While it’d soon find international success, it was during the Australian music festival circuit that Snakehips’ breakout track ‘All My Friends’ first found a home.
Looking back some seven years later, the British duo still rank Australian audiences as some of their most receptive, despite a career that’s sent them to almost every corner of the globe and has seen them work with the likes of Anderson. Paak and Chance the Rapper. In the time between, they’ve become a mainstay of Australian festivals, fronting some of the biggest music events in the country and listing fellow DJs like Flume as key inspirations. Although they’ve graced stages across the nation, the duo still reflects on their 2017 appearance at Groovin The Moo, counting it as one of the sets that made Australia feel “like a second home.”
So special was that GTM debut that the producers have since made their return, heading back to the farmyard last week with two shows in Maitland and Canberra. Now, with a performance slated for the last leg of the rural festival in Bendigo this weekend, we caught up with Snakehips for an overview of the wildest Australian audiences, their starry list of features, and what’s to come in their upcoming album.
You’ve previously performed at GTM in 2017. What would you say has changed about your sound, or your performance style, since then?
Ollie: It’s kind of constantly been evolving, really. I feel like back in the day we were making so many different styles of music so our sets used to be pretty all over the place, we’d kind of be like 10 minutes at one tempo and then flip it to another thing. So, I think now we’ve kind of refined the sound a little bit more, and it’s more on a steady journey, rather than being quite so…
James: ADHD [laughs].
GTM is probably Australia’s most loved rural festival. Are there any differences you notice between a rural venue/setting compared to a city festival?
Ollie: I feel like everyone was going wild at the last one! I have memories of it.
James: It was particularly wild [laughs].
Ollie: I don’t know whether that’s because they don’t have as many festivals out in those places and people just go crazy for it, but it’s very very good energy.
James: Yeah it was, I remember it.
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You’ve long been a festival mainstay on Australian festival lineups. What is it about Australian shows that keeps you coming back, and why do you think you’ve found such a following here?
Ollie: It’s just always been really good to us as a country and people supporting us. Some of our first shows we actually played out in Australia really early on. It was just one of the places where our sound seemed to just connect well. I guess when we were starting out there was this whole kind of amazing scene of Australian music that we had a bit of synergy with. People like Wave Racer, Cosmo’s Midnight and obviously Flume and people like that. It’s just always felt like a second home to us really and the music has just been well enjoyed and just makes sense to people down here.
Do you have a most treasured Australian show?
Ollie: There’s been so many for so many different reasons. I think one of our craziest ones was at Beyond The Valley in 2015, just after we released our track, ‘All My Friends.’ It kind of blew up here before anywhere else in the world, and we just never experienced a crowd reaction like that to a song. I remember the two of us just being like ‘what the hell just happened?’ Like insane. But there’s been so many.
James: Do you remember the first one in Adelaide? Someone had set up an office desk at the top of a bar somewhere. That was pretty fun. That was probably in 2013.
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You mentioned ‘All My Friends’ there. What was the process like in enlisting Tinashe and Chance the Rapper? Did you expect how popular that song became?
Ollie: I think we loved it and knew that it had something special about it, but equally, it’s so difficult to know how things are going to be received. Especially when you work on something for a while, you kind of just send out into the world and it’s like *nervous jitter.* It was a cool experience, and it was just at a point where Chance was obviously a superstar, but not quite at the level of superstar he’s at now, and we managed to get ahold of him somehow. He was like ‘I know who you guys are, I’m a fan, let’s make it happen.’ So I think it was just at the perfect time where the two of them were still kind of coming up even though they were massive, and it just somehow all came together in a lovely way.
Given the sound you’ve carved out, do you measure a songs’ success based on the live performance of it? Or whether you could listen to it in the car on your own?
