In this interview spotlight, we chat with Eat More Cake about their influences, motivations and more.
Full Q&A along with links and streams below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
We are from Harrow in North West London. Most recently we have been focusing on making house music, experimenting within the genre, taking inspiration from other producers and trying to work out what makes a record really great. I think groove, melody, lyrics, instrumentation and arrangement all play an important part so we try to make sure we are covering all bases. We also try to find a nice balance between light and dark. So, for example, if we have a really sweet, melodic section in a track we will usually attempt to balance it out with something darker. We’re also not really ones for dragging and dropping huge sections of other people’s music around so will usually opt for writing and performing over sampling.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?
We used to approach writing in a different way, trying to make each track we made completely different from the last – literally from hip hop to barbershop – which was great but we were always hearing the same criticisms: the music was too all over the place etc. We also used to do live performances with a band, which can be a bit of an expensive, logistical nightmare and wasn’t really getting us anywhere at the time, so we decided the dance music / Djing model would be a better road to take. For me personally, it’s an adventure, and you never know when something really exciting’s going to pop into your inbox. When something you wrote in your bedroom is playing on the radio or people are dancing to your track in a club it’s a great feeling – that keeps me motivated.
How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?
Heat Of The Night is definitely a special track for me. It was one that came together so quickly – it was pretty much finished within a week. I think sometimes, if you’ve got something on your mind, a song can kind of write itself – you’re listening to the instrumental, you get one line and then you’re like “bang bang bang boom”. Exactly what was on your mind expressed in song form. I definitely wanted to make a moody track as I was in a pretty moody frame of mind at the time, but it was really the vocal that made it come together. Once I had “crazy idea / to follow my heart and my heart led me here” I thought we might be on to something special.
Do you face any challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? On the flip side, how has technology helped you (if it has)?
Yes. I’d like to use an analogy: Imagine you’re a baker, baking bread. You’ve spent years learning how to expertly bake bread using expensive equipment and hard to come by tricks of the trade. Over time, though, the cost of equipment has come down to almost nothing and the tricks of the trade are easily learned at the touch of a button. Also the price of bread has plummeted. So much so that you can’t even give bread away half the time. Then just swap “bread” for “music” and bob’s your uncle. It’s like a gigantic pyramid scheme now. The people making money aren’t artists selling to fans (obviously there are exceptions) but people and “platforms” selling to artists. I’m inundated with e-mails trying to sell me some service or other that will “get my music heard by thousands of people”, etc. It makes sense though. There’s more money in selling dreams than there is in selling records. Just ask Simon Cowell. On the flip side there are definitely advantages. You can get feedback and interact with fans instantly, tracks can go viral, you can be in control of what’s going on with your music etc. But you’ve got to be smart with how you spend your money. You could easily spunk shit-loads of money chasing a dream down a road to nowhere.
Where can we follow you online and hear more music?
Haha. Spotify / Soundcloud / Twitter / Facebook – though good luck seeing anything we post on there 🙂
Anything else before we sign off?
Yeah. Keep an ear out for the next one. It might take you by surprise.
