Rio de Janeiro
’s answer to Daft Punk, allegedly, or “Punk Maluco” if you want to say it in Portuguese. However you say it, there’s no denying that The Twelves are a pretty darn tasty outfit, with a lot of hype and popularity behind their slew of remixes over the last few years. Combining classic disco sounds and grooves with a little electro pump, they’ve won the affections of many a tastemaker and discerning music lover over the last couple of years.
They’ve amassed a big fanbase and lots of plaudits without having released even one original production – with widely-supported reworkings of M.I.A. (Boyz was the remix that launched their career), New Young Pony Club, Metric, Groove Armada and even A-Ha seeing them make a huge Brazilian dent in the blogosphere. That and their cover of Daft Punk’s Night Vision hitting the top spot of the Hype Machine on four separate occasion.
That’s all about to change though, as they prepare to release a debut EP on London's Eye Industries imprint, and their live show (keyboards, drum machines etc) being honed every week. We found out more.
How and when were you first infected by dance music?
It was probably about 4-5 years ago. We were playing in indie bands and just sort of fell out of love with the music. So we got together one day and started experimenting with different things and exploring our influences and found a happy medium.
When did you start making music / producing, and how long was it before you started making tracks that you were really happy with?
We started making music pretty quickly, but it took about a year or so for us to find our sound and work out how we wanted to approach the whole production process. In reality, we are very rarely happy with the productions because we are perfectionists, so the more you listen to a track over and over, the more you see little flaws and try to change it. Before you know it you have been working on a track for 4 weeks and STILL aren’t happy with it. Sometimes you just have to let go though and let the public decide - and that was where the blogs came in really useful.
What have been your personal favourite tracks / productions so far?
Definitely the Radiohead bootleg we did. It’s still one of our favourite tracks from one of our favourite bands.
Where does your name come from?
Weirdly, we share the same birthday – 12th July, which is where the name came from. It sort of made sense.
Who would you most like to work with?
Plenty of people interest us and we would like to work with all of them, however I would say our absolute top collaborators would be Daft Punk and Radiohead.
What have you got in store for the coming months?
Well we have just signed an EP to Eye Industries and we are working really hard on the tracks now, so hopefully it will be out in the early part of 2010.
What can we expect from one of your DJ sets or live sets?
We hope that people who come to our shows see an element of originality. The way we play and the tracks we play make for an experience that you generally don’t get in a club atmosphere.
If you weren’t a DJ/producer/artists, what would you be?
It’s hard to say. Music has been a massive part of our lives for such a long time that it is hard to think of doing anything else. There is a bit of me that wants to say we would do something for the community like be a police officer or something, but in reality we would probably do something less official.
Which other producers and DJs and artists do you really rate?
We really rate Daft Punk and the guys from Soulwax, purely for their innovation and ability to please a crowd. Otherwise DJ Marky is an amazing DJ and of course he is Brazilian tooso this helps!
www.myspace.com/thetwelves
www.eyeindustries.com