Ollie: I think it’s a bit of both, you know. I think the test of it sometimes, is when you make a song that isn’t necessarily a dance floor track, and people still go crazy to it. That’s when you’ve got the right thing going, because it could be a chill tune that people turn up to. So I think somewhere in the middle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3mrYxPLSH4
Now moving more specifically to your music work. You recently collaborated with Tchami for ‘Tonight.’ Would you say this track, and the Couple Bandz EP, carves out a new sound for you, putting more of a house producer hat on?
Ollie: To be honest we kind of just had a little detour for a few months there. We’d just launched our new label and we made a bunch of dance-ier stuff like that through lockdown and over the last couple of years, just kind of enjoying making more club-based tracks. To be honest, it might have just been from not being able to be in the studio so much with people and just making more dance floor-led tunes whilst we were stuck at home [laughs]. But actually we’ve gone back to doing a lot more vocal features now, so a lot of the new material that we’re working on is more kind of classical in that it’s us working with different artists, making songs more than just instrumentals.
Is that how you guys started? As that more kind of solely instrumental sound, or were vocals always in mind?
Ollie: I think we always had vocals in mind. Early on, even the stuff that didn’t have features on it, we’d always quite heavily use acapellas and sample vocals. If we were doing a remix, we’d always use the whole vocal for it and reimagine the track. I think we’ve always loved dance music and instrumental music, but we’ve always really enjoyed just songwriting, and just thinking of it in terms of having a vocal being the main melody and working things around that. That’s just where we come from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCfFpInRNw4
Speaking more broadly. The collaborations and features on your projects read like a who’s who of the music industry. Who would you say has been the most fun to collaborate with throughout the years?
Ollie: There’s been so many amazing ones. One of my favourite experiences was working with Anderson Paak, way back in the day. He was just a great vibe of a human being and [it] was just really amazing to watch someone work. You know when someone just has so many ideas? But I mean we’ve worked with some awesome people, there’s been loads.
How important is getting the right feature for a track, and is there an art to selecting the right voice?
Ollie: It’s not always the same formula to how it works. Sometimes we’ll write a tune and we’ll have someone sing it, or sometimes we’ll write a tune with someone and get in the studio. Sometimes you just get in a room with someone and just see what the hell happens and if it goes good, it goes good. And then other times, you’ll have something that maybe sounds like ‘oh that would really work for this person, let’s get them to do it.’ So it’s always different, really.
Your work spans multiple genres. Do you find that you pick and choose based on the feature you’re using, or is there one genre you have the most affinity for?
Ollie: We’ve kind of just been all over the place with everything. I think it’s kind of always sat in a bit of an R&B, hip hop type of lane, and then we just add all of our influences into it. We do some house-y stuff and some dance-y stuff. But I always just say it’s like soul music to me. It’s all kind of soulful in whatever genre it is.
Some tracks feature multiple big name artists. Is this a logistical nightmare in coordinating all these names, or has the process always been quite seamless?
Ollie: It’s always been pretty chill. Occasionally, there’ll be someone that you’re trying to track down for a really long time and it’ll be like ‘they’re going to record it next week, they’re going to record it next week,’ and then it turns into like three years or something. So there’s definitely a lot of that but I think you just stick with it, and if there’s someone that really works with the vibe you just make it happen.
Anyone who you’d consider a dream feature?
Ollie: We’ve been working with some really cool people for our next project. Some of the people that I’m really excited about is this guy called Finn Askew who’s a singer from London who’s insane. Rochelle Jordan, who’s an awesome R&B singer from the States. We’re kind of working with some more up and coming people now on our new project, doing some stuff that we’re really excited about. But yeah, there’s a bunch.
What can you reveal about your upcoming project?
Ollie: Well we’re working on an album, and we’re going to drop it later this year at some point, depending on when it gets finished. But yeah, it’s in the works and it’s coming together at the moment so we’re just enjoying being in the studio and writing new stuff.
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So you’ve got a string of Australian shows slated. What can audiences expect when you hit our shores?
Ollie: We’re just going to have fun. It’s going to be good vibes. A lot of energy. It’s going to be great. They can expect to have a good time!
