"Our music is very much about escapism" In conversation with Bondax

Bondax initially hit the world by storm through Soundcloud and YouTube and growing up in Hong Kong I was obsessed with their sounds. Fast forward a few years later we sit down in Hong Kong and chat about their come up and life.

You were both born in Lancaster?
George Townsend (G): I mean vaguely speaking, we’re both from the countryside. Essentially, I live on the edge of the moor, in the middle of nowhere. Kind of like Sherlock Holmes, when he went out to investigate something out in the moors.

So, did you know all your neighbors then?
G: Well I didn’t have a lot of neighbours. But, it’s beautiful and its not too far from different places. We were very much cut off from cultures and only because of our parents we rarely sort of found music and art.

Adam Kaye (A): Not really my parents. Their music taste isn’t the best.

What did they play when you were growing up?
G: Christian Rock.

So, your whole family was Christian and religious?
G: Yes, they were. Very religious.

Was it a very religious town then?
G: The school kind of was.

What kind of music did you listen to? What were people listening to in the area?
A: Well, let’s put it this way. When we started making music we were given a lot of grief.

G: We were a bit of a joke.

Really?
G: It was always ‘What is this? Some kind of dance music?’. Everyone was in a band, it was an indie, mod sort of culture which we grew up listening to.

“We’ll probably always make music together, its gotten past the time we’ve been through our lowest points. We have used every single possible word to each other and I still love him.”

Were you guys in a band growing up?
A: I used to be in a few funny bands.

G: I have only always produced.

A: You know I have to clarify this thing about my parents, they got me a lot of things, like guitars and stuff when I was a kid. I just had to find my own way into soul music and jazz and stuff. You see those interviews where people are like oh yeah my dad had an extensive record collection with 70’s soul and jazz songs. That would have been amazing for me, but luckily we have the internet.

Are your parents creative? What do they do?
A: My dad is a doctor and my mum used to play the guitar and she can actually sing.

Does she do that full time?
A: No, not full time, she used to do it when she was younger. Then she studied anatomy at university. My family is very academic.

And did they push you to study?
A: When I was at school, they were like ‘ do music but keep going to school and get your grades’. But, after things started kicking off they’ve been supportive, they’ve always been very supportive this whole time.

Was it common amongst your friends to be creative or were they really academic?
G: I left school early to pursue my music career. Which was debatable because my dad was a teacher and the headteacher as well. So I was sort of going against the norm. But, there was something about our school, 3-4 different people from our schools have gotten record deals now.

Wow that’s crazy, is it music affiliated?
G: Yes, it is.

Was it a music school?
A: No, it wasn’t, they didn’t push us into this. We catalyzed each other, instilled inspiration to each other. I think we just pushed each other, with an idea of; ‘if they can make it then you have to belief that we can make it!’. A few of our friends have gotten really big deals, they’re touring the world and recently played on Seth Meyers.

G: I actually used to be in a rock band with that guy. We were called Zoltan, after ‘Dude Where’s My Car’. We played some pretty heavy rock, it was a good few years. We were pretty good and it was fun.

Why didn’t you continue with them?
G: We (Bondax) were the best band at school (chuckles). Everyone just sort of seperated. The lead singer, Tom plays in Aquilo the band I was in so he’s still doing it, just in a different band. Adam and I became friends when we were like 14 or 15, we used to sit in graphic design lesson together, not really doing any work and just chatting about music, about dub step, trying to pinch people.

“I think people just fall into a scene when you’re an adolescent, like you’re that sort of person and you’re that sort of person, we just never fit into any of those groups. We tried to be that person, we failed and we ended up making music that became us.”

Have you guys made dubstep?
G: Yes, pretty much, however we didn’t really know how to make it though. We were listening to all this stuff but we couldn’t figure out how to make it like ‘blllloooo’ (mimics dupstep sounds). We made our own thing and we liked what we made.

A:There was never a point where we just listened to dubstep. I think people just fall into a scene when you’re an adolescent, like you’re that sort of person and you’re that sort of person, we just never fit into any of those groups. We tried to be that person, we failed and we ended up making music that became us. Failure is the key to success, always. It is cliché but it is true.

