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INTERVIEW: Disclosure

26 November 2012 | 1:30 pm | Hannah Galvin

Get to know half of South London duo Disclosure as we caught up with Guy Lawrence for a quick chat!

Everyone loves a little bit of dance music. I'm sure even the metal heads have their guilty pleasures that they get loose to (okay, maybe not all of them). If you're one of these dancing queens and you're ready to commit yourself to the D Floor, it's time to get on board the DISCLOSURE bandwagon!

Comprised of two brothers from South London, Guy and Howard Lawrence have been making music since they were just tiny, little people. Now at the ages of 18 and 21, the Lawrence bros are making dance music - it's very good. With their Australian festival appearances just around the corner, we caught up with the eldest of the two, Guy Lawrence.

Asking how the brothers started the group, Guy informed me,

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"We just used to make music around the house. About three years ago we just decided to put a few tracks that we’d made like recently on the Internet. They’d done really well and we released them and yeah they were the first songs that we’d ever released."

As easy as that, huh? Well then.

They've just released the infectious track 'Latch' featuring Sam Smith. Receiving the recognition that it has, I wondered if the boys ever expected it to be this successful..

"No not at all, no. We never expected it to be as well as it is. We thought we might be able to get into, you know, maybe the Top 40 or something in the UK, but even that we were like, aw that would be so good. But yeah we got #11 which is crazy."

And just what was it like allowing Sam Smith into this circle of musical trust?

"Yeah great! I mean yeah he’s a great guy, really nice, really just up for working with a variety of people really, Like he’s very very kind of cleverly based and he’s only just turned 20. I don’t think he quite knows what his sound is gonna be totally quite yet, cause you know he does his own stuff as well, he’s working on writing and stuff for himself at the moment. I think he’s just trying to work with as many people as possible to kind of broaden his sort of thing of what he wants to do. But yeah it was a pleasure, he’s a lovely guy."

Besides the fact that musicians have approached Disclosure and have created remixes of the duo's tracks, Guy and Howard have released a few different remixes of bands and artists tracks themselves. So just what has been their favourite to do?

"Well, the one we did for Jessie Ware, I mean that was like.. The reason we took that one was because we knew we could do a really good job of it because the vocals are just so good, like we love the original song and we love Jessie as well. We get on with her really well, she’s a good friend so, that was like one of my favourite for sure, to do, and we’re really pleased with how that came out. But we haven’t really done too many to be honest. We’ve done a couple that haven’t come out that were really fun to do as well. We’ve got this one coming out soon that we did for Heartful Dodger. We wanted to do that because they’re big influences of ours from back in the 90s. And their album was so good but I mean we didn’t get to specifically work with them or anything like one of them just kind of asked us to do it and yeah that’ll be coming out soon with a free download and all. Our Soundcloud page – we haven’t given out anything for ages so we thought that’d be a good idea."

The remix is available as the B-Side of their label mate's 7" single, 'Running'.

Being the successful duo that they are, I asked Guy who is favourite artist is currently.

"Wow. Ummmmmm.. Tough one. I’d say the producer that I’m most impressed with at the moment – I wouldn’t say he’s my favourite – but the producer that I’ll most likely listen to at the moment cause I’m astonished by him is a guy called Happa. He’s from Leeds in the UK and he’s fifteen and it’s crazy cause you’ll go out and listen to his music, you’ll be amazed as well, cause it’s just really really hard like rough techno and it’s just like, this kid’s fifteen! How are you doing that? He’s never been to a club in his life. It reminds me like cause we started making music when we were really young and we had to take a lot of influence and just sort stuff we were hearing on podcasts and mixes and stuff cause we hadn’t really been clubbing much either. He’s just definitely like a kid that I’m watching big time cause I think he’s gonna be doing very well in a few years. Stuff he’s making now is just crazy for such a young age."

Disclosure will be landing in Australia for their Summadayze and Field Day shows. Which city are they most excited to visit?

"The whole thing really! We’ve never been to Australia. I can’t wait to go to Sydney, like I’ve always wanted to go there and I think we’ve got a few days there as well to kind of chill. And also my best friend is doing a gig out there for his university so probably Sydney cause I think we’re going to be there for New Years as well so that’ll make it even better."

By the sounds of things, we should be expecting a pretty phenomenal show when Disclosure eventually get over here. Guy explains their live show set up.

"We’ll do a few DJ sets but for the live show it’s going to be.. Well we’re expanding it all the time but I don’t know what it’ll be like then, it might be bigger than what it is at the moment [laughs] but at the moment it kinda consists of a mixture of a laptop with some backing parts on it with various mini controllers. We also bring three keyboards and synthesizers, two drum pad sort of triggery things that we use to play the vocal samples on, we’ve got an MPC as well with more vocal pads on it and then a kind of percussion rack as well with drums and cymbals. And I don’t know if we’ll be able to bring this yet because we went to America recently and we couldn’t actually fit this in our bags cause we had to literally limit our bags but usually we bring our bass guitar as well and a guitar. Hopefully we’ll be able to get those over as well. So yeah kind of just a variety of instruments mixed with using Ableton Live on my laptop."

Whilst touring throughout 2013, the Lawrence brothers also plan on releasing their debut album early next year.

"Yeah, we’re aiming for around March. It’s looking good actually, I think we’re on track roughly. It’s hard to tell because we’ve got so many shows coming up and stuff but yeah, March time, yeah."

March is quite early, so with their Australian visit, can we expect Disclosure to play a  stack of new material that we can go mental to?

"Yeah we have been, we’ve been playing a couple of our sort of bootlegs that we’ve done but I mean we’re starting to. The thing is now, cause everyone’s got camera phones, as soon as you play a new song, or even if it’s on a live radio show or anything, people will still manage to get a really good quality recording of it and rip it onto YouTube before you even get home, - it’s actually crazy. So you do kind of have to watch that, but yeah I think by Australia, we’ll definitely be playing a couple of new tracks for sure."

Disclosure's entrance into the new year is going to be a pretty busy one. What else do they have planned for 2013?

"Well we’ve got a headline tour as well in the UK which we’re really excited about – it’s going to be our first headline tour. And just looking forward to getting the album done. All we’ve wanted to is make an album and it’s crazy just doing it at the ages of 18 and 21! It’s mad like I thought people made albums when they’re like 30 or something so yeah it’s mad. So yeah, just focusing on that really. We’ve set aside some time till December and January to write it and mix it all down. And I’m sure we’ll be back over to Australia at some point maybe in the Summer, and America and stuff, it’s crazy yeah, it’s going to be a mad year. "

Catch Disclosure play Summadayze in Adelaide, Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Perth, as well as on New Years Day for Sydney's Field Day.

Words by Hannah Galvin.