“When producing Runnin, we meant to celebrate the positive energies created by melancholy… like the emotions you get from an early morning sunrise. The name represents the need young people our age have for freedom and escape.” explain Max & Martin Hoet better known as Betical about their latest release. And while enjoying this really fantastic track and video, we wanted to find out more about the two French brothers and asked them about the challenges of working with a sibling, their musical hereos and being in a melancholic mood.
Dear Max and Martin, Thanks so much for your time! :)
Hey! You’re welcome, thanks for having us here!
Tell us a bit about your musical path and the way you got in touch with your love for making music for the first time in your life?
This passion came from our dad, who initiated us to music and especially electronic music. We were spending hours listening to his records collection. It started to become an obsession and we quickly knew that we wanted to create our own music.
I read that you found your musical identity after the French touch movement. As I haven’t heard about this movement before can you explain it to me? And also why has this influenced you so much?
It’s a movement from mid 90’s, when artist like Daft Punk, St Germain or Cassius come up. They started married old disco loops to house beats and made something new! We’re born in the 90’s and we basically grew up with this music, they were heroes for us.
“We love minimalist aesthetics.”
Do you have a professional graphic design or art background?
Max, the older brother went to design school in France. He is working on all the art direction and creates all the visuals for the project.
How important is style and fashion for you and where do you take your inspiration for your outfits?
We love minimalist aesthetics inspired by movements like the Bauhaus and the Swiss graphic design. From COS to Études Studio to Common Projects we like our outfits to be simple and modern with mono-coloured elements.
What´s the best thing about working with your brother? And the most difficult?
We are very lucky to have such a smooth and good relation between us. It is for sure one of the main reasons why we decided to create and produce music together. Our personalities are very different but at the same time complementary.
Also, the fact that we live together allows us to focus 100% on the project. So overall, I think that our relationship as brothers is one of our biggest strengths. But it would be a lie to say that there are no troubles, haha!
“Each person has the right to express his talent.”
The name of your new track Runnin represents “the need young people our age have for freedom and escape.” What do you think are the biggest challenges of nowadays young generation?
We honestly think that it is really important to express oneself through one’s passions and to give the best of oneself. Even if someone receives pressure from the outside, each person has the right to express his talent.
The track was also inspired by the positive energies created by melancholy. When was the last time and situation where you felt this sort of melancholy?
Most of the time, we work while being in a melancholic mood. The last time we felt this way was probably last weekend, when we heard of Philippe Zdar’s death, a member of Cassius. We’ve grown with their albums and listening to their old tracks was definitely troubling and melancholic.
I really love the video for Runnin. How was the idea for the visuals created?
Thanks a lot! The video was directly inspired by the lyrics of the song. We wanted to represent someone trying to escape the world of today, and to achieve a desire of freedom. We also loved this contrast between the characters and the horse. That’s why we choose the black & white format which increases even more of that feeling. We teamed up with a great agency (agency wtf) on this one, and they totally smashed it!
“We generally don’t like to create barriers concerning the different genres in music.”
Music you listen to yourself currently and artists you are inspired by?
We love listening to any kind of music. We generally don’t like to create barriers concerning the different genres in music. However, artists such as Jamie XX, Bonobo and George Fitzgerald constitute our main inspirations at the moment.
What is your “positive energy place”? (the place where you retreat to recharge)
I guess it’s home in France. We were both away between Brighton and London for a while. And it was a really positive experience, so much energy and things to discover. It helps you to be creative and come up with new ideas but it’s also really exhaustive at some points.
Your goals for the next 5 years?
Our goal is to develop our project, both on the musical and artistic level (visuals, image). We’d love to travel as much as possible and to produce new video clips, each more touching than the previous one. Finally, our live set is definitely one of our goals for now. We are working on it, and polishing the last few details of it.
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image credit Betical
