main stage at a festival and it’s 10:00 PM, you’re just banging it out for an hour. Or if you’re playing at 2:00 PM, you’re just warming them up. But that sunset set is where you get the best of both bits.
Stu: It’s like a condensed stamina session and is why we focus on the extended sets all the time. We just want to do it all. But when you’ve only got an hour on a festival stage, that’s the hour we want.
I’m guessing you guys had some sick times out in Sydney together while you were starting Set Mo. Did you have any nights out or together at a festival or at a club where you were like, “Wow. This is a turning point. Not just for us, but the Set Mo project”?
Stu: There have been so many.
Nick: That’s a great question. When we met was when there were no lockouts. Kings Cross was pumping and Stu and I were both DJing full time. We were playing four or five nights a week and playing a lot of the same venues around Sydney. And Fringe Bar, which is now the Unicorn and is just down from the Lifewithoutandy office, had a party every Wednesday called Friends. And that was where we first met when we were both on the bill. I think it was the second or third week in a row where we saw one another and we changed over from each other. And we were just like, “Oh, yeah, I like your vibe. Let’s hang out afterwards. Should we go and get a beer?” And it was a very organic way of it starting.
Stu: For sure. I think the one that sticks out to me personally would be the party on New Year’s day at Spice.
Nick: Crazy Pee.
Stu: That was one of the funnest nights out we’ve ever had. I think we were Greenwood just before as well. It was a big New Year’s Eve period.
Sounds like a bender. Just looking to the future now, you’ve got ‘Feelings’, you’ve got the Fred Again.. remix and a new team behind you. You’re pumped and ready to go for 2022. What’s coming up? And what are you trying to achieve this year as we’re finally, hopefully, free from all the bullshit of the past two years?
Nick: We’re definitely going to be drip-feeding a bunch of new music over the next couple of months and show everyone the range of styles and sounds that we’ve been working on. It’s not as if we’ve got a brand new sound, but we’ve definitely developed and refined our previous sound. We’ve worked with some amazing vocalists lately as well. Some real up and comers that we just can’t wait to show people them because they’ve amazing voices. And then, man, just to get back to the shows.
Stu: Yeah. We spent a lot of time sampling, which is something we haven’t done that much previously. And just with all the new hardware, there’s definitely going to be some tunes that you may not expect from us. We’ve very excited to share it all. It’s going to be fun.
Set Mo’s new single ‘Feelings’ is out now. You can buy/stream it here.
