Inneri Duo: Infidel Interview #15
First of, just want to thank you for participating in this edition of Infidel Interviews. Could you start off by giving a little information about yourselves to the audience? Whatever you feel comfortable with, but name, age, what instruments you can play, and where you live would be pretty standard?
We’re Nerijus (30) and Indre (22), or simply Inneri Duo - a family, a band and a DJ team. We’re no proffessionals, but we love what we do and try to get better with every track. We came from Lithuania and now it has been over two years as we’re living in Norway.
Our story begun almost three years ago, and after nine months a project was born. We called it Inneri Duo and we’re now trying to grow and raise it proper.
Nerijus: I have a quite long experience as a DJ - I started to play at age 18, so now it has already been 12 years, with a few bigger breaks. Though I always prefer drum & bass, there were times when I had to play what I didn’t really liked (or even hated), but that was my bread and butter. I probably was the saddest (and drunkest) DJ ever seen when playing pop :) Because of drum & bass was always more an underground thing, I mostly played it at electronic music festivals or events organised by such music enthusiasts. I started to work with composing music here, in Norway, about two years ago and now that’s what I do most of my time. Playing live has become more like home activity.
Indre: Well, I begun at a church choir and now I’m all into Neurofunk. :D At the time I’m learning to work with DJ equipment and trying to improve my vocal skills. I also write lyric a lot, this has always been a very important part for me.
Within your music I can at times hear thick layers of melody passing against distant echoes of noise and dissonance. Your ability to balance the two sounds is remarkable. In an era where the term "less is more" is far to prevalent, it's refreshing to hear someone take the more "wall of sound" approach. Having truly layered and dynamic music can at times seem like a forgotten art it. Despite all the modern recording technology, we seem to only hear more and more imperfection. The more layers we add, the harder it is to process and make a song sound tangible. Do you have any particular composing or recording techniques that help you achieve a balance between simplicity and complexity?
As we said we’re far from professionals and the only technique we use is Listening :) We trust our ears and polish the sounds one by one til it all just fits together and makes a nice whole. We think that actually “more is more” as long as it makes harmonic sound, and try to keep the track dynamic so that it wouldn’t get boring neither for listener nor for us. We personally love music that no matter how many times was heard before there’s always something new to discover; even a tiny sound can make whole song more vital and alive. We’re actually paying a lot attention to these tiny sounds and spend much time looking for the right ones.
What would you say are your biggest influences when it comes to art and music? Are there any bands that you would say struck you with the chord that inspired you to peruse your current path of musical aspirations?
We don’t have any special idol that we would seek, instead we keep our interest on many artist of drum & bass, both world known and new ones. There are a lot of crazy talents out there and we’re glad we’re living at times when it’s easy to find them and their music.
What would you say are your favorite themes and topics to write about? What draws you to those themes?
Themes usually comes up from personal experience or from what we see around us. We want that every song would bring a message to a listener and every sound and word that’s in it would stand for that concrete message.
Within the band do you guys both attack music and vocals together, or do you each have more specific roles? I know that with modern bands and technology the "band role" has become more of a fluid concept, however this is not always the case. Sometimes having defined roles, even if only for a specific songs, or moments within a song, can help create fluidity and coherence. Where do you guys stand when it comes to each others role's within the composition of the music?
Our roles formed very naturally. We have kind of a template - at first, one is working on the main melody, while other is writing lyric and recording vocals. When we have both and put it into demo, long evenings and nights of sitting and polishing the material together begins. We find this way reasonable and suitable for us.
What would you say would be you short term, and long term, goals for the band? Do you find that you two have to find a balance between your different directions and goals? Or do you work together fluidly?
We’re a family duet, as snare and kick - they cannot do without each other :) so our goals are also common. As for short term goals, we’re living from song to song. We’d say that our long term goal is to improve our musical skills, get better at technique side, and create music that would blow people’s mind. We’re hoping that someday we’ll become that good that we could collaborate with a label and make our music go viral.
Would you say that your choice to pursue music has changed your life since you started? Would you say that creativity has evolved you spiritually, emotionally, or logically?
Creating music makes us feel that we’re doing something that gives a meaning to us and our lives. Guess even if we wouldn’t have a single listener we’d still keep doing this.
Within your music there seems to be a fair balance between organic and synthetic sounding instruments. Do you guys use a mixture of hardware and software or have you managed to capture this dynamic sound with only or predominantly software? It's become more and more difficult to tell nowadays with how detailed samples are. If you guys do use samples in your work or organic instruments are their any particular companies or sample libraries you like?
We work with Ableton Live software and usually use sounds from Loopmasters, Freaky Loops or Prime Loops.
Are there any particular instruments, programs, or effects that you would say are vital to you making music? If so, is there a reason in particular that draws you to said creative outlet?
We mostly use original audio effects from Ableton Live, also Waves plug-ins, for the vocals we prefer Izotope Nectar 2.
Do you spend a lot of time crafting your own sounds? Or do you value song crafting and effects tweaking more? Or do you find it's a balance between the two? What's your relationships with presets?
Now we prefer using samples and modifying them with plug-ins and audio effects. Also when working with presets we tweak them to get the best result. We’re willing to get better from technical side, so we think it would be the right time to start creating our own sounds.
Are live shows an important part of your career? Do you feel the most home in the live performance or in the studio? How come?
Live shows may be important for us if we would have a chance to play. Now it’s difficult, because someone killed drum & bass in Bergen :( of course we could play other genres, but we now want to stay loyal to what we truly love. That’s the reason our live performances and studio works happens in our 20kvm apartment. So we can say that both feels like home. :)
When it comes to non-musical media, what do you find yourself most inspired by, and what about it draws you to it as a source of inspiration?
It’s hard to name something concrete, inspiration often comes from the most unpredictable sources.
Thank you so much for participating in this episode of Infidel Interview. Any parting words for your fans, or my audience?
We’re wishing your audience to become our fans, and our fans to become your audience! Thanks for having us :)
Check out Inneri Duo on their official Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/inneriduo/tracks
or Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGkvD-D8Ocp_ZN-xnE6RmpA
#NewMusic #Interview #InneriDuo #ElectronicMusic #PopMusic #DanceMusic #DrumBass #theProphet #Norway #2016