Douvelle19 has become quite the wizard at whipping up a lovesick dance-floor banger or two. That’s the current theme for the Welsh producer. That’s his flavour, his vibe. And although no two tracks of his are ever the same, they almost always include lyrics of yearning, steamy bass-lines and melting melodies that will make you want to fall in love over and over and over again.
From flipping grime accepellas to futuristic fan favourites like ‘Skin to Skin’ and ‘Swimming’, Douvelle19 radiates authenticity, dabbling in whatever sound, vibe or genre that takes his fancy. Music has been a huge part of both his life and his career, and with his latest release ‘Find a Way’ flooding dancefloors across the globe, it was time to dig deeper to find out more about his incredible story.
Let’s talk about your new single ‘Find a Way’ – it’s a lovely concoction of vibes! Talk to me about its inception.
It was created during one of the sessions I had after lockdown. I had just started collaborating properly with people. Before this, I was mainly using the same model as the grime freestyles that I made. I would find acapellas and then work with them. It seemed like a strong muscle that I had – and it made for really interesting creations – but my songwriting muscle wasn’t getting flexed. So, I was like, let me get in a room and do it in person. There is something special about doing it that way. ‘Find a Way’ came about in one of those initial sessions. I was in the studio with the vocalist on the track called Leilah and my friend Harry who’s also an amazing writer. I had the hook idea and showed the guys and then we had like a writing trifecta, I was producing, making arrangements, Harry and Leilah were writing. It was the first time when I thought ‘This is an incredible writing experience, I’m so happy to be in this room!’. I’ve had a lot of writing experiences but I’m quite solitary really, I collaborate a lot more now but back then, getting into a room with another artist was quite nerve wracking. I was in a band for 6 years and the writing always looked the same, the room always looked the same, so breaking that formula and getting into a session post-lockdown felt quite new to me. This one was different. It was such an inspiring session.
How does it affect your creativity when a session doesn’t have such an inspiring feel to it?
I haven’t had many of those sessions, because usually the due diligence is done beforehand going into that room, but I have had sessions where maybe you’re not on the same level creatively. Maybe you want to talk about different things on a song or you have different visions for what you want the track to be. When that happens, I just can’t do it. I can’t do what I need to do in that environment. I think some people, to my knowledge, go into a session and it’s very transactional. Like, ok, you’re the singer, you sing this, here is the reference track. Then they write some stuff. The producer doesn’t know what they want so they trust the vocalist entirely to give the track what it needs, and that’s it. That’s so far away from what I do. I sit down with people and talk with them for hours. I want to see if I even like them. I don’t want to work on a song with someone who isn’t very nice or doesn’t have the same sort of morals as me, someone who has warped views. It’s part of my creative process. I want to feel really behind what we’re doing and really care about the track and the people I’m working with. If we have to have another session because we spent too long talking, then great. I’d rather we didn’t do anything than to leave the room feeling like I still don’t know the person I’m working with. There’s a process in which I like to make it an experience.
And then I guess the hope is that that chemistry will then translate into the music, right?
That’s the secret behind the curtains. We’re either going to benefit as people, learning about each other, or our music is going to benefit from it because we’re both doing something we really like. It doesn’t just audibly sound better, it doesn’t just mean that you write a more cohesive song, it really helps with communicating with each other. You’re able to then give direction, be more honest with them, talk to them like a friend, ask them to try different things. Extrapolate and communicate in a safe environment because you’ve built a rapport together, that makes for way better music. I want ten takes. I want breathy, emotional, belting it out. If I can weave in and out of those emotions, that’s what gives the track texture and emotion, as opposed to using the only take you’ve got because you couldn’t ask them to redo it. The rapport just wasn’t there. Being able to talk like that and be honest is one of the main reasons I like building rapport beforehand.
It’s a crazy intimate environment, and that needs to be respected. For myself, and for whoever else is in the room. It’s a special sovereign thing – to me anyway – I want to have those special experiences as opposed to cookie cutter sessions.
You talk about the track being a ‘marker of your journey between club music and love songs’. It’s definitely a mix of the two. Why do you think dance music is the perfect vehicle for a love song?
