Swedish dance sensation, Galantis, recently rocked the country with their fantastic set at Ultra South Africa. They have released smash hits such as ‘Runaway (U&I)’, ‘Peanut Butter Jelly’, ‘In My Head’ and the new smash hit ‘No Money’ and the dance duo are expected to do big things in the months to come. I sat down with the boys on their recent South African trip and discussed their songwriting, music and the other projects the duo has been involved in.
EDM and dance music has become massive over the past couple of years. What, in your opinion, makes a good dance track?
That’s a good question. A great baseline. That makes a song for us. Dance music today keeps changing a lot. There are so many different ways you can make dance music. These days ballads over a heavy beat seem to be a trend and it works so well. We love that. We don’t want to be in one genre of dance music so keeping it fresh is important.
You’ve both been successful with other projects as well. Where do you guys see yourselves in your career right now?
I think we both feel that everything we did over the past few years was leading up to this. We feel this is only the beginning of something great and we just opened the Galantis door to the world and now they’re waiting for us to deliver and that’s our focus. We’ve been writing a lot so expect some new music this year.
Which of your tracks gets the best reaction when you’re playing live?
It differs a little bit but the singles always get a great reaction from the crowd. Runaway (U&I) is a given but it’s interesting that Peanut Butter Jelly has been getting a great reaction in different countries which is interesting because it’s different from a lot of other music that is out right now.
I love that song. How did Peanut Butter Jelly come to life?
This happens a lot but this particular song I wrote over 10 years ago and I just couldn’t find an artist to feature on. I didn’t know what to do with the track so I kept it in my back pocket for a decade. I did a rough version one the plane and added guitar and played it to Linus who really liked it and then we started to perfect the track.
As I said, dance music is so competitive at the moment. What is it about you guys that sets you apart?
I think the way we create music and the way we write music is very different. That comes across in our music. We usually start with a piano or guitar riff and then we start writing around that. Most of our songs start off as ballads and then we dress them up in house music clothes later on which is different to how most dance music is created. Every piece of instrumentation in our music is added after the song is there.
Tell me a bit about the creative process that went into your debut album ‘Pharmacy’.
When you start a band, your first album and that moment will never come back. It’s when you decide who you are, what you are and what your sound is. You can do whatever you want and be whoever you want to be. We took our time on this album. It took us two and a half years to finish it while we explored and developed our sound. It was a really amazing time and process. We wrote a lot in Sweden and Los Angeles which was exciting. We have been working a lot on new music now so we’re excited to release that this year.
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