InYourBass.com

Brookes Brothers surprised enemy and friend with 'Tear You Down', a song that seemed to do equally well with the hardcore drum and bass fans, as with the rest of the world. It seemed to be the forerunner of an album the Brookes would release on Breakbeat Kaos, label of Adam F and DJ Fresh, which previously already delivered Pendulum. And just like their illustrious predecessors, Brookes Brothers seem to announce a turning point in the drum&bass scene.
Dan Brookes, one of the two brothers, played in february an amazing set on the first edition of Radar and will soon return for Rampage, in Trix (Hof Ter Lo) Antwerp, to test the songs of their new album. In the run towards the release of the album, I spoke to Dan about what we can expect.
BROOKES: "I've been working all day on the vocals of Robert Owens, the ones he sang for one of the songs on the album. We've been writing the lyrics together and Robert sang a couple of layers, so we have a lot to work with."

Robert Owens is a true legend, another veteran from the late 80's, that worked in Fingers Inc together with Larry Heard and later with Frankie Nuckles. London Electricity and Photek also worked together with him. How was that?
BROOKES: "Oh man, Robert Owens is great. He's a real professional and a super positive person. When you realise that he comes from the slums and that almost everybody with whom he grew up with, is now dead or in prison, it gets only more incredible."

Are you using a lot of singers on the album? I seem to remember that you told me that the sampled vocals of 'Tear You Down' were causing a lot of worries.
BROOKES: "Most of the songs on the album use vocals. Partly because we wanted to prevent all the publishing problems, but especially because we wanted to do our own thing, so we approached a couple of male and female singers. We recorded for example a couple songs with Kashia Baxter, a girl from South-Africa, and we've worked together with a singer from India."

A couple of drum and bass producers scored heavily by taking up related genres like dubstep, breaks or minimal in their albums. Is that something you plan to do as well?
BROOKES: "We've been experimenting a lot for this album, but it stays all drum and bass. Some songs are a bit slower and a couple of tracks are more real songs in stead of dance floor material. We want people to be able to listen the songs from the beginning till the end, and make sure that our music isn't only suited for dance floors. We are not really influenced by trends, we still do what we want. A thing we've always wanted to do was a more downtempo song, like a kind of hiphop. For that song we are still talking to a couple of mc's to see who's up for it and who we want to work."

Adam F and Fresh got a lot of respect for the way they worked with you. Some even thought they was planning to turn you into the new Pendulum, but that didn't seem to be the case.
BROOKES: "No, not at all. Breakbeat Kaos is obviously growing bigger and they aren't looking any longer for the heaviest dance floor material. There are indeed a couple of label owners who push their artists in a certain way, but we don't have that feeling at all. They have a lot of confidence and they encourage us to look for the right path for us to turn."

First your album was announced for October this year, but the release is now postponed to Spring 2010. What happened?
BROOKES: "We had the feeling we needed more time to make everything perfect. It's of no use to release an album, when we are only 75% happy about it. We are not planning to postpone it for ages, but we like to deliver something with what we can be happy about for the rest of our life. We are sorry for the fact that we cannot have a single this year, but we prefer to release everything at the same time. On the other hand, by the end of the year a remix by us will be released. Right now we have two offers and one of them will get a remix. They are both true classics and I'm looking forward to work on them."

One track on the album already leaked. Tony Colman played your cooperation with Danny Bird on the immensely popular Hospital podcast.
BROOKES:" Yes, I think we had a bad communication on that. Tony played those tracks and after that Danny Bird played it in a show of Grooverider. It's not so bad, but we still have a lot of strong material ready."

8 months nonstop in studio must have its effects!
BROOKES: "I'm very happy that soon we can deliver the best we got, but I guarantee that as soon as everything is ready we are ready to leave on holiday and we'll not return immediately back in the studio. But first we'll come to drop some bombs at Trix!

Brookes Brothers are playing on October 30 at Trix (Hof Ter Lo) Antwerp - Rampage, together with Xample, Dj Die and Murdock.