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it's just improv i'm making it up hold on i have no idea what's coming out of my body right now it's just i'm feeling the music oh i'm reaching for the stars bro i've got some 80. [Music] i was expecting a little more from you
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okay that's cool it's fine which one i'll keep it to words then awesome i did enjoy it i wasn't expecting i wasn't prepared for it but i did enjoy it you made the song you didn't make it for people to stand still and nod their
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heads sagely while looking at you with a stern a stern smile it does happen a lot though i don't i don't believe that for a second bro because i'm getting reports that what you're doing on the white aisle right now in the lyrics is off the charts i mean talk about a triumphant return for quality club music and for the dj and producer who makes it just before we get into this and the album how's it been this season man it's
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season four you know back real time more than anything else it's been nice to see people um with uh smiling faces having a good time uh in a in a group you know which isn't you know i think we got used to not seeing that
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so that's still a big novelty and um yeah my gigs have been great there's been a ton of people there dude i hear the guest list is off the chat you got to give us some idea about who's shown up this summer man because it's all over
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the papers anyway so who's been coming to the clubs well we had um primarily a lot of footballers this year um a lot a lot a lot of good footballers we had kevin de bruyne virgil van dyke and nathan aki together of the younger lads harvey elliott and uh billy gilmore um and and then yeah like a few djs a few few music people as well but um it's less about that and more about just like folk having a lovely time when we talked
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last time and you were getting ready to play shows again you were like man i can't wait to go out there and just play back to back and so has that kind of still been the philosophy have you just been hitting people between the eyes or have you been kind of like finding that there's a different groove in the bag that needs to be played on on a certain night no primarily for me because it's because i'm playing i want to play my songs so
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i've been playing a lot of my songs and ever since i did this um i did a show at uh hamden stadium when i played even more of my songs i started playing even more of my songs and video as well because i thought you know what they are
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they are good and people know them so uh nothing to be ashamed of never calvin it never has been um so funk wave i know you didn't make that for this particular type of environment you know it was it was a more personal
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exercise for you um a different kind of enjoyment than making something you know is going to rock 120 to 125 beats per minute in a big club but are you working these in i mean have you found a way to make this work in your set nah it's impossible i play um i play slight now and that was ever since handing um a nice little interlude but as for everything else now you say it's impossible and yet you took a first step
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towards the summit but slide is that first step what how do people react to it well because people know it then it goes down well but um but i mean i can play slide but i can play fields you know i would feel strange about playing that so it's one of them um but now there's nothing from this album i'm gonna try and like shoehorn in there this this album is like for uh car journeys and uh beaches and things like this how do you get yourself
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into a place where you know you're capturing that experience of being in a car heading to the beach you know going for an amazing walk on your own and having something that feels joyous what i was doing a lot was um
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taking trips to the mountains is when i still lived in l.a taking a trip out to this place called idol wild in the car listened to a lot of psychedelic rock um and then climb in the mountain literally and figuratively and then uh heading back so
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i was doing a lot of that putting a lot of vinyl getting to that kind of zone yeah i've seen the images you've been posting and i love that and uh someone who started collecting again really obsessively and passionately it's awesome just to to get a sense of that kind of tactility that static that dust on this music in particular on this song obsessed um because there's a lot for me to untangle here in terms of inspiration i feel like
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there's definitely some kind of late 70s fm sort of soul going on here you know puth is is about the closest thing to a young yacht rock singer that we have in the modern age and then you've got shinsegae just bodying it so in your words i mean that's just my amateur description in your words what are we dealing with on this song what were you trying to conjure um well i mean we start off with the with the yacht rock beat and then
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charlie was basically channeling michael mcdonald yeah there it is um it was kind of like um i wanted to take a lot of the autotune off his voice i didn't want him to sound necessarily like how he does in his records it's interesting that you did that too because he's gone from sounding like charlie booth on a song now to trollipool from the song it's like pretty rich when you're charlie proof you can do anything so i think there's there's a
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there's a shepherding that needs to happen sometimes with people that are just so talented yeah talented that you need to kind of go what about this do i try that it's okay to sing like this so it's okay to do it like this and i think um once i kind of gave him permission to do that um uh he he went with it and he was amazing at it and then the sensia element was more like um kind of reminded me of those 90s hip-hop tunes that were kind of like
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commercial and they had a disco sample and then it would be like little kim on it or something like that um and because um because that beat is kind of like like that and shensia uh was someone that i really want to work with i was like well this surely would work and it did because she's brilliant you know when we spoke that you you sort of wouldn't give much away rightfully so but now the track listing's out and the
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album's out and so everyone knows who's on what um but you you said this there's some people on this album that i i still wake up and i'm like how did this happen um he sort of must be at liberty now to say like who really i mean everyone's
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amazing everyone who showed up was was by design but who who one of those people you know are that you will just like there's no way this is going to happen and it happened i mean honestly for me um just from uh
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uh the viewpoint of music that i listened to growing up getting pharrell and pusha t on a song was big again pharrell and justin timberlake and halsey on a song felt amazing to me and like such an amazing experience um and it was those two that stood out in that respect i didn't realize that you've left l.a now are you back in the uk full-time no i'm kind of i'm kind of living a bit of a normatic existence at the moment i'm not sure
