Interview by Arnold van der Walt
If you’re a fan of electronic dance music, especially if you are a DJ yourself, you’ve undoubtedly stumbled upon MEDUZA’s ‘Piece of Your Heart Ft. Goodboys.’
MEDUZA consists of Mattia, Luca and Simone, 3 natives from Milan who have been making waves since their signing at ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event) has been called the hottest signing in recent years. Their first release came in the form of a remix of Friendly Fires’ ‘Heaven Let Me’ which already sparked the interest of music lovers around the globe. But, as soon as they released their own debut single, everything changed. ‘Piece Of Your Heart’ was supported by BBC Radio 1’s Dance Anthems show and it almost immediately began to pick up steam. In a span of 2 months, ‘Piece Of Your Heart’ has already managed to pick up more than 7 million streams on Spotify alone with a further 6 million on Youtube.
MEDUZA released the official music video for ‘Piece Of Your Heart’ today and it’s a dizzying ode to architecture. Not really, but the angles used in this music video takes ordinary cityscapes and (literally) turns it on its head, creating fantastic visuals to otherwise bland scenes.
With a debut this strong, it’s clear that MEDUZA has their eyes set on taking over the globe. Deep, trendy and forward thinking, MEDUZA has been taking over clubs and playlists in a very short timeframe, so given time, what else will they be able to achieve?
We sat down with MEDUZA and spoke about their debut single ‘Piece Of Your Heart’, why they waited years to release it, and why simplicity is important:
Hi MEDUZA! Thank you so much for chatting to us. Before we get into it, what have each of you been up to lately?
Hi, thanks to you! We work together in the studio every day, sharing ideas with each other, comparing our ideas. We’re a team!
MEDUZA’s music has been blowing up across the world lately. Seeing as you don’t have many releases yet, to those not familiar with you, how would you describe your sound?
This is totally new for us, each of us had our own solo background but this is the first time we see one of our tracks blowing up this way. We grew up with house music, we’ve been inspired by a lot of artists we love from this world. What we wanted to do was mix a progressive melody with the dark moody bass inspired from the deeper side of the underground, I would love to call this mix MEDUZA‘s sound.
With such a massive debut single, what are your musical backgrounds? What did each of you do before forming MEDUZA?
We worked together since 2014 on different projects. We also worked on music for rap artists; you could say it’s a guilty pleasure. Each of us comes from a different musical background, I (Mattia) grew up listening to lots of US rap artists like Eminem or melodic stuff like Maceo Plex and Solomun, Luca and Simone are more electronic, growing up with Deadmau5 and Daft Punk.
What does each member of the team bring to the table?
Luca is the engineer man, he works on the first rough idea and sound layers, I (Mattia) help him with arrangement and ideas looking for the right sound to use, as I’m more a DJ than a musician, and Simone is the musician, he’s the keyboard and synth man.
‘Piece Of Your Heart’ has exploded in record time; quickly becoming one of the dance anthems of 2019. What was this process like?
We’ve been waiting for almost a year for the release, we wanted to be sure every single thing on this project and on this track was in the right place at the right time. There has been a lot of work behind the scenes with our team and label, honestly, the reaction to the track was a bit unexpected but we’re really happy for this, it means a lot to see all this hard work pay off.
What can you tell us about the creative process behind ‘Piece Of Your Heart’?
Honestly, there was nothing really special, we were just having fun in the studio with Goodboys, after making a few other ideas. We were sharing ideas on how to make the drop when Josh from Goodboys and Simone was in the vocal booth talking to the mic, showing us their thoughts. We left the microphone on by accident and that’s how they made the pre-drop and the drop-chorus for ‘Piece Of Your Heart’. Everyone from the team was shocked at the first-listen in the studio but by the end of the week, we knew made something big.
MEDUZA is currently working with a team to create a massive live performance to take on tour. What’s the type of show you had in mind? When can we expect to see you guys perform?
Our first gig will come really soon actually, we will announce when and where on our socials this month. At the moment it will be DJ sets but we’re working on a live show for the summer, I really can’t wait to show what we have in mind for that, it’s going to be special.
Studio work and music creation or performing and interacting with a live audience, which do you prefer?
For me (Mattia) I really love to be directly in contact with the people, I love to be involved with their emotions during a live show and like to create an emotional connection between me and the crowd travelling together on the same musical journey. Simone and Luca are more producers, they love creating the magic moment into a track in the studio, but I love to do that, and they love shows too so we’re all three on the same line.
Gary Numan is quoted as saying: “I have always been far more interested in sound than technique, and how sounds work together, how they can be layered. I think electronic music, (in its infancy anyway) allowed us to create music in a way that hadn’t really been possible before. It created a new kind of musician.” What are your thoughts on this statement?
We totally agree with that, our thought is that a good idea is stronger than the best technique, no matter how it sounds, especially in electronic music, or you will risk to be boring and a copy of a copy of someone else, you need to be original and unique when you create, to do this sometimes is better not to be a master in technique. Talking about the creative process, we usually follow the idea of “less is more”
Apart from yourselves, any new artists on your radar? Which 3 songs (any genre) do you currently have on high rotation?
We really love Joris Voorn, Camelphat, Fisher and Solardo’s sound. They use big sounds and stand out different for the rest of the scene.
Maceo Plex – ENTER.Space
Yotto – Walls (Joris Voorn Remix)
Fisher – You Little Beauty
Even though ‘Piece of your Heart’ is still growing in size, have you started working on the next release? Can we expect some more fantastic remixes?
We just finished a cool new remix today and we’re currently working on the follow up to ‘Piece Of Your Heart’ with Goodboys, we will probably release the new single before the end of the summer once everyone in Ibiza has been playing the track!
If you could collaborate with, or perform alongside any artist, who would it be? And why? (We feel a collab between MEDUZA and Gorgon City is simple waiting to happen… 😉 )
Two big acts we would love to have as feat are Disclosure and Black Coffee.
Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us, MEDUZA, before you go, what are your famous last words?
Much more to come, ciao!
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