UK Duo Dusky Ain't Your Mama's Deep House

Nick Harriman and Alfie Granger-Howell go way back. The two long-time pals first met in a London sixth form college, and have since consummated their friendship by touring the world as a deep house duo called Dusky. Well, not just deep house—these guys are clearly total nerds for the genre-defiant future grooves that have come to be known simply as "UK bass," and it shows in their music. Across one full-length album and a slew of EPs, Dusky dabble in 2-step, progressive house ("before progressive became what it is now") and everything in between, which makes sense, considering Nick is a veteran of pirate radio, and Alfie is a proud graduate of the Royal Academy of Music. But perhaps most important, the two share a history as partiers-in-arms, and former starving artists—or rather, artists with day jobs that did not involve DJing. We caught up with Dusky after a night of pit stains and matted hair from being trapped in the subbterranean rave cave that is Manhattan's Sullivan Room. They told us about the weird jobs they've had—jobs involving animal onesies and motor scooters—as well as their thoughts on American EDM, and their forthcoming EPs on both Aus Music and School Records.

THUMP: How was the show?
Nick: It was cool, just insanely hot.

Alfie: We were drenched in sweat.

Do you like playing those hotbox type venues?
N: Yeah, I think it creates quite an intense atmosphere. But for some people who just want to come watch you play and not sweat their balls off, it kind of sucks a bit for them.

I don't know if you heard, but Electric Zoo was canceled a few weeks ago because a few people died in drug-related incidents. No one's died at one of your gigs, have they?
N: No—I think we would've heard about it. I didn't notice that many people tonight who were really, really buzzing. There was a little crew at the end who were quite fucked, but the US has more of drinking crowd than in the UK or Europe in general.

Is Molly such a problem in the UK as it is here? Don't you Brits prefer ketamine and shit like that?
N: Yeah, a lot of ketamine, and mephedrone, and whatever else. People just take shit that you can buy off the Internet that isn't illegal yet—so all kinds of sketchy stuff.

What about you two? As former ravers, what's your substance intake like?
A: These days we're pretty straightedge. In our raving days, when we first started going out raving, we were definitely very messy.

N: We normally just drink. We're in clubs every weekend, or three days a week at least, so if you take drugs all the time, you'll just burn out. Normally we just have a couple of drinks or whatever.

What do you drink?
N: Vodka. It's the least offensive thing. For a while we had rum and Coke on the rider.

A:I t's so sweet—so much sugar.

N: It's too much, man. Vodka, you can just drink with fizzy water.

You guys have been living the club rat life for a couple of years now. Do you ever fear burning out? Does it ever get old?
A: I think we're really enjoying it. It's still cool. We still really love going out, raving and dancing, being in clubs. It's also really fun to be traveling around, as we are at the moment, seeing new cities and playing to different crowds. I think more of the worry is whether we can keep our music output up as much as it has been. So far, it's been cool. We're managing to write quite a lot on the road, and when we are playing shows around Europe and the UK, we're away for the weekend, but we're back Monday to Friday. We tend to be around, so we're just in the studio, writing stuff.

How is it, writing on the road?
A: It depends. When we do write stuff, we can never actually finish tracks on the go, 'cause we need our full studio set-up to do that. The main thing is just working on headphones, it's impossible to get a mix down right. So we tend to just sketch things—ideas, grooves, bass lines and stuff.

So this is your second time touring the States.
A: Yeah, but this is our first proper, extensive tour.

America had quite a summer for house music this year. Disclosure played Central Park, for Christ's sake. Have you felt it in the air since your last go round?
A: It's difficult to tell, because this time around people seem to know our tracks, as well as some of the other big tracks we've been playing for a while, like Paul Woolford's "Untitled" thing, which has been a big track all over Europe. The reaction to those has been really good this time around, perhaps more so than back in March. But I don't know if that's just because our profile has increased, so more people know our music.

Do you blame Americans for ruining dance music? As foreigners, what's your take on our electronic music moment?
N: I think it's a funny one, because even though there's a really crass, in-your-face, commercial side to the whole EDM thing over here, there's still pockets of people that are really into underground music. The clubs that we play are generally the clubs where people are a bit more educated about the music, and we play to smaller crowds, and the vibe's really good. You can choose to pay attention to all that stuff and get pissed off, or you can just ignore it and focus on your own thing. That's probably what we're trying to do.