Anyone who has been knee-deep in the dance knows it’s a pretty alluring, vulnerable and exciting environment. I think that love song crossover with those environments makes sense to me. It works on both sides, if you’re relaxing, you’re in the car, the dance music can put you in that space and the lyrics can accentuate those feelings, and then it works the other way around too. If you’re in a club, the lyrics can connect you to something outside of the club in your normal life. It’s a space building. Putting things together. It can be cheesy but I really like songs that are about other people. I like the kind of pushing and pulling of wanting something you can’t have or having something but it’s not enough. Those simple songwriting tropes, I like playing with those. I’m not talking about the ‘You’re everything to me’ sort of approach but more ‘If you want it take it now, cause it’s not going to be on the table again’, feelings we all have with all sorts of different relationships. Whether it’s momentary or commentary, it can be weaved into all sorts of environments. My songs are all quite moody. They’re soulful, the harmonies are quite interesting. I try hard to make the music match the lyrics.
Dance music is very emotive and elicits a physical vulnerability and excitement and I think love songs talk about that, in a different way. Harmonising those two things together makes perfect sense to me.
Let’s take it back a little bit… You started your music career in a band called Astroid Boys. What spurred on the transition from being in the band, to becoming an electronic producer and DJ?
Before the band, I was a drum & bass DJ. I started buying records when I was like 12/13 after getting into a youth-centre close to me doing photography. I met some guys who listened to underground dance music, drum & bass was the most prevalent. Annie Mac and Fabio and Grooverider on Radio 1, D&BTV was a big thing, it was popping and it was probably the most exciting time for me, discovering the innovation of drum & bass and the dubplate culture. It was the best. I had a radio show with my mate josh. We were buying vinyl every week and playing them on the radio. I would hear about DJs having dubplates cut for them, and I was like, how can I, as a 13 year old, get my hands on these? How can I get DJ Hazard to send me a white label? How do I do that? Obviously that’s impossible as a child. I was 13 years old. No wax was coming my way. So instead, I messaged people on Myspace and said ‘How do you make music?’. There was a drum & bass producer from Birmingham that I got in touch with and he sent me screenshots of Reason 3, annotated on Paint, showing me what he did and how to make music. He taught me loads. I started teaching myself how to make music so I could have my own dubplates. I then started the band at 15 after a vocalist came into the drum & bass radio show. He was spitting bars, which were sick. I showed him some of my tunes, he loved them so we made a track, then a video, and became a band called Astroid Boys. 6 years went on, that’s all I was doing. Touring, one of our vocalists went to prison so I was on mic duties for a year and a half. Stage diving, producing. When that ceased to exist, the natural progression was to go back to what I was doing in the first place and carry on producing records that I liked. That’s when I started doing the grime edits.
Your core message is ‘“there’s always a route in – no matter where you come from” – talk to me about this statement. Why is this important for you to share with others?
Newport, where I come from, is very working class. Everyone is very proud of their working class identity. Everyone does the best that they can, regardless of their situation. By situation I mean, there’s a lot of crime and poverty. There’s a lot of struggle. I wasn’t brought into music through nepotism, my parents weren’t in music, my dad just liked music, so I had some kind of ear for music. But there was no showing of the industry, no showing of the different roles, you’re not taught that because there’s a survival element to school and the wider community. You should get a job that pays you well, 30k a year. Get a partner, get a mortgage, pay that off for 25 years. Have a holiday every year, then, once it’s paid off, go on holiday twice a year… and that’s amazing and it works, but that’s what I thought you had to do growing up in a working class city, you’re not shown another way. Basically, you don’t have to fall within the confines of your society or wealth bracket or microcosm. You can get into anywhere if you really care about it, if you’re intrigued or interested. I’ve seen so many people who are incredibly creative and they have no resources. They don’t know how it all works, and they all deserve as much, if not more, a shot at being successful. They deserve opportunities more than someone getting them just because their parents know someone. You can find your way in through reaching out, being curious. You can do it. Mine was messaging someone on Myspace.
What do you think is the key to standing out in this modern age of music creation?
I think passion is the main thing. If you want to give something back rather than just always being a consumerist – whether that’s creatively, sonically or vocally – then you have to be passionate enough about it to not feel too knocked down when something doesn’t do what you thought it would. You have to be driven by the want to do it and not by the metrics that define success. Why did you create the project in the first place? What are you trying to say? What do you care about? Being passionate about the organic ethos of you and what you care about. Maintaining that is of the utmost importance, in my opinion. And then staying curious. Stay open. Be open-minded and well informed. Be honest about when you don’t feel informed or know the answers, have the honesty to say you don’t know that artist or you don’t know that thing. It’s a very difficult thing to get there, to get that level of comfortability as a person. You have to work on that first and foremost, being honest and becoming that sort of person so that when you do put something out there, you’re not doing it for a gain of ego, you’re doing it from a heartfelt place. Usually that connects with people a bit more too, ‘cause people see themselves in you. They like how vulnerable you’re being, and sometimes that speaks more than the art itself.