So how exactly did you go from a rock band to dubstep?
G: Well actually, it was really me who I dragged him into it. I was like ‘mate please let’s try this out’. I didn’t have the musicality but I had the technical viewpoint, I knew how to make it and I needed him to get the chords I was looking for. And now we have taught each other.

A: It’s funny for me because growing up, I remember hearing like trance, I remember thinking ‘this is crap, anyone can do this!’. Back in the days you had this rock or mod mentality so either you’re a rocker or not, you were sort of like ‘ I’m not allowed to like dance music.’ I remember watching the music channels and ‘Around the world’ by Daft Punk came on and I was loving it but I didn’t want anyone to know that I liked it. My house was so rock orientated and so I was listening to electronic and secretly thinking ‘ this is pretty cool!’. There was another one ‘Move your feet’ by Junior Senior, which I love but didn’t want to admit either that I liked it. laughs.

Was it just you two who shared like this low-key liking of electronic?
G:I have this vivid memory of Dj’ing this party…

A:… it was my 15th birthday!!!

G: All the girls came up to me like ‘what are you doing? You’re killing the vibe.’ And now, I’m like playing a remix of Jamie XX and 5 years on, they go to The XX’s gigs. Back then they were like play some Rihanna, George!
You have to stick to your guns, in that respect. We tried to avoid playing at silly parties and we said, we’re going to be proper DJ’s and succeed. But, it didn’t really work out that way.

A: That was George’s idea, I learned to DJ when I was 16 and I was like ‘oh yeah mate, I’m just going to play this at a mates house party as he’s going to give us 200 quid or whatever’.

G: But, I was skinned and I was always like ‘Integrity! Integrity!’. I mean it has worked out! I’ll let it slip.

“My house was so rock orientated and so I was listening to electronic and secretly thinking ‘ this is pretty cool!’. There was another one ‘Move your feet’ by Junior Senior, which I love but didn’t want to admit either that I liked it.”

And finding music? Was that through the internet, through SoundCloud, Myspace,VEVO?
A: It was myspace.

G: It was actually through records, because my cousin had played to me some dubstep back home and he really got into collecting records. Actually initially it wasn’t the internet and then it became the internet and then we found everything through that until we were like 20 and now we’ve gotten back to playing on records as we travel.

A: Back to that graphic design time, me, George and our mate Woolly and we literally sit there and chat about records like Bangerz like “this is so cool!”.

Did you have mentors growing up? Going into the music scene is a big leap so did you have anyone helping you out?
G: No, we didn’t have anyone really. I think that’s what helped us develop a different skill set. I focused a lot of time on the technical side of making music and haven’t spend a lot of time on the musical side. We worked it out and we did look for people. I went to school and asked the music teacher about compression and how I can reach this certain mix and stuff. And same with chords and stuff. The thing was though we knew much more than them.

Just by research?
G: Yes, just by doing it yourself you usually work it out. We did it all day, everyday, and when I left school, I did it every single days, 15 hours a day until I went to sleep. And in bed I would be on my laptop. Then you move that into the studio and work out how to do it in the hardwire and then we worked out how to record real guitars . There hasn’t been a single mentor, but we’ve had this guy called Tim who has had the biggest affect on us. Tim Burns. He has really helped us capture the 60’s sound on the guitar, get the grand pianos into the tracks without destroying or taking over. Those engineering techniques are something you need someone to teach you. We weren’t fortunate to have a mentor but maybe if we did then we would have made a different kind of music.
We have actually just finished the album now, we’ve been making electronic music since we were young but this album is much more of a progression. It´s got orchestra pieces and choirs and gospel choirs, the arrangements are much more complicated. People might find it a bit difficult to comprehend our new music compared to some of our previous music.

