Are you in Ibiza right now?
Yeah, we're in Ibiza. We’ve had the house for about 13 years, but we’ve rarely spent more than six months here because we were touring or recording. We’ve recorded a lot in London, L.A., Berlin, and mainland Spain – we have a studio there in a little building in the lemon groves in the middle of nowhere. Our daughter is in school now, so we're now here full time and then we also travel from here.
Did the pandemic accidentally give you a moment to breathe?
We were in London because Katie was pregnant, and we were starting a family. I come from London. Katie comes from Manchester. Katie and I had been making music together for 22 years, and we never stopped. We came off of tour and had a child – Meadow’s our little girl; she's four and a half now. We had a great six months after having her, bringing her into our lives, and adjusting to the changes. Eventually, we hired an RV. We threw the baby and the equipment in there and left the UK, driving through Europe to get to Spain where my parents live. The RV company phoned me a month later, “Dude, where's the vehicle?” It was a crazy time. So, we’re here in Ibiza now with our daughter and our work.
That previous record, The Black Light, was in 2018.
Yeah. We were in L.A. when we made that record. We lived in L.A. for two years. We went there with a load of demos. We were hanging out in L.A. thinking, “What kind of record do we want to make?” Every one of our records is different. We bought an apartment, and had it done out, and it became our studio. Below us was Skrillex, and we got on really well with him. We'd taken this kind of Manchester/Smiths record that we were demoing to L.A., and slowly it started to go more drum and bass. Skrillex would come up and say, “What about this?" We were getting inspired by some of the technology he was using, and we were like, “Yeah, that's cool.” We did this whole record for $2,500 and released it. Me and Katie are always deconstructing everything about the way we work. After that album came out, we heard the demos again, and we released them as The Black Light (Manchester Versions) as well. A lot of our friends were like, “They were dope. Then you went off on this L.A. crazy vibe and put this other record out.” After that, we went out and did a little bit of touring in Europe, and then we went into family mode.
And then you started working on Home?
We've been writers all our lives. As musicians, that's the first thing for us. Writing and recording is everything.
That's how you two met.
