It’s shaping up to be another fine year for prominent Liquicity duos NCT and T & Sugah. Perhaps their best yet…
With the latest in a long line of collabos, Say To Me, currently doing the rounds, the foursome have been neck deep in a summer-long tour which has already taken in the likes of the Great Wall Of China and this weekend will see them takeover Tomorrowland and close down Liquicity Festival in one day. That’s before we even mention their sold out High Tea events or the plans they have in store for the future.
As they prepare for Liquicity this weekend we called them up to find out more….
How has your year been?
Philippe (T & Sugah): More than good! For instance, our summer tour has been incredible so far. We’ve put out our EP together Say To Me, which was the reason for the tour.
Robin Storm (T & Sugah): We wanted to connect everything. We’ve done a lot of tracks and tours together but we wanted to consolidate it into a real thing.
Philippe (T & Sugah): We worked on one track together, Say To Me, and we also made solo tracks. It seemed like a good excuse to hit the road!
You’ve been working together for years, right? Going back to tracks like Stardust and Along The Road. How does it work with all four of you in one room?
Robin Storm (T & Sugah): It’s never four of us in the same room at the same time. It’s usually two or three of us in a different combination. But whatever the combination is we always work on separate laptops in the same room. We can do multiple things at the same time. We can work for an hour and not even talk to each other. Then we’ll come together and say ‘what have you got?’ and we’ll show each other, sit down and work out the way forward and then not talk again for hours.
Philippe (T & Sugah): That happened on Say To Me. Jeroen made the vocal chops and we were working on the drop then someone said ‘hey maybe these will go together?’ And they did.
Working autonomously sounds good. No hanging around, looking over each other’s shoulder at a screen…
Robin Storm (T & Sugah): Yeah it’s great because you also get live feedback on things and it’s great for the vibe. Even though you’re doing your own things when the vibe is high you work in a different way.
Philippe (T & Sugah): There’s more enthusiasm, too. If the music is getting good then I’ll get up and dance. I don’t do that when I’m on my own in the studio.
Alex (NCT): It’s the instant feedback that’s my favourite. Just knowing if you’re on the right track or not.
How do these current sessions compare to the early tracks you did years ago?
Robin Storm (T & Sugah): Creatively it’s very similar, technically we’re a lot better and can actually make the things we want to happen correctly. Creatively, though, between the four of us there’s always been this vibe.
Philippe (T & Sugah): I don’t think we’d have worked together as much if we didn’t have that vibe. It works so why stop?
Alex (NCT): That vibe, for me, went back before we ever went in the studio. We knew we could work together when we first met, had a few beers and played some music. It all evolved from there.
Philippe (T & Sugah): Yeah back stages. We’d connect after the show, have some drinks, one things leads to another and suddenly we’re in the studio.
What’s the strangest thing that’s ever been said to you while on the road?
Philippe (T & Sugah): One time a guy came up to me and said ‘yo I lost my virginity to one of your songs!’ I was like wow. What do you say to that?
Ask what song it was?
Robin Storm (T & Sugah): Cast Away, I think. A pretty old song. Quite a crazy thing.
Have any more crazy things been said to you over the years?
Alex (NCT): Jeroen’s not here but I know this has been said to him… Some guy offered for him to sleep with his girlfriend.
Oh wow
Alex (NCT): I think he declined politely.
Robin Storm (T & Sugah): It was too weird
Philippe (T & Sugah): This kinda makes it sound like he actually considered it…
Alex (NCT): He’s not here to defend himself so of course he did!
Ha! Let’s chat about the Wall Of China show you guys did recently…
Alex (NCT): Yes that was Phillippe and myself. It was truly something else. Going to China was sick anyway. But playing at that festival and seeing our names projected in massive letters on the Great Wall? That was out of this world.
Philippe (T & Sugah): It was weird. Very surreal!
Alex (NCT): Fre4knc and Posij were also playing so they were playing this insane music and these tourists were waving down from the top of the wall.
How do you decide which ones of you play landmark gigs like that?
Alex (NCT): Oh we fight. It’s very simple.
Philippe (T & Sugah): We have a purpose made arena for these things. It’s usually a pretty fair fight.
What other highlights have you had on tour so far?
Robin Storm (T & Sugah): It’s been amazing so far and it lasts the summer. I’m looking forward to Tomorrowland because I’ve never been but Liquicity will be the main highlight.
Alex (NCT): Doing a back to back with those boys is always fun. Liquicity is always fun. It’s such a vibe.
Philippe (T & Sugah): It’s amazing. It’s like the tour is building up to that moment. It’s the pinnacle. Tomorrowland is actually on the same day!
Alex (NCT): Yeah so we’re there at Liquicity from Friday but on Sunday we’ll go to Tomorrowland, do our set there, enjoy it for a bit and then go back and close the main stage at Liquicity.
What a day! How can you top all his? What happens next?
Philippe (T & Sugah): We’ve always got sketches of things together but nothing in concrete. Separately we’ve got things happening. We’ve got some things for Viper and something for Pilot. What have the NCT guys got coming?
Alex (NCT): We’re working on something with Frankie Nuts and Coppa, which is also for Viper. We’re working on a lot of different styles like deeper stuff and heavier stuff. Like Philippe said, in terms of collaborations there are always sketches, we’re always playing together and on the road together. So lots of shows and the China trip was very inspiring so hopefully we’ll all be playing in Asia a lot more.
It’s kicking off in China, right?
Philippe (T & Sugah): It really is! The vibe there is amazing. Everyone is so super open minded about all forms of electronic music, especially drum & bass. They listen to everything and appreciate it for what it is.
Alex (NCT): They’re not purists, basically.
Philippe (T & Sugah): They just party. It doesn’t matter whether it’s techno, hardcore, trance, drum & bass or whatever. That’s very refreshing. So we’ll focus on working towards more Asian shows for future tours.
And finally…. What’s the weirdest thing to happen to you guys on tour?
Alex (NCT): This isn’t on tour, it was at a local show in Delft, which is my home town, but it’s definitely the weirdest. We went backstage and it was dark. Jeroen turned on the light and what did we see? Two people with no business being back stage whatsoever having sex on the table! Philippe took a picture of them. He was mad about them.
Philippe (T & Sugah): I put it on Facebook!
Oh snap!
Philippe (T & Sugah): It gets worse… The girl had a very distinctive tattoo on her leg so someone identified her and tagged her. People like her mum and aunt started commenting on the picture. It escalated very quickly!
Wow. What happened next?
Philippe (T & Sugah): Our MC started to give them the count of ten to get the fuck out of there and the boy wasn’t very happy about that so said ‘fuck you’ and threw the clothes back. The girl was suddenly very conscious and sitting there with her knees up on the table. It was an absolute mess! We gave them a little privacy to get dressed and fuck off. We can only hope they’ll be a bit more careful in the future…
Be careful T & Sugah and NCT: Say To Me EP is out now
Follow NCT: Facebook / Soundcloud / Twitter
Follow T & Sugah: Facebook / Soundcloud / Twitter
READ