A: We always say that the limitations are what makes you who you are. Lets say if I couldn’t play some of these certain jazz chords how I wanted to, we would be playing the same major 7th chord, that becomes the same sound that we already had. We didn’t know how to sidechain properly, we would like use this plug-in that would do it for us and it would define the sort of sound we would use. But, Tim has been amazing, he’s in his 40’s and he can record anything. For example, when we record a base we plug in straight into our plug-in then to our SoundCloud where as he plugs it into his like 1968 base amp and has three mike recording which is amazing and gives invaluable information. Its just amazing the type of stuff that you can learn. I think we are fortunate we found success early on and were able to work with so many writers and with lots of different people. We are fortunate that we have had experience and we are able to bring out the album now that is much better than what it could have been when we were younger. For a couple of years, we had this tug-of-war going on with the record label but now we are finally free to do exactly what we want. Yes, we may have missed the wave but we are able to what we genuinely love. Our aim has always been to be unique, now we can be like “Here it is! Surprise!”.
Initially, the music we made wasn´t popular and till now, people in England would probably listen to it and go “Oh that kind of music”. I’m not saying that we created this sort of music but it was definitely not common and now it has become more common. It’ll be nice to come again and do something completely different compared to all our peers. There’s still disco tracks, R&B but it’s a bit more weird and there’s live drums, its got a bit more movement.
I don’t want to hype it too much, but we feel really excited to have finally finished the album, we have had some low points over the past few years, its taken like 4 years. Now, its gotten to the point that’s its taken so long, we’re going to do this right, and we have gone completely overboard with recoding live streams.

“We have actually just finished the album now, we’ve been making electronic music since we were young but this album is much more of a progression. It´s got orchestra pieces and choirs and gospel choirs, the arrangements are much more complicated. People might find it a bit difficult to comprehend our new music compared to some of our previous music.”

Since you started music at a young age, did you ever feel manipulated or scammed by record labels?
A: Oh yeah, completely!

I guess because you didn’t have anyone to talk to.
A: Exactly! And also you got to remember, I said to Adam when I left school we will get a record deal at the end of this. The aim was to get a deal at the end of it, when inevitably we did get offered that deal we thought right this is it ‘ we can pay rent, we can pay for the equipment, we can live the life we have been dreaming of’. We dreamt of the opportunity without anyone telling us what that may entail and what it can mean for the music and the future of our credit control. It’s been good to retain that, regret and retain that, get back to that space where you can make what you want. Because there was a period of time, like a year and a half ago, where every time we went into the studio, it was like ‘ we have to make the biggest hit in the world, and if we don’t make it then we’re failures’.

So you felt a lot of pressure?
A: Its like an impossible situation to write good music with ‘ this has to be a hit’ in mind, we’re never going to be good. We were both very naïve when we both started, we got signed when we were 17 or 18, with bad guidance by management. We thought ” oh they want to make music that we like” but it get pasteurised at the end.

“We dreamt of the opportunity without anyone telling us what that may entail and what it can mean for the music and the future of our credit control. We were both very naïve when we both started, we got signed when we were 17 or 18, with bad guidance by management. We thought ” oh they want to make music that we like” but it get pasteurised at the end.”

It sounds like a 9 to 5 job

G: It was! It was worse, we were working all day, long days. We would start a tune at 80 bpm and by the end of it, whoever was writing it would be like lets wait a minute and lets put a four-by-four kick on it and make it into a house tune. Every single time, we were like what is going on? Eventually we got friendly enough with one of the writers and he was like, you do know the label has been sending us guidelines and these references for these tunes. So everyone who came in had to sound like this and this and we didn’t even know.
Two important things to say, one is to find people who can connect both personally and musically, like the people we work with now. And if they don’t want to work with us, we completely understand. Getting on is so important, when you can hang out afterwards, go for a meal. We have writer friends now, they can sleep in our bed then we can all head to the studio and work together on songs that mean something. Younger days we were writing music without any depth, it was just shallow.
The other thing we want to say is a big thank you to our label because we wouldn’t be in this position without them.

A: That is good you said that, it´s true. We spent a lot of time slagging off labels but it´s just the manufacturing that goes with it we’re not happy with.

