DrDr

Best Fit invites the intriguing Brighton trio into our hearts with their soulful warmth and transformative take on bass music. Fusing dark fluid breaks with a creativity that spans beyond any one genre, DrDr will no doubt be making waves in 2013 with the release of their debut EP on Champion Records.

As an extra special treat, in addition to speaking to DrDr about their recording process involving countless hours holed up in a studio, while consuming massive amounts of sweets and caffeine, their upcoming shows with Dark Star and T. Williams as well as their favorite acts to check out when you’re in Brighton, we also have two of the group’s new tracks debuting here today.

Get to know DrDr while listening to their deep and twisted take on the Robin S classic ‘Show Me Love’, as well as the smokey lead single, ‘Addiction’ off their forthcoming EP. Our infatuation grows deeper every time we press play.

I love that DrDr is made up of not just one, but two producers, and a singer. That’s got to change the dynamic a bit.

We work more like a band in the sense that we all have our own individual part to play which makes DrDr unique.

What I really like about your music is that you have a bit of that future garage and house sound that is gaining more popularity today, but you also incorporate darker, dubstep and even drum&bass elements. It’s a quality that sets you apart from other acts. Can you talk about your production process?

It normally starts with a very excitable Joe who has been sitting up all night with an 8 bar loop and telling us that he’s done it!! After calming him down with a few cups of tea we start to work out how to make a song from it. Chris then constructs the basis of the song adding his own MBK twist on it. A lot of bouncing back and forth happens before vocals are introduced. The magic happens when the vocals meet the track and we can see exactly how we want the song to sound. Nothing is put out to the world until we all agree that is the best we can do and we are all up dancing around the studio.

You have described your sound as ‘Future Bass’, can you expand on that concept?

When we started making music together we found it hard to place ourselves into a category. There was a stage from 2010 – 2011 where producers were coming out with pioneering tracks but, like us, didn’t know how describe it. Most of what we were listening to had been labeled “Bass”. The term “future” wasn’t some Sci-fi rant, it literally meant the future of Bass Music…hence Future Bass. It seemed to give us a genre that we could be artistically free to develop in without genre restrictions. We hate genres.

If you had to pick a food or a dish to describe your sound, what would you pick and why?

We sound like Sausage, Mash and Gravy. Because individually those things are rubbish but together we taste fantastic.

Donna, you have a really soulful, almost R&B, dare I say, gospel sound to your vocals. When did you discover you could sing?

I have always loved music and as I was told I was not allowed to pick up guitar by my friend and after trying out Drums for a while, singing became the only thing I seemed to able to do without having my neighbours hate me. It took me a while to get the confidence to perform to anyone but my mum but once I did, I found the huge adrenaline that came from performing to a club full of dancing people.

How did you all meet and decide to form DrDr?

(Donna) Joe and I have been writing music together for years and decided to move out of Norwich to the wonderful town of Brighton. There we met Chris through our wonderfully insane friends and started bashing out ideas. The first track ‘Wrong’ that we collaborated on got such a great response that we decided to carry on and a year on here we are.

Why the name DrDr?

Honestly, someone told me a knock knock joke and I though we could call ourselves KnockKnock? No.. How about a DrDr joke?

You guys are great at putting your own twist on cover songs. Do you have a favourite cover you’ve done so far?

I think its got to be Justin Timberlake ‘Cry me a river’, no matter how much you deny it everyone loves a bit of JT.

Your forthcoming EP, No Compromise is out in March. What was the creative process like for this release?

Coffee, Sweets ….and a lot of dancing. It was intense. Only the other day we were discussing how Diplo makes music production look so glamorous! HOW DOES HE DO IT!!!!????? In reality its 3 of you in a tiny studio, off your face on coffee and Haribo, hunched over a laptop at 3 o’clock in the morning just praying that you didn’t move that last piece of automation that took you 30 minutes to get right. Or maybe that’s just us..

Thinking back to your self-titled 2012 EP, what, if anything, has changed from that release to No Compromise?

No Compromise was a lot more fun to write, all coming from a live band background we decided that we wanted the songs to not only get the audience dancing but ourselves. Our first EP gave us a great idea of what each of us could do and how we could work together to produce tracks. From that we ran with it and wrote our single ‘Addicted’.

Plans to tour/play live shows this year? If so, what’s your live setup like?

We have big plans to make this year jam packed with as many gigs as we can handle. We are hoping to hit the festivals such as Outlook and Sonar
We took our live band background and applied it to electronic music. We wanted to be as exciting visually as it is sonically. Best described by Chris our live set up is like ‘ Two nerdy blokes bopping up and down behind a table covered in geeky light up gadgets while a sexy woman sings and dances out the front.’

You are based in Brighton. Has living there influenced your music, and if so, in what way?

We love Brighton! It has a really diverse music scene and has helped us to write and perform the music we love. Plus there’s a beach.. Our No Compromise EP was made for hot sunny evenings on the stones.

Any insider tips on music to check out if we’re in Brighton?

There are some fantastic up and coming artists coming out of Brighton such as Capsun, Time for T, Bolger/Charlie Traplin, Cave d’appelle, Dan Bradley, Trams and a great promotion company called ENK who have some huge DJs on board.

What does 2013 hold for DrDr?

2013 is gonna be a big year! We are excited about our No Compromise EP coming out on 24th March through the new Champion label, and working with a host of exciting producers such as Bwana, Polkadot and Aaron Lipsett who’ve remixed our lead single ‘Addicted’ . We are already working on our follow up EP due out in summer and hope to cement ourselves in the scene with our forthcoming planned releases. We’ve also been working with Kissy Sellout so keep an eye out for bonus DrDr content with his new single in the next few months! We also have several gigs lined up in Brighton and London in the near distant future one of which includes playing with a big favourite of ours, Dark Sky. We hope 2013 is gonna be a big year and we’re excited to see how it all turns out.

And finally, just for you guys at Best Fit Music we have an exclusive cover of ‘Show Me Love’ by Robin S – we hope you enjoy our take on an all-time 90′s classic.

Any shout outs or closing words?

A big shout goes out to Bwana, Polkadot, Aaron Lipsett and Maths Time Joy who’ve all loved our track ‘Addicted’ and re-worked their magic, our label Champion who are set for amazing things this year following on from their success of their MadTech imprint, Kissy SellOut, MixMag, Anthony Lee, our brilliant manager Sarah and of course our beautiful friends, family and fans who continue to support us.

DrDr’s single ‘Addicted (Radio Edit)’ is out now and No Compromise is out 24th March on Champion Records.