5 Minutes with Tongue & Groove [Interview]
Tongue & Groove have just dropped their debut album and boy, what a groove it is.
Midnight Madness serves up nine delectable slices of funk, psychedelia and 4-to-the-floor goodness all packaged into a varied selection of house and tech with bubbling psy undertones.
We grilled the crazy duo (Jake and Ric) about the challenges of completing a full album, but more importantly… what cartoon character they’d like to be… 😊
Growing up in (UK) was interesting because…
Free parties, hundreds of sound systems at Glastonbury running 24/7 and the birth of a truly alternative and anarchistic lifestyle.
Half the time you didn’t even know where the DJ was let alone who was playing.
Our favourite movies/books of all time are… (and why)
Jake – Grease – Sandy’s tight trousers, or Danny’s even –/ Bugsy Malone – splurge guns.
Ric – The Blue Brothers – because its fucking amazing.
Ric – Geek Love by Katherine Dunn – beautiful and fucked up
Jake – Jitterbug Perfume – classic Tom Robbins
If we were cartoon characters we’d be…
Minions
Our weirdest gig experience ever was when…
We once played out of the top of a black London Taxi in the middle of some woods…
Everything was bouncing around so much the poor guy (Billy Nasty) who came on after us playing only vinyl could not play a single record without the needles bouncing all over the place…
Best gig ever played was…
Well hard to admit (ha-ha) ….but, Origin 2018!
Taking over the main stage from Adam (Headroom) was slightly terrifying but was amazing when everyone started locking in and getting their groove on.
What an amazing party and up-for-it dancefloor and incredible [experience] to close such an awesome festival.
The first time we heard psychedelic music was…
Ric – Mine was up the side of a mountain in the Himalayas at the tender age of 18.
Jake – Interesting one, have no real defining moment but having some hippy/rock and roll parents for a solid foundation in counter-culture, it was a colourful childhood!
Still have a one-sided white label promo of Syd Barret’s first album when he left Pink Floyd given to my mum by him in the height of their love affair.
Best way to keep occupied on flights and in airports is to…
Jake – Sleep, Eat, Sleep, Repeat…
Ric – To see how Tongue & Groove sounds on all the speakers in Dixons.
Favourite track and/or artist of all time is…
Ric – What a nightmare question, aagh. I can give you a top 100 in no particular order…
Jake – Too many to even begin…
Completing a full album was…
Jake – Unreal, especially that moment when we were talking, and both agreed that we had done it. Have we? Yes. Really? Yes….Holy cow! There is an interesting pressure and intensity to doing an album, and this one is our first; you are laying your soul on the line for everybody and you want to do the best you possibly can.
Ric – Really intense. Regan had given us a deadline and most of the tracks were started but trying to get them all ready for public consumption was a whole other story. We really wanted to showcase our sound and all of our different influences and to try to keep it all coherent and sounding like an album and not just a collection of tracks, so there was a lot of revisiting tracks and bringing them up to date with the newer material. God that sounds like it was a massive chore, it wasn’t – it was great getting stuck in the studio for a few months tweaking.
One track you’d love to remix (but know it could never happen)…
We’ve been dreaming of remixing some of the old Technosomy tracks like Pyramid and Electron Bender, but the boys haven’t managed to dig out any of the parts for the best part of a decade now… we’re waiting…
Being part of the NANO artist roster is…
The best thing that has ever happened to us.
Being surround and supported by such a talented and tight crew is incredibly inspiring – apart from them being the best label and artists on the scene they are also our best mates and what a family to be a part of.
Who could ask for anything more?
How long did it take you to complete your debut album, Midnight Madness and what was the toughest challenge in doing so?
It took the best part of a year once we had properly got our heads down.
The hardest part was juggling studio time with family time – we have 5 kids between us, so they take up a massive chunk of our energy.
Now that Midnight Madness is finally released we can…
Keep on doing what we love. Off to the studio – see ya x