The Ashton Shuffle have just released their new album “Photographs’. The lead single ‘Tear It Down’ has become a club favourite, while also gaining the attention of radio across the nation. The album sees the duo of Mikah Freeman and Vance Musgrove having their biggest chart success to date.
Mikah Freeman spoke to OUTinPerth about recording their new album and getting reading to hit the road with their upcoming Australian tour.
In the credits to your new album you give a shout out to your Mum, thanking her for giving you to a love of music from an early age, what kind of music did you hear when you were growing up?
I grew up listening to the classics like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and Frank Zappa and then as I was coming up in the ‘80s there was a lot of Tears for Fears and all of those ‘80s classics like Spandau Ballet.
Going in to recording your second album what goals did you have for this record?
I think this album we went in to with a really strong vision of solid song writing. We wanted to make a great pop album which was consistent with the music we’ve been writing up to that point. We’d progressed, we started out writing really big club bangers and we dipped our toes in the water with some more emotive pop sounds. Going in to this album we had some opportunities to write with some really great songwriters. We really wanted to come up with something that equally fitted in radio but also worked on the dance floor. Dance music is what we are about foremost but we really wanted to explore that more pop orientated sound.
There’s a great variety of collaborations on this album, did you start off with a wish list of who you wanted to work with or did it naturally come about?
We did start with a bit of a wish list when we started writing the demos. You start writing a song and then you think, this song might sound great for this person or that person. We also had some great partners in both the UK and the USA who we were working with, they understood our vision and lined up with some great people to collaborate with. There are some pretty amazing singers on this record, I’m still pinching myself over it to be honest.
You’ve got Mayer Hawthorne on a track, he’s possibly one of the nicest people I’ve come across in the music industry; how did that come about?
We thought the track would really suit him and our US label played it to him and he was really into it and willing to come on board. We were just absolutely blown away when the result came back. He’s now playing the song in his own live set on his US tour and that just speaks volumes to us. The guys an absolute lord for first wanting to do the vocal, but then to put in in his show, that’s a win/win I reckon.
In your experience, how does Australian dance music get viewed overseas, because we still seem to cringe a bit when we discover something in home grown?
With the dance focussed stuff, we’re now on par. Years ago when we first started out, to get your record known you almost always had to have someone else remix it, like a big international producer or artist. You had to get them to remix your work for it to get exposure. Now, thanks to the internet, we’re all on equal terms. I think there’s been a handful of Aussie producers who’ve packed their bags and gone overseas and given it a good crack and they are all absolutely killing it. There up there will all the big guys. I think now, for Australian dance music, it’s never been better, we’ve got a global reach, it happening for us now.
You’ve done what can only be described as a f**k load of remixes, are you still doing as many or is it something you’re pulling back from?
I think we probably took a lot more time out of the market to write this record, we learned our lesson from that, especially in today’s musical climate. You really need to be extremely active, you need to be constantly putting out work and material but also really having an online brand and persona and you have to be touring constantly. As much as we’re really happy with how the album’s turned out. If we had our time again we’d probably wouldn’t have taken so long.
So we’re already back in the remix game, we’ve already knocked over two remixes since we finished the album and we’re taking on a lot more. The Ashton Shuffle, I guess our own music is more radio focussed but we’re still going to be doing club remixes because that’s where we come from.
You’re heading off on the road in August. When you’re in the studio recording do you think about, how are we going to do this live?
Not necessarily, I think we might individually think when we’re writing, “Hey, I can see that going well live,” but honestly it about writing good music first and foremost. Once you finish the record you start thinking about how it can be performed live, you start breaking down certain aspects of a song.
It’s kind of weird, we finished the recording and our managers were like, “Okay, you’re going to be touring this record in two months. You guys need to work out how you’re going to tour it.”
We’ve got some much love for Perth, there’s something in the water there, because every time we play Perth we come home an absolute mess. We can’t wait to get there.
The Ashton Shuffle plays Amplifier Bar on August 23, the album ‘Photographs’ is available now.
