Catching up with Gentlemens Club

After a year of not releasing any original material, Gentlemens Club is back. This multigenre trio has never been afraid to break boundaries within the bass scene, experimenting with whatever subgenre that comes their way. Their mild release hiatus ended with ‘FEVER’, which came out on Deadbeats, and it’s one of many tunes to still come out. Gentlemens Club brings the energy we know them for, blending UK dub, bass, and breakbeat elements to create a fun track start to finish. 

It follows their back-to-back set with Levity at Zeds Dead’s Texas Jamboree in Fort Worth, and a tour around Japan this Summer. With a massive visual show at Rampage earlier this year, shows in Romania, Slovakia, Germany, and Belgium this autumn, the trio makes it clear they are here to stay. Right now, they are finishing up their European tour. After that, they will gear up to end the year with a bang in America.

We thought it was time to catch up with the guys, and chat about their comeback, their crazy energy on stage, and what’s more to come from them. 

How are you doing?

Coffi: We’re all good! We did a tour in Japan recently, are wrapping up tons of collabs, working on a bunch of releases. So yeah, we’re keeping busy. 

You also recently released ‘FEVER’, your first original song in over a year. What took you so long?

Coffi: We were honing in on what we wanted to release. We were making so much different stuff, I think we got a little bit lost in the music, so we took a bit of time to step back and realign. We asked ourselves, “Alright, what do we want to release?” ‘FEVER’ was a track that came to mind along with all the other next releases we got coming up. 

Soloman: We were thinking too hard, we were thinking too much about radio placements and all of that stuff. But the main reason why we started making music is because we just enjoyed making the music. That’s what we started doing again, just making music that we enjoy making, not thinking about the consumer as much. We want the listeners to enjoy the music, but if we don’t enjoy the music then what’s the point.

Coffi: I think that ‘FEVER’ encompassed the whole thing of a club tune. It’s a style that we all like. It came out really easy and it just made sense. Deadbeats liked it. We liked it. So we just rolled with that one. We’ve got so many songs scheduled to come out now, that it made sense in a longer term plan as well.

How was it working with Deadbeats again?

Soloman: It’s always good. We’ve done a lot of work with them and they’ve always been really good to us, so it’s always a pleasure to be welcomed back and carry on working with them. This isn’t the end either, we’ve got a lot more coming up with them. 

50 Carrot: We like working with them, because they care about the releases. They put a lot of time into each of them, and they don’t just release for the sake of releasing. Everything’s got a purpose. 

Soloman: They’ve got a good roster, and good quality control as well. It’s consistently good music.

You’re talking about good quality control. Having not released for over a year, that must be something that’s quite high on your list.

50 Carrot: We’re quite hard on ourselves with what we release, so that’s part of the reason why we hadn’t released in a while. We were procrastinating on finishing some of the music, but it’s good to find this is the end of that. It’s mostly Soloman wanting our music to be on the highest level possible, and that slowed us down more than we realised this past year. 

Aha! Would you say Soloman is the perfectionist in your group? And what are 50 Carrot’s and Coffi’s characters like, working together?

Soloman: My perfectionism can drive me absolutely crazy, and probably drives the boys crazy as well, but it has its pros, because we don’t rush things out. Sometimes you can get a bit caught in the moment with some stuff. Being a perfectionist can slow down the process, and make it better in the end. In the early days, in 2012, it would be common for us to just upload a song straight to SoundCloud at 6 PM after a day in the studio. We’ve learned that it can be good to give it some time to breathe and revisit the track after a month or two. 

50 Carrot: Absolutely, we don’t rush into things anymore and I think that’s a good thing. Where Soloman is the ‘quality control’, me and Lewis (Coffi) are the ‘creators’. Not that it’s only us having the ideas, but I feel like the bulk of the idea creation is probably coming from me and Lewis. Then we give it to Sol to remix and work on, and after that it’s ready to get sent around. And then it’s our task to tell Soloman, “It’s okay, it’s ready and good to go.”

Soloman: Otherwise I’ll spend two weeks fiddling with something that no one will even notice!

Other than tracks coming out, you’ve also got quite some gigs lined up. How are you looking forward to them?

Soloman: We’re definitely looking forward to Denver on December 28. It’s gonna be our biggest headline play in Denver ever, and we’re gonna do some solo sets there, which we haven’t done for a very long time. We’re also going to get some special guests down and send off the year properly, we’ll give people a good party. It’s going to be cheap tickets, and it’s going to be 360 as well. We also recently played a few new countries we’ve never played before, like Romania and Bratislava.

You’re playing shows in both the US and in Europe. What’s the biggest difference in energy between the two?

50 Carrot: Americans will fill the space on a breakdown of a song. When there’s a bit of silence in the track or something that breaks down, it can be a bit quiet in Europe, but in America they will fill that silence with enthusiastic noises. Depending on what area of America it is, down South they will shout a “yee-haw”, for instance. 

Coffi: Energy-wise they’re pretty neck and neck at the moment.

Would you say that there was a time where that was different?

Coffi: Absolutely! Certain things are more popular in America or certain things are more popular in Europe and then that makes a difference in itself when we’re playing the sets. Right now, it seems that people are pretty open to hearing anything and everything, which is cool in America. They used to be straight and narrow on just wanting heavy dubstep but now you can go out there and play UK garage and drum & bass and they’re starting to accept it and enjoy it even. 

There is definitely some change happening in the bass scene! There’s a lot more UK Garage and other genres than 140 and drum & bass that people play. What is the biggest benefit to you in that?

Coffi: Being multi-genre has allowed us to adapt and stay current. It’s nice to be able to play what we want and be able to adapt. Same story with releasing music, we release whatever genre we want, and we don’t have to say, “This is our new drum & bass song” or “This is our new dubstep song,” it’s just, it’s a new Gentleman’s Club song. 

50 Carrot: It keeps the sets interesting for us as well. We don’t know exactly what tunes they’re going to play next so it makes the sets more exciting for us, it works to keep the crowd engaged.  If they aren’t feeling a particular genre of music we can switch to play the next genre. 

Soloman: At the end of the day, we’re DJs, and we read the crowd and see what’s entertaining them. A lot of DJs can be quite stubborn and play what they want to play. Then, when they look up, the crowd is just standing there. We’re not afraid to switch things up if something isn’t working. We make sure we keep the crowd at the best energy possible at all times. 

Not knowing what each of you is going to play definitely keeps it interesting! 
Soloman: We don’t communicate at all what we’re going to play, that’s the whole fun of it for us. Lewis could have just discovered a new song that we haven’t heard before and he’ll turn over and look at me, give me a wink, and then drop this filthy track. It makes for a good video too. The only set we ever planned was the one for Rampage, because it was all visual. The reason we don’t plan our sets is because we like to keep it more like a party. We like to have fun with it and have a laugh and just play some tunes. We’re definitely going to be partying behind the decks at all of our upcoming shows, and we’d love to see you all there!