You guys remember Eat More Cake right? The London based DJ/Production/Songwriting hit-making collective? If not, head back to the feature we did on them not too long ago here. Anyway, got a chance to talk with the team and happy to share it with you good people! Check out some live footage and read.
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DE (HOUDINI): Tell us a little more about Eat More Cake and who you guys are as individuals. Our readers are a bit more familiar with you guys now. How did this all start?
AB: The group dynamic is constantly changing with live singers and collaborators coming and going, but the two constants over the years have been me (Andy Briggs) and Matt Pearn. We’ve known each other since we were kids, both growing up in Harrow in North-West London. We are both multi-instrumentalists although my specialities are lyrics and guitars whilst Matt’s are beats and keys.
As individuals…
MP: I was classically trained on piano for 9 years, before teaching myself guitar and building a fairly substantial MIDI-based studio over a period of many years. Now, I’m a father of two and my studio has downsized again to the size of a single Mac.
DE: What’s the creative process for a production team like yourselves?
AB: I’m always working on about three tracks at a time, usually remixes. I like to try and really re-work a track so I have to have the accapella without any harmonies so I can re-harmonise it. This keeps me occupied so we can take our time with original tracks, which tend to take a lot longer, and mean a lot more to me. I’m doing most of the production at the moment but I have a pool of ideas that Matt sends over, which I regularly dip into. I then take the finished track to another producer, to help with the mix-down.
MP: Andy has a lot more time than I do to work tracks through, so quite often I’ll come up with a riff or a beat that I’ll send over and he’ll work on it and send back a finished track. I then serve as a kind of sounding board making sure nothing too awful passes the bird’s eye! I’m in charge of the artwork design as well.
DE: What’s it like doing what you do in the Northern London territory?
AB: We’ve just started a new monthly night at a bar called “The Regent” in Kensal Green where I DJ. It’s a cool part of London, not flashy like the West End and not horribly pretentious like East London. It’s good for inspiration too, and finding other musicians. Other than that though, almost everything is done online so it doesn’t make that much difference!
MP: There are lots of advantages to being in a city like London. There are some great venues, loads of great new music, and a wealth of opportunities on your doorstep. However, there are also hundreds of like-minded musicians vying for their opportunity, so it’s difficult to get yourself heard about the clamour.
DE: What’s next for you guys? Album? Tour? Any music videos?
AB: A gradual, but inevitable, rise to world domination. More, bigger remixes, and wicked new tracks.
MP: More original music. Hopefully an EP, maybe an album if we’re overflowing with ideas.
DE: What’s the craziest show you guys have played? Tell us about some of the weirdest, coolest, funniest things you’ve seen.
AB: F.I.V. Festival in Spain was the highlight of the most rock-n-roll week we’ve ever had. That was just awesome. So many funny things happened there but for some reason my memory of the trip is somewhat hazy!
MP: We played a festival in Spain, where all the other acts were national superstars and we were just little ol’ Eat More Cake from London. Of course, none of the audience knew this, so we were equally inundated with autograph hunters/photograph opportunists/etc. That was pretty funny. We’ve played some pretty inappropriate gigs too – we played a showcase at a very sedate venue once, where we opened with Underwater as a nice quiet introduction and were promptly told to turn everything down! I mean, who books a four-piece electronic band if they don’t want them to make noise?
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Eat More Cake is on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and SoundCloud.
