Altsounds Interviews: With ... NROTB
 

With an uncanny ability to get the club dancing, NROTB are here to bring a new kind of house music into the mix. Eager to avoid the constraints of genre, NROTB create their unique brand of indie disco by merging anything and everything from electro to Kuduro, creating bass heavy big room electrohouse that is impossible to ignore. And now, by giving their remix treatment to Major Lazer's hit "Hold the Line," NROTB prove once again that they can take an already bangin' track and make it into one crowds will request over and over.

Mister Ed spoke to altsounds about remixing tracks influences and holidays.


[altsounds] HOW DO YOU CHOOSE WHICH SONGS TO REMIX?

[Mister Ed] Remix requests come from different sources. For Fuckkk Offf "Rave Is King", Sean Holland (A&R for Coco Machete) wanted to release our track Take Me Upp and asked us to do a remix for Fuckkk Offf. That remix went really well and it was our first track on Beatport. As for N.A.S.A., we did a bootleg remix of Whachadoin as we wanted to do a track with a vocal from M.I.A. When done, we sent it to N.A.S.A., 15 minutes later, we receive an email from Dj Zegon from N.A.S.A. saying he really digs it and want to sign it to the label! We were really happy as most of the time when we finish a track, we hear it so much that we don't know if it is still good or not.

For Pony Pony Run Run, Alex Nebout (A&R for 3eme Bureau France) asked us to remix the single Hey You. Alex is Don Rimini's manager and is also a friend of us. He liked our track Miam Miam and our remix of N.A.S.A. so much that he asked us to remix Pony Pony Run Run. The remix will be released soon on the UK EP. So it depends, sometime we choose to do remixes for friends, other times people come to us and ask us to do a remix.

[altsounds] NU RAVERS ON THE BLOCK. WHO CAME UP WITH THE NAME?

[Mister Ed] Well it started back in 2007 when we did our first party. Mr.P found that name for the party. We wanted to start a nu rave party in Montreal like in London and were new to the scene as DJs. So it was like a pun.

[altsounds] MAJOR LAZER IS A CARTOON ONE-ARMED SOLDIER. HOW DID HE LOSE IT?

[Mister Ed] In the secret Zombies war of 1984. Easy no?

[altsounds] MONTREAL GETS COLD IN THE WINTER. ARE THERE A OT OF COATS AT YOUR GIGS?

[Mister Ed] Yeah, at the coat check... Or under the DJ booth!!

[altsounds] WHERE DID YOU MEET ONE ANOTHER?

[Mister Ed] We work together in a motion graphic design studio.

[altsounds] HAS YOUR SUCCESS MADE IT DIFFICULT TO THROW PARTIES LIKE YOU USED TO?

[Mister Ed] Well we throw less parties now as we take more of our spare time to produce. With our day job as graphic designers, our DJ gigs and our productions, we have less time to throw parties.

[altsounds] HOW DO YOU STAY UPDATED ON WHAT CROWDS WANT TO HEAR?

[Mister Ed] We really take time to seek out new tracks everyday and always stay updated on what's out. So most of the time we play what we're into at the moment, see how the crowd react to it and build our set that way. We always like to introduce new stuff to the crowds. We just don't want to play only hits tracks that people are comfortable hearing.

Usually, when we dig for a track or a style of music, people will be into it even if they don't know what it is, that is of course if the track is good. Sometimes it can take a lot of time, but it is usually worth it.

[altsounds] I LOVE NEON. IS THAT STILL YOUR FAVOURITE GIG?

[Mister Ed] Beside our parties yes! ;-) No seriously, I LOVE NEON. Those people are our friends and it is always a pleasure to play at their parties. Their parties attract a lot of people here in Montreal and it's our chance to play in front of sometimes 2000+ people! We now do some collaboration with them like the Felix Cartal show we are doing next week.

Dance parties in Los Angeles are pretty rad!! Every Tuesday they are packed with crazy kids.

[altsounds] WHO IS YOUR BIGGEST INFLUENCE?

[Mister Ed] Well we are influenced by many producers from Altern-8, The Prodigy and Daft Punk to Laidback Luke and Diplo to name a few.

[altsounds] WHERE DID YOU GO ON HOLIDAY LAST?

[Mister Ed] Well the last place I went on holiday was Croatia. Beautiful landscape over there!

[Mr.P] Mine was Italia, on the Amalfi coast. Crazy coastline with beautiful towns, it's just amazing!