You’re probably very excited about your newest and first release on Eatbrain. Congrats to that, guys! Why is it called Hawkeye? Are you huge superhero fans? :)
For sure we’re excited, going to Eatbrain is like an achievement with all the work they do since years and the sound they push into the DNB scene.
We know Jade & MNDSCP since years, Niko already worked with them with “Signs” and had a few releases on it and Julien already did few collabs on Eatbrain too, so it was natural for us to send our music and see what happens.
About the title “Hawkeye”, it’s totally not about the Marvel Super hero, which we’re not very fan tbh. He’s more like a super zero for us. J/K
“Hawkeye” is about seeing the life through the eyes of a hawk, with a natural meaning, facing the difficulties of life in the Middle West.
As for “Burr Oak” we’re very into the Western stories and Native American mythology. It’s like we’re sharing life and feelings from an other continent, but still living in Europe, like a “nouveau western”.
Who inspired you producing this EP?
We listened to a lot of Rock Grunge music during the making of it. Like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and more… (that’s a big part of our musical culture)
And for sure latest stuff by Noisia, Dawn Wall, Camo & Krooked, Mefjus, KOTR, and others great producers from the scene. Of course a lot of old stuff like Kemal & Rob Data, Stakka & Skynet, C4C etc., we love that techy sound forever.
We’re diving a lot into what we want to tell in our music, for example in “Hawkeye”, we watched a lot of old Western Movies and listened a lot of Blues Music, to feel the dry land and hot sun, then we were ready to sing on it. So yeah, our voices and accent are not perfect, but we really tried to give that Country Blues vibes in it.
You mentioned you were inspired by a lot of grunge and rock music – have you experimented making these genres too?
Yeah, we have always been inspired by Rock, Grunge, Punk, Metal music and even with Hip Hop, we both grew up with these genres so it’s natural for us to inject it into our production.
We both were part of a Rock band but nothing really serious.
Niko was singer, we mean a “howler” in a hardcore metal band and Julien played guitar with his friends’ band. We’re composing more like a band now, we’re singing both, you can hear it on Hawkeye for example and even more on the next tracks coming. We trying to put some messages into our music, even if sometimes it could be hard to understand it by the listeners. We let our audience to appropriate our music.
I’m really curious about how you came up with the collab name, Burr Oak.
This a long story, take a seat.
Being both fans of Western movies and all Native American Culture we wanted a name that made think of it.
We searched for months without finding something that we really liked but one evening while working on a song we both heard the same hearing illusion with a bass we were working, that said something like “Walnut Grove” in rehearsal.
It made us laugh a lot because it’s the main village of “The Little House on the Prairie” serie broadcasted when we were kids. Suddenly we knew, that was it, we had our name.
But in writing we found it not very aesthetic, so we documented ourself on the story about the serie and the Ingalls family and a name jumped at our eyes “Burr Oak”.
We found that this type of Oak is often sacred for Native Americans and we are here to plant a seed and to grow it for years, so the Oak appeared to us as obvious.
And the name sounds so good for any kind of music, so it’s perfect for what we’re doing.
Yes, indeed you have a very unique name. How did you guys start producing music together?
We started producing together about two years ago now, but we’ve both talked about doing a project and collaborating since years.
Already at the time when Niko was part of Signs we wanted to work together but we never managed to find the right timing.
We have made up for it since then.
How do you work together? Who’s doing what when producing music?
I’m (Julien) doing everything.
Niko is just smoking amount of weed and laughing alone.
I (Niko) am the main guy of the project.
Julien is always in the kitchen and eating all the day, when he’s not sleeping.
J/K
And to be serious, we are working together at the same time in the studio, both doing all the things, like Drums, Basses, Synths whatever, sharing the mouse.
Sometimes we’re starting some sketches both on our side in our respective studios, then we finish the track together if the idea is validated by both, of course.
It happens sometimes one of us spend hours sound designing Basses, Drums or Synths, then the other comes and start to sequence it and vice versa.
The cool thing in this project is we’re both hard workers, we don’t sleep enough to be honest, and everything come very naturally.
We trust each other and let’s time to develop the idea when one of us have it. And for the moment, the symbiosis is perfect.
I hope you can still get some proper rest guys. How do you handle if you don’t agree on something?
It never happen for the moment, but if it does, probably having a fight on a ring will resolve it.
Do you master your own tracks?
Yes, for the most of our releases, generally we prefer our own master, because we know from the very beginning of composition how we want the track to sound. But still taking advices from close friends who help us to get out of the project to be more objective.
What is your studio set up?
We each have a respective studio, even if we work mainly at Julien’s home.
Mostly we’re working with Ableton on each computer, with quite the same setup with VSTS, so it’s easy to work in each studio when we want to move a bit.
We both have a pair of monitors, Eve Audio Sc208 and Behringer Truth B2030A and have a few hardwares like TB 303 (the original one), Roland Juno 106, Vermona Syncussion DRM-1, and other few things like mics, keyboards, midi controllers and good headphones. Our friends Etienne and Céline from Kosen & Karnage Records work in a great music shop in Toulouse (Sunset Music), so they help us having some new materials to try and buy when we need it.
It’s great to have friends like them. :) What advice would you give people who have just started making music?
Do whatever you you want with all your souls. Believe in yourself but, above all, practice, practice and practice. Stay true, authentic and enjoy composing music.
Take the music like a remedy of the World pain.
Do you prefer to collaborate with other producers ‘solo’ or as Burr Oak?
For the moment we have not yet collaborated with a lot of artists under the Burr Oak project, but the few collabs we’ve already made has gone very well. So expect a collab EP coming in the near future.
How was playing on the Virus night on SteelYard for the first time as a new collab project?
That was SICK, one of the best party ever. Very emotional moments, and the energy shared with all the people was incredible.
Very cool to see a lot of friends there, and playing with all the legends. Meeting Kemal was awesome for us, even more when we never expected to meet him.
Grateful to our good friend, Prolix who let us play in Trendkill room, Trendkill is a foundation for our sound. And celebrating 20 years of Virus was unforgettable. London Calling!!!
What’s next for Burr Oak?
We already have new tracks done, solo and collabs tracks, and you could listen it in the year on Trendkill and Eatbrain.
A lot of more are in progress, like collabs with Prolix, Billain, TR Tactics and more…
And you could hear us singing a bit more on the next tracks, we’ve lot of things to tell.
Burr Oak is more than just a project for us, and we gonna push it as far as possible.
Thank you for the interview.
Niko & Ju
Thank you guys! :)
Their first release on Eatbrain, the Hawkeye EP is available on Beatport & on Spotify from 17th February.
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