Carl Cox News
Lucas & Steve Talk ‘Making Melodies’ EP And 15 Years Of Making Music
Prior to hitting the stage at Airbeat One in Germany, we had the pleasure of talking with the marvellous Lucas & Steve.
They recently announced their ‘Making Melodies’ EP which we got some further insights into as well as hearing more about their production process. They also dropped some hints as to future projects which you can find out about below…
Q: You were last at Airbeat One in 2023, how does it feel to get to come back again?
A: Steve – Very good actually it’s one of the biggest festivals in Germany. I think we’ve played there…this is our sixth or seventh time already, so we’ve been there a lot. We know the place, we know the crowd so it’s always good to be back and they are just very very excited to party the whole weekend. They have amazing stages, they have an amazing lineup. It’s one of those festivals which is one of the highlights of our summer always so it’s very good to be back.
Q: Recently on your Instagram you talked about how you’re celebrating 15 years now of doing music and touring all about. How does it feel to still be doing this and still growing all these years on from where you started?
A: Lucas – For us it’s the strangest thing. It doesn’t really feel like we are DJing for 15 years already. I think we’ve been on tour for about 10 years now but also then like we just remember everything so vividly from the past years. It’s cliché but things go really really quick, really fast as long as you’re having fun and we still are, we are very lucky that we are still having fun and still having the opportunity to play all those stages, all those huge stages and making music for a living. That just feels like a huge privilege still and when you look back so many years ago a lot of things changed in touring, in music and it’s also things that you know keep on challenging you in making music, new technologies and everything so…I’m sounding like a grandad when I say it like this but I think that’s just the case you know? It just keeps on being interesting and evolving so yeah. Still totally in love with it.
Q: Last year you got to work with someone who’s been doing it even longer in Tiesto. Obviously, he’s been doing it for about 30 years or so. What was it like to get to work with him?
A: Lucas – I think this is the third record that we just did last year with him. That last one is called ‘Free Your Mind’ and the other one we did with him last year was ‘Zenless.’ Every time we work with him it’s a very educative process I have to say. He knows exactly what music should sound like. He always is ahead of the trends so if you’re making music with him, he’s giving a lot of direction on what sounds are interesting enough, how should the record build, how can you tweak the record so that it’s interesting for everybody to play it you know? And that’s a very interesting process. It’s almost like mentorship in a way if that makes any sense? It’s a strange thing like often when you’re making music with people of course you always learn from each other, but with Tiesto he just really gives very good direction and it’s incredible after all those years how he knows how to do the right thing all the time.
Q: You’ve now released the first track for your ‘Making Melodies’ EP ‘Retro’ which I know myself and everyone has just been loving having waited about 4 years for it. What inspired you to make this EP with melodies being the focus for it?
A: Steve – We get a lot of questions on our social media. We’re very diverse producers. When we’re in the studio we like to make every type of music whether it’s pop music or dance music or melodic music or like the very clubby songs like ‘Free Your Mind’ with Tiesto. We just like everything combined in the studio and the start we made as Lucas & Steve was very melodic so we still play it a lot in our sets especially at the end of our set we always try to make it a little bit more euphoric so that people leave the stage or leave the festival with a very euphoric, happy, energetic positive feeling. The start of our set is quite heavy with ‘Free Your Mind’ and ‘Zenless’ and that kind of stuff. So, we wanted to make a nice present for our fans because we didn’t do that much of the melodic songs the last 2 or 3 years. We were just focussing more on the club stuff that we did. We still really like it.
We will always make melodic stuff, and we were thinking about doing something special as in an EP releasing 4 songs, 1 each week and that was ‘Making Melodies’ and the first one came out ‘Retro’ and we were blown away because everybody was waiting for that record already for I don’t know, 4 or 5 years. We played it for the very first time during Kings Day in The Netherlands at a Radio 538 show so people were asking about melodic music, and we still had so many things that were unfinished. So, we put everything in our studios together and we created this EP with 4 songs. We’re getting so many positive reactions that we’re probably going to do a volume 2 and a volume 3 every year.
Q: When you do more pop esque songs you end up doing club mixes which are always just really cool. Do you ever go into making a more pop oriented song which the thought of it already becoming a club mix or is that something that comes later in the process?
A: Lucas – Sometimes when you’re doing the original mix you already know what the club mix is going to be like. While producing the original stuff you get ideas that you cannot do in a radio friendly, Spotify friendly pop song. You need to keep things a little more quiet and tuck it in in the mix more, and you cannot have those harsh sounds that just stand out too much. Like the more dance sounds will usually not work that well in a pop mix. You get all these ideas and it’s like ‘ahhhh’ I can’t use it right now so just save it for the club mix so actually the process for the original and the club mix go hand in hand.
Q: With having 2 DJs behind the decks when you perform what’s that sort of process like trying to decide who does what and when? Do you plan it beforehand or is it more in the moment?
A: Steve – Lucas does all the work and I just drink
Lucas – Yeah that’s actually try. I donated my liver to Steve for this
Steve – We’ve been doing this for almost 15 years together as DJs, we’re touring the world for 10 years already. We just know what to do, we have our own CDJs, I’m always standing on the left side because it’s like the name Lucas & Steve it’s easier for the crowd to remember. Lucas is on the right, he has his 2 decks, I have my decks on the left side, and the mixers in between. Usually, Lucas tries to hype the crowd with his microphone and dancing. He’s very good at that and I just know what to do while he’s walking around the stage and trying to hype the crowd. It sounds a bit cliché but we’re almost a married couple.
Steve – DJs, colleagues, partners, but also lovers
Lucas – Hahaha
Q: This year we’ve seen a lot of big back 2 back sets. Are there any artists out there that you really want to do a back 2 back set with?
A: Steve – We did a small back 2 back with Tiesto which was sick. I would love to do that for 90 minutes or something. Maybe with Martin Garrix would be nice because he’s always very energetic. He knows how to get the crowd going. Love his shows. Also, something would be nice with a legend like Carl Cox or something that would be sick like very housey, techno, tech house set would be sick.
Lucas – And just play entirely different stuff, could all be interesting.
Keep an eye on Lucas & Steve’s socials for the release of the rest of ‘Making Melodies’:
You can check out our other articles on Lucas & Steve through the link below:
