Interview with Above and Beyond

Above & Beyond: Tony & Jono

It’s not always that I get to interview some of the musicians or dj’s that I admire. But lately I’ve been a little lucky. Scored an interview with DJ Tiesto and now with Above an Beyond [A&B].

A&B are hitting South African shores in November. A&B are the British trio of Jono Grant, Paavo Siljamäki, & Tony McGuinness. More popularly known for their albums Ajunabeats the trio can be found weekly on the airwaves on their live radio broadcast of Trance Around The World.

Smirnoff decided to change the way we usually do interviews and got us to ask questions directly to A&B on Twitter. They were given our Twitter handles [names] and asked specically to reply to only us and only if we were using the hashtag #ABTOURSA. Pretty cool spin by Smirnoff and would have worked even better if we had A&B answering the questions on time.

Either way… here is my awesome interview with A&B [replies by Jono Grant]:

ZK: Hi @AboveandBeyond, Thanks for this chance, first q: Define the sound of Anjuna in a tweet… #ABtourSA

A&B: J: @zk #ABtourSA I would say emotional electronic dance music is the core sound of the Anjuna labels

ZK: With regards to your radio show, where is most of the mixing done? On the plane, in the studio, the hotel room? #ABTOURSA@Aboveandbeyond

A&B: J: @zk we have 2 studios now because there are 3 of us, and one of those is used for radio once a week #ABtourSA

ZK: @AboveandBeyond – Could they ever see a 4th member being added ? #ABTourSA

A&B: J: @zk 4th member? No way. 3 egos is enough and creates enough fighting as it is! =) #ABtourSA

ZK: @AboveandBeyond – Would you ever have a live TATW from SA?#ABTOURSA

A&B: J: @zk would love to have a live SA TATW. Your place?!#ABtourSA

ZK: @AboveandBeyond – Who were your influencers? #ABTOURSA

A&B: J: @zk influences when growing up were PSBs, depeche mode, new order, Jarre, Electronic, 80s synth pop, pink floyd, genesis etc… #ABtourSA

ZK: @AboveandBeyond Only 2 of you are designated per event, how do you decide who gets to go where? Rock Paper Scissors?#ABTOURSA

A&B: J: @zk nowadays I try to be a bit of a sponge with music and soak up as much as possible from a wide mix of genres….#ABtourSA

ZK: @Aboveandbeyond A remix was done on the J-pop artist Ayumi Hamasaki tune,a very “out of the box” scenario,wat led to this project? #ABTOURSA

A&B: J: @zk Nobby Uno from Avex records got in touch having liked our Madonna remix. Ayumi was the Madonna of Japan at the time#ABtourSA

ZK: @AboveandBeyond Considering the plethora of acts/aliases associated to you,what is your “own favourite”, an alias you hold dearly? #ABTOURSA

A&B: J: @zk I can’t pick an alias as it’s all us under different names! I am probably most proud of Air For Life as a track. #ABtourSA

ZK: @AboveandBeyond – Perhaps a teaser into your studio, the software and hardware tools used ? #ABTOURSA

A&B: J: @zk Lots of hardware synths-we just bought a prophet 08 which is lovely.Sequential Circuits ProOne is also a beast.We use logic #ABtourSA

Above and Beyond will be performing at Godskitchen Boombox South Africa. You can catch them in Cape Town on 19 November 2010 and in Johannesburg on the 20 November 2010.

PS: Thanks to Birdman for these awesome questions!