THE TRACK: Disciples, Daylight. The Calvin Harris and David Guetta collaborators break down their single
Daylight
Over the course of a few short years Disciples (Nathan Duvall, Gavin Koolman and Luke McDermott) have been catapulted to mainstream success via high profile collaborations with two of the biggest names in EDM: Calvin Harris and David Guetta. Their latest release – and first crossover hit without a big-name collaborator – is the breathy, chugging Deep House groove Daylight. We caught up with them in their Shoreditch studio to find out how the track came about.
“We were out in LA earlier this year working on new music with quite a lot of writers, and this was the only day all three of us were in the studio with no one else there,” Gavin begins. “Actually someone else should have been there. We had a crazy night with MK having a few drinks and stuff, and we decided to cancel on this songwriter who had flown from Miami to LA to work with us, so it wasn’t ideal, but we made a decision to all go in together and write a tune… it was one of the only days we could do that. We actually started the beat as something else, a Streets, Mike Skinner influenced vibe we were going to get Luke to write poetry and spit on that. I don’t know what we were thinking! But through that came other stuff, the bassline and hook of Daylight. We were messing around and stripped back all the chords and stuff, and we threw away the drums. Duvall started playing the bassline, we started recording, and in the space of a few hours we banged it out.”
So the track was inspired by a night out with House legend Marc Kinchen?
“We came in about 5 or 6am from partying with MK but we never wrote the tune because of that, it must have been subliminal!” Nathan says. “The bassline was the catalyst, then Gavin came up with a sick melody, and Luke on the vocal and the lyrics – when he’s inspired by something the lyrics come straightaway.”
So the track came together pretty quickly?
“With us we take quite a while to make music; we take it a lot more seriously than certain producers and DJs that make ten tracks a day,” Luke notes. “We could put out four tunes a year or less, but they’re all special to us. So that day was just the beginning of about three months of going back and forwards to make sure it’s right. It was one of the quickest ones we made, because there was a vibe.”
Is sounds as if a lot of time is spent perfecting the initial idea?
Gavin agrees: “We spent a lot of time going back just tweaking and rearranging, adding bits, fucking it up then going back to square one, that kind of stuff, just to exhaust it and make sure we get as much out of it creatively as we can. But the essence of what the idea was was laid down that day.” Nathan chips in: “It’s typical of us and the team we’re with; we’ll send it to the label and they’ll throw in their two pence and then we’ll fight them for two months!”
So does this back and forth detract from or benefit the music?
“I think it’s for the better, there’s one guy called Tom who found us, but he’s on our level musically, he gets it: he gets the vibe, he gets
who we are. We’re a crossover act so both club and radio are very important to us... It’s easy to talk to an A&R who’s on the same level, so usually there’s not too many issues or fights, and his feedback was very beneficial.”
How do you make music that works on the radio and in a club?
“You have to allow yourself to go insane over a period of time,” laughs Gavin. “You have to be open to that happening, and then it’s pretty easy really! You just have to not think about it too much. We don’t really go into the studio and think we have to make a track that translates on radio but also bangs in the club. We have done that in the past, but that’s the wrong way. When you think about it too much you end up ruining the whole thing, the natural vibe, and I think that’s what Disciples is about, natural ideas, just how we vibe together in the studio. Now we just try to make music that makes us feel good. We’re from the club world, and we’re also from the radio world, we just like great music: it could be a great song or a really underground Techno beat that has like two views, it’s as diverse as that, so naturally we make music for both… we just try not to think about it while we’re making it!”