A: Yeah, I think that's the thing. I think it's actually quite separate in a way. Obviously, it's all dance music. The big EDM, those huge stars, it kind of is more pop stuff. I think it's quite a different world, really, to the world that we're a part of. There are good and bad things about the EDM explosion. It's making people aware and acceptant of dance music in general, and you'd hope that people then go back and find out about the history of dance music, and listen to different styles within it.

What about EDM's effect on club culture as a whole? Even though electronic music is exploding, festivals are making big bucks at the expense of smaller clubs.
N: I think it's because people expect such huge line-ups with all the festivals. People are kind of spoiled. They go there and they expect to see all the biggest names or all the biggest underground acts all in one show. But if you're a promoter running a party, a club for 300 people, you can probably only afford to book one act and the residents and then break even. But it's the same in the UK with lots medium-sized clubs closing down. Things like Matter, which is a project by Fabric that they opened up next to the Millennium Dome, and that was like maybe 2000 capacity or something, and that only lasted about a year before it changed hands. But at the same time, there's really small venues popping up for like 200 people in trendier areas, which are thriving.

What size audience do you enjoy playing most?
A: I think it depends. It's nice for us to have a bit of variety, I think. Sometimes at the bigger clubs, it's a good spectacle, and seeing the size of the crowd is really cool when you're playing. But then you don't always have that connection with the crowd—you can't always tell so well what tracks are going down really well, and so on. So sometimes it's nicer playing in the small venues. You get the energy from the crowd as well. You feel the love a bit more.

N: Yeah, the small clubs are wicked, but you don't wanna have people throwing pints in your face every weekend. It's nice to have a little bit of a break from that. And then sometimes, you think about that, and it reminds you why it's so fun to play those places.

You two produced under a different name before Dusky, right?
A: Yeah, we had a project called Solarity, which was kind of mostly a progressive sound.

N: Well, before progressive became what it is now. It didn't used to be like that. Five years ago, progressive house was more like deep house but much more melodic, obviously a bit more banging.

A: And then before that we had some informal things when we first started producing together. It was drum and bass, breakbeat, things like that.

What is dusk, anyways? I always get it confused with twilight.
N: That was just a happy accident.

A: Yeah, that was a post-rationalization kind of thing, really, if we're honest. We came up with Dusky, like, "Oh yeah, that's catchy," and then we were like, "Oh yeah, I suppose: dusk, solar, sun."

What comes first for you guys: DJing or production?
N: I started DJing first, before I got into production, so I guess the DJ. But to become popular as a DJ, you need to produce tracks. I was doing some stuff on pirate radio, bits and bobs, but to actually get known as a DJ, you have to write music. So I just learned how to produce, and in the time between trying to become a DJ and producing in order to become a DJ, I became a bit more of a producer in a way.

What were your day jobs before becoming professional musicians?
A: I studied music and did compositions, so before Dusky took off, I was making ends meet from various music jobs like composing stuff for TV, a couple of adverts, and doing things like teaching music. But over the years, I've had loads of small little part time jobs doing random things like working as a receptionist, doing admin stuff.

N: I've done everything, from working for Royal Mail to delivering pizza on a fucking scooter. When I left university I set up a company importing animal onesies from Japan. Look it up, it's quite hard to describe it—it's called kigu. I'd been doing that part-time with my partner up until January of this year. It's a big thing in the UK. People wear them at festivals, or if you're on a comedown at home hungover on a Sunday, you kind of lounge about in it and get stoned or whatever.

Wait—I'm on the website now. This is awesome. Which one did you wear?
N: Well, I'm 6 foot 7, so I always had to get the specially big one, and the only one they had is a cow. So I always used to have that.

Why not combine kigu and Dusky into the same act somehow?
N: I dunno, man. I kind of want to keep the two separate. I don't normally tell people about it 'cause it clouds people's judgments of what I'm doing.

How's business going?
N: My business partner's running it. We've got a couple of employees, and it's running out of an office in East London. So yeah, it's all good. I still own half of it.

So you both have a good Plan B.
N: Exactly. That's the thing—I think music's maybe the Plan B, though.

What's coming up next for you two?
A: We've got the next Aus EP, the Careless EP is out next week, and then we're just finishing up another release for the end of the year. In fact, we just finalized things today for another one on School Records. You heard it here first!