Wolverhampton based DJ and producer Peza has worked with Damon Albarn, Greg Wilson, Dicky Trisco, Tronik Youth and many more. His unique blend of house and nudisco hasn’t gone unnoticed over the years, and he’s about to release a remix of fellow Midlands-based artist Methods. The synth-rock band’s track ‘Human Resistance’ is getting an electronic overhaul this Friday, and we caught up with them to chat all things remixing.
PEZA:
What are the challenges faced in reinventing the sound of a band?
Well, every remix or track throws up certain challenges, but when working on a remix for a band such as Methods, the end goal is not to try to reinvent the sound, instead I like to pick things out that are already there but perhaps hidden away under more prominent elements of the original track. I really enjoy picking stuff out that’s there, but just kind of as a supporting role, then trying to give that more of a lead role and build around it. If that makes any sense?
What attributes does a bands’ sound need to have to be remix-worthy?
This is a tricky one really, I guess for me I instinctively get a feel for what a band is about when I hear them. I like the music to have a certain honesty about it, that way I know that there will be plenty for me to work with. When I heard Methods that honesty shone through, but even more so when seeing them perform live.
What were you trying to achieve when starting out the project?
I wanted to give the track my own spin and for people to hear it from a different perspective, I also wanted to give it a solid groove for it to sound decent on a club system. Hopefully that’s how it turned out, either way I had great fun working on the remix and can’t wait for folk to hear it and discover this band, they have loads more great music to come and it’s going to be great to see how the remix goes!
METHODS:
What did you like about Peza’s skills that made you choose him to remix the track?
We had heard of PEZA a while ago. A good friend of ours kept telling us about him and playing us tracks that he’d made and remixed. We loved every single one of them. Just the whole vibe and sound PEZA creates just seemed to feel right for us. We love a whole range of music from guitar-based indie to classical, drum n bass to techno but the dark, minimal electro sound is one we really love. We use a lot of electronic instruments in our music and really want to see how PEZA would interpret them.
When we met with PEZA we discovered that not only is he a master of his craft but he’s also an absolute gem of a bloke. He’s got the skills to mash up a track and put his PEZA stamp on it and make it a floor-filler, which is what drew us to him initially, but his whole ethos and morals are what sealed the deal for us.
What do you think Peza adds to the track that transforms the original?
‘Human Existence’ is the closing track of our ‘Anything’ EP. The track itself has been on quite a journey. It was initially written a few years ago and sat in the box gathering dust until we started to put the EP together. We were looking for something special to close the EP and found the original version of ‘Human Existence’ that we’d forgotten about. It ended up changing a lot from the demo and became quite a beautiful track, questioning life itself and how we really don’t know as much as we think we do.
PEZA has managed to take the key elements of the track, keeping the message and essence of the original but at the same time completely spinning the track on its head and creating a stunning musical masterpiece. He has pushed the track to the absolute limit in terms of it being different from the original, but in doing so has opened it up to new audiences and given this track another lease of life yet again. That takes skills and PEZA has them by the bucket load. We are looking to play a mash up of the original and PEZA’s version live now, we love it that much. The remix has not only added to the track but has actually made us look at song-writing in a new way too.
You can pre-order ‘Human Resistance’ here.
