Artist Interview: BROOKES BROTHERS for SIM “TEAR YOU DOWN”

Soul In Motion Interview with Brookes Brothers

– Interview by Sarah Alexys Y –

Phil and Dan Brookes, otherwise known as The Brookes Brothers have been making waves since 2002. Early on, their “Hardknocks / Mistakes” release on Breakbeat Kaos received nods from Andy C, Grooverider, and BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe and Pete Tong. In 2007, after releases on Ram Records, Viper and W10, they were signed exclusively to Breakbeat Kaos. The year that followed was huge for the Brookes’ as huge singles such as “Tear You Down” and “Dawn Treader” were released. Other memorable dancefloor smashers include “Star Guitar Remix”, “Last Night”, and the incredible “Gold Rush” collab alongside Danny Byrd.

The Brother’s new single “LoveLine / The Blues” features YouTube sensation Haz-Mat, and brings the classic Brookes Brothers sound with a fresh new vibe for the A side. The flip side, “The Blues” is all about the connections of blues to drum and bass. You can pick this release up right here.

The Brookes Brothers last touched down in Toronto in 2011 to celebrate Soul in Motion’s 9 Year Anniversary and they’re back again to celebrate SIM’s Anti-Valentine’s, February 16th at The Annex Wreckroom.

SARAH: I’ve read that you both discovered your passion for drum and bass in 2000 and began to produce your own tunes by 2002. What was the process that converted you from “fans” to “artists”?

BROOKES BROTHERS: It was completely organic, we started going out to dnb nights quite a lot and eventually started trying to make some of our own. This was pretty much at the dawn of the digital era before production knowledge was widespread so it took a long time for us to actually figure out what we were doing!

SARAH: I remember when I heard your D&BTV Live (Week 25) mix for the first time, I had it on repeat for months. Now I have your newest mix – FABRICLIVE x Playaz on repeat! Do you have a method of song selection for building such great mixes?

BROOKES BROTHERS: Thanks glad you like! Yeh first and foremost we choose tunes that we think are good (obviously!) and then we try and split them by key so the mix is nice and harmonic. Then just thinking about energy flow and vibe shifts. Its a bit like making a tune really!

SARAH: You’ve been living with each other for the majority of your lives. Will it be weird now that Phil is moving out? How do you think this will affect your production work?

BROOKES BROTHERS: Haha, nah it definitely won’t affect the tunes as we’ve had our own studios for the last 5 years anyway! It’s great to have our own places, if anything it’s helped breathe new life into our production process.

SARAH: It’s rumored you two are working on an EP under a new pseudonym. Any hints on what this is about? Is it DnB or another genre?

BROOKES BROTHERS: We’ve both been working on a couple of different projects actually, no info as of yet but there will be soon. There’s a few different types of house music involved, that much i can tell you!

SARAH: Brothers tend to get into scraps growing up, what’s the funniest thing you’ve ever gotten into a fight about?

BROOKES BROTHERS: Too many to mention haha! You name it, we’ve fought about it at some point! Haha. At the end of the day its all love though.

SARAH: You’ve talked about a desire to collaborate with Metrik. Can fans expect to see this or any other cool collaborations in the near future?

BROOKES BROTHERS: Yeah we are planning a collab with Metrik eventually, but right now we’re focusing on lots of solo material to release for Summer this year. We’ve probably got around 6 tracks ready to go, either as an EP or part of an LP we’re just deciding which. We’ve just done a collab with Danny Byrd for his forthcoming album called ‘Jump On It’ which is probably the best collab we’ve done to date.

SARAH: Do people ever mistake your name with the clothing store, Brooks Brothers? Please tell me there’s a funny story here.

BROOKES BROTHERS: We probably get a tweet or facebook every week about the Brooks Brothers store haha! They do make some fine suits though for sure. I think maybe we should try and get some kind of sponsorship, but then again dnb heads probably aren’t quite the demographic they’re looking to appeal to!

Looking forward to seeing all our Toronto fam this weekend at Soul in Motion. Big Love!

– Interview by Sarah Alexys Y –