Mak & Pasteman on Bruno Mars, Chuck Norris and China
By Oscar Holland
UK duo Mak & Pasteman inhabit a hard-hitting dance music land somewhere between house and techno. They’ve appeared on various important electronic labels (we won’t bore you with a list) and the pair can regularly be heard pumping out tunes across London – and online – on Rinse FM. They play The Drop at Dada.
You guys met in Leeds. Can you describe the city in three words?
Northern. Bass. Ale.
Mak and Pasteman kinda sounds like a superhero duo. What would your powers be?
Mak: Super-ninja beat maker, the ability to chop up beats and enemies alike.
Pasteman: The power to be Chuck Norris.
In December 2013 you tweeted: “Apologies to the Chinese guy I just took out on the mountain...” What happened? Where did you take him?
We were playing Ibiza Rocks the Snow in France and I’d not snowboarded for a good few years. First day out on the slopes, and I’d forgotten how to stop! Unfortunately, this ended in a collision with a Chinese guy.
You’ve got songs called ‘Creep’ and ‘Le Freak’ – is there some theme emerging? What’s next: ‘Weirdo’? ‘El Crackpot’?
Track titles come from all manner of places. Like ‘Brown Bread’ had a rap sample that said, “so much bread in the rap game,” and our track became a mix of that and the [British comedy series] Bo Selecta piss-take of Jack Osbourne, who used the term “Brown Bread” to mean something good.
You sampled Bruno Mars on ‘Do The Same’ – are there any other guilty pleasure songs you want to sample in the future?
We sampled Bruno Mars pretty early into our career. It was popular at the time with the future garage sound, and we felt the sample fitted. As time has moved on though, we’ve dug really deep for our samples. Now we try to make them more unrecognizable and often a little unusual.
Do you always agree on what to play on your Rinse FM show? Do you have a veto if one chooses a song the other hates?
Our tastes are pretty aligned musically, but there has been the odd occasion where one of us may like a track that the other isn’t that into. In that case the veto always comes into play!
You just played Hideout Festival – how was that?
Hideout was incredible this year! We played on the main stage to 4,000 people, and we both felt it was a pivotal moment for us to push forward with our new sound and really feel it connect with everyone there.
What have you got in store for your Beijing set?
We’ve both wanted to come to China for so long, so we’re really excited to see how you guys get down to our sound! We’re gonna take you on a journey from some of our older stuff and our influences all the way to our latest tunes, plus unreleased and forthcoming music.
Sat Aug 20; price TBD; Dada, Rm 101, Bldg B, 206 Gulou Dong Dajie, Dongcheng 东城区鼓楼东大街206号B楼101室(183 1108 0818)
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