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where i live i'm in a beef at the moment because i have these shows um and then after that i'm gonna figure it out that's amazing um i only mentioned the uk because i figured that might be a natural resting place for you at some point and i i love
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seeing you know artists like dineo on this record too now for a lot of people who are watching this listening to this they won't recognize uh that name um it's a beautiful introduction to this artist who has been
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gifting us with not just his voice but like this righteous approach to lyrics and music and what he stands for for a long time so for fans of calvin harris who see you as the guy who can put pharrell and halsey and justin timberlake on her record can you just give some context to deneo and what drew you to him i don't think i can describe the nail actually um well first time i met him he told me that he was blessed with a well
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of vibes and i think that kind of sums it up and you know since then i i did some songs with him um we we we hung out a bit and we became friends you know and and he was always someone that i wanted to put on something i just didn't know what um so this seemed like a good a good way of doing that and he he just won't let you down when it comes to a vocal or a feeling or delivery he's uh you know he's a pro and he's and he's
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brilliant there's so many amazing people we could go through the entire list but someone does immediately spring to mind for me which is um georgia smith again staying in the uk and again an artist that i feel has has taken a really deliberate approach to the way she releases her music and moves and doesn't remotely lean into this kind of attention-seeking space that everyone else seems drawn towards how how's the experience working
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with georgia and what did you learn from that because i know you do this for the learning yeah it was amazing it was actually surprising initially to me that she wanted to work like that she was receptive to that because um the the persona i feel like that she puts out is a little bit for me a little bit standoffish so i was like maybe maybe you know she's probably not up for it and she was so up for it and not only
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was she up for it she was like um very sort of excited and happy to do it and um the the song turned out amazingly i think like when when she put out um i think on a second album this song called bust down and her voice seemed to hit this new level that i'd never heard anything like in my life and i've rinsed that record just in the car and everywhere um and i thought wow if i can get her to sound like that um over one of these kind of beats it
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would just be phenomenal and it turns out she just sounds like that so you're a genius you're a genius it was easy because she's brilliant as a starter conversation for one we'll have at a later date because i'd love to dive into this aspect in real detail um i just want to ask you this on a simple level as a vocal producer not just a producer a mixer an artist and a creative yourself but as someone who has to produce vocals that's a very
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different discipline to producing music um you know it requires you to be able to speak a certain language so what is it that you've learned about your ability to do that for other people who are trying to bring great
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performance out of real talent what's one simple kind of thing you've learned along the way to make that easy for yourself it's a great question and i've got absolutely no idea i think um a lot of the time i take lead from the artist
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and a lot of the time it just comes down to personal taste like with the charlie proof thing i knew how i wanted him to sing i knew how i didn't want him to sing and everything was just very easy from that point but um summarized you you you can't tell them because they're too good say justin timberlake for example i can't tell justin timberlake anything like he's a he's a producer and himself he's a vocal producer so he's going to just go and do
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his thing i think maybe the secret is just working with people that are really good and then that's just kind of easier that's sage advice for anybody listening because i think we're drawn to people with a willingness but willingness isn't always enough i think you have to have a real understanding of what it what your craft is and where you're at for it to be get to get to this point right i don't know my main thing is just i'm trying
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just don't be you know i mean like i'm just trying to make something that's good and i'm not trying to force anything and i'm trying to have a laugh and work with people that want to work with me and just all those kind of things i'm not um i do not subscribe to the modern mentality i just want to make some good tunes and if you like him you like him if you don't like him that's okay as well um i'm just going to be over here
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doing my thing and that's just kind of where i'm at we'll be back after the break but the prevailing message for all creatives listening at home from super producer calvin harris is don't be it's more have a laugh okay okay also i think people inherently know what's and what isn't definitely people apparently know oh this is a bit i'll do it it might be popular but yeah it is but i will do have you ever done that have you ever
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felt yourself drawn into that oh yeah like 10 10 years ago for sure um but you come out of it and you realize that life is more about getting a cow and uh growing some vegetables than trying to appease the masses okay so before i let you go the season's wrapping up um i know that you've got other shows on the horizon everything's going well you seem super engaged by this part of your life um i'm gonna say again i'm not sure you were at some
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point but we've dwelled on that before and we've covered that um so where does this where does this sort of lead you next like what is the sort of prevailing feeling that you have inside of you right now regarding music and life uh music i don't know i'm just gonna like i said earlier have a laugh and and make what i want to make life just want to get that jersey cow um and you know i i will not subscribe to the uh to the uh
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what's being pushed right now i just want to build my own thing and have a laugh and have a good time and let people know that that's okay as well you know we don't have to be scared and upset over something all the time that
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we frequently can't change we can change the reaction within ourselves and we can get a cow save up for a cow this has been a really enlightening and wonderful conversation as it always is um i know there's a there's a possibility
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that we'll be able to talk a little bit more about agriculture and uh the soulful side of life because that's something i'm put right now in the process of getting my own proverbial cow so once again at this point we found
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ourselves in a fairly similar space so we should talk about that at some point absolutely i mean for me like music's one thing and then the rest of it is the rest of it and i'm yeah i'm i'm more about the rest of it in a minute you