How do you think you’ve changed since you’ve started?
G: I think I’ve become an arrogant prick.

A: I’ve become an introvert. I think we have learned how to deal with pricks (chuckles) I mean you do meet a lot of them in the music industry.

G: I think we have learned how to read people, know who’s got good intentions and who doesn’t. Who we actually want to hang out with and learned how to gently say we’re going to leave now. If I had a tip to give to any new musicians coming through, I would say you’re going to be used so use them! It is not a philosophy to live by in any other means away from business, never use your friends or girls or boys. I don’t condone that but in business, when they have a reason to use you, there’s no harm, in saying well we’ll take this and use this for our benefit. It can be mutually beneficial, you don’t have to like each other, good ties. It was difficult for us in the beginning because we wanted to make friends, like come one lets hang out, but many of it is superficial and shallow. Sadly that’s what the music industry is based on. Using peoples art to make money.
What has also changed is that we learned how to say when something is not good. Such as the line or melody of a song. We both avoid conflict and confrontations but I think but we learned that you can say ‘that line isn’t very good or that melody needs to be there’. Most of these sessions are like ‘boom, there you are make music together’. Basically being able to say no, I’m still learning. It’s a life skill, its hard to avoid confrontations.

“Younger days we were writing music without any depth, it was just shallow.”

You guys being a duo, do you ever worry that if you fall out and you’d have to start on everything again on your own?
A: We’re not scared but I think we have know from the beginning that we were in this shit together basically. We have definitely had tough times, where he hates me and I hate him but we will always have that undying love. I think conflict will always arise when two people are together all the time.

You’ve almost spent your whole lives together!
A: Yes, we have spent about 10 years together, we’re like a married couple. BG: I’m not in his bed though, separate rooms!
A: On early gigs we did of course share rooms, it was fun and exciting. I remember one gig, one of our proper ones we did, we paid our own train tickets down to London. We played at Cable, its closed now sadly, and we played as long as we could and then just went to London Euston Station and slept at the train station. Got the first train back at like 7 am. We’ll probably always make music together, its gotten past the time we’ve been through our lowest points. We have used every single possible word to each other and I still love him.

What does the music you make say about you guys? How does it reflect your personality?
G: Our music is very much about escapism, the initial idea of our music was a soundtrack to a dream, a dream sequence. It was trying to find a style of music that fits not for a specific place and scene and I think we failed. It doesn’t reflect our culture, it doesn’t really reflect the environment we’re from or anything but its kind of us trying to get away from where we were and then we come back round. There are a few tracks about the scenes that happened around us, experiences we’ve had, some of them induce like ideas into my mind that are ingrained into our childhood. That means something really deep to me even though the tracks don’t translate that lyrically. I think the melodies do evoke that emotion and those thoughts but I think it will change for us overtime. The concept behind the record is a day and so the first track is about waking up and then we go through the day and we try to make it so that it would fit into a time zone and hopefully in the record we’ll write a bit of more explanation.

“The music industry is based on using peoples art to make money.”

Sounds so sick
G: And by the night time you do get the dance records. The raw record that wouldn’t work in the clubs as they’re much more ferial, they’re more of what we made earlier.
A: It must be also said that we are from a really beautiful part of the world, we’re basically from the Lake District. That’s where the escapism and ethereal side is inspired by the beautiful landscapes around us. The bird song in the track, it definitely stems from there.

Sounds like the Sound of Music.
G: It is definitely a part of it, the upcoming album is about just trying to be free as possible. Cliché as it sounds, I think it stems from our personality, trying to be open minded and trying out a lot of different things.

Last questions, what do you guys want to be remembered for?
G: Not being pricks
A: I can agree with that!
G: Don’t want to be remembered for being one of those DJ’s who think they’re better than everyone which there are a quite a lot of.
G: Cheers to that, I think we just want to be remembered for being happy and doing what we want. May other people do the same, I feel like a lot of people follow this chain or that chain, do what their parents want to do, which isn’t wrong. But, if everyone does it, (whispers) we’re fucked!

So true. Thank you so much!