It’s the middle of the afternoon in sunny Jakarta and, fresh from playing a sold-out show, Disclosure’s Guy Lawrence is padding around his five-star hotel room talking to Hot Press on his mobile.
“Last night was great fun,” the 25-year-old electronic musician enthuses. “We’ve played here once before and they were lively then, too. Yeah, I like it here a lot, actually, it’s good in Indonesia, great food and great people.”
A sibling duo from Surrey who shot to fame with their acclaimed 2013 debut, Settle, Disclosure released their second album, Caracal, last September. Presumably Guy and his younger brother Howard have been touring ever since?
“We’ve been touring from well before then,” he laughs. “We’ve been touring pretty much constantly for five or six years now. It’s been intense, but lots and lots of fun.”
The current leg of their Dylanesque never ending tour has included Coachella, a guest slot at the Boiler Room’s first Chinese night in Shanghai, an LA deejaying hook-up with Pete Tong, a maiden voyage to Dubai where there was time for go-karting and a trip up the world’s tallest skyscraper, raving in a Maltese castle with Annie Mac and lots more stuff you dream of doing as a kid.
Along the way, they’ve gone gold in Mexico, seen their ‘Omen’ single score 100 million Spotify plays and released another dancefloor killer from Green Velvet on their own Method Records. Phew! They’re too modest to say it themselves, but pound for pound Disclosure are the hottest dance act around at the moment – and the hardest working one too. There will be no time off before they play the Royal Hospital Kilmainham on June 28.
“After this we go to Bangkok and then to Houston to start another month’s touring in America,” continues Guy. “We’re going from Texas all the way up to Seattle. It’s going to be fun, we get to visit all of the cities we didn’t get to on the last tour. So yeah, just finishing off the States really and then we come home for the festival we’re doing with Rudimental, Wild Life, in June. That’s the next month pretty much planned out.”
Does it ever become difficult working and travelling with your brother all the time? Any sibling rivalries?
“Yeah, we hate each other!” deadpans Guy. “We really hate each other – we don’t get on at all anymore. Nah, seriously, it strengthens our relationship massively. We get on absolutely fine. We’re more like best friends than brothers, to be honest. We don’t ever fight, nothing comes up, we just get on really well. I don’t think we would have formed the band if we didn’t get on, that would have been a mistake. So yeah, it seems to be all good at the moment.”
The Lawrence brothers grew up in Reigate, Surrey. Their parents were both professional musicians – their father fronted rock bands No Angry Men and The Look Book, while their mother was a session singer – so their career choice wasn’t exactly a surprise.
“Yeah, exactly,” Guy affirms. “I’ve been playing drums since I was about three-years-old because there was always a kit in the house and there were guitars and pianos from my dad and my mum. So me and my brother were always bound to pick them up and start messing with them from a young age. We just kept going so, yeah, music has always been a big part of our family.”
A UK number one, Settle was nominated for Best Dance/Electronica Album at the Grammys. Proving that Disclosure were no one-hit-wonders, Caracal did exactly the same. But were there any difficult second album pressures?
“Nah, we didn’t feel much pressure,” says Guy, nonchalantly. “As soon as we get in the studio we kind of forget about all that. We make music because it’s fun and because we like it. We don’t really make it for other people. It’s great that people enjoy it and want to talk about it and whatever, but we kind of just do this for ourselves. Having the fans and stuff is a great by-product, but we try to ignore the pressure and do what we want to do.”
Caracal features collaborations with the likes of Sam Smith, Gregory Porter, Lorde, Kwabs, Lion Babe and The Weeknd. Do the brothers always bring their collaborators into studio or do they work separately?
“We never send stuff over to each other, no,” explains Guy. “We always write songs together with them. They usually come to us. Pretty much every song on the last album was written in London apart from The Weeknd one, ‘Nocturnal’. We wrote that in New York with him because we were both there at the same time. Other than that, we always meet up with them when they’re in London. As soon as we knew they were going to be in town we’d hit them up and get a session booked in.”
Sam Smith made his mainstream breakthrough when he featured on their track ‘Latch’ in 2013.
“Yeah, Sam is one of our best friends. We have the same managers and released our albums at a very similar time. It’s great to see what he’s done and we’re all very proud of him – I think he’s very proud of us too. It only made sense to make another track with him for our last album. We’ll work together for a long time, I think, in one way or another, making lots of different types of music. We helped on the Bond theme and hopefully we’re going to be writing on his next record with him as well. It’s all good, we love Sam.”
How do the brothers split the production and songwriting duties in studio?
“Everyone gets a say in every aspect,” Guy reflects. “There’s no leader, per se, for each individual role, but I definitely do more of the production and Howard does a lot more of the lyrics. I enjoy mixing and producing and working the machines, whereas he enjoys writing. Apart from those two things we have a say in everything else.”
New Zealand artiste Lorde features on the album’s most recent cut ‘Magnets’. How was she to work with?
“Really down to earth, really lovely. Super clever as well. She’s not how you might expect because you never really know what someone is going to be like until you’re in the room with them, but she’s a proper artist. She writes all of her own music, so she was a dream to work with. Really professional, contributed a lot in every aspect, not just in writing the lyrics and melodies, she was involved in the music as well.
“That was a dream for us because someone who gets involved in every aspect of the song – that’s a proper collaboration and that’s what she brought. We only work with people that we think we can become friends with. We have to get on because we’re going to be spending so much time together, doing shows and whatever, so it’s important that they’re not just a good musician, but nice as well – and she ticks all the boxes. Lorde guested with us at Coachella, which was insane!”
Disclosure’s roll-call of guests that balmy Californian night also included Sam Smith, AlunaGeorge and Jillian Hervey from Lion Babe.
“Yeah, it was a bit special, that,” agrees Guy who, as you might already have noticed, is prone to understatement. Who have they yet to lure into the studio?
“Well, in every interview that we’ve ever done since we started Disclosure I’ve always said Prince,” Guy reveals. “I was very upset last week when the news broke. Now that he’s sadly passed away, I’m going to have to think of a new answer to that question. I haven’t really thought of one yet. Stevie Wonder would probably be the number one now.”
It’s been a pretty tough year for musicians in particular…
“Yeah, it’s been shit. I fucking hate it. It’s been the worst year, bring on 2017, that’s what I say.”
What’s been Disclosure’s biggest moment of the last few years?
“That’s a difficult one,” he sighs. “A lot of fantastic things that have happened to us. Getting two consecutive number one albums in the UK has been amazing – better than we could have ever expected. Playing Madison Square Garden in New York – that was one of the most important and craziest shows we’ve ever done because, you know, two English guys coming over to America and being able to sell-out a venue that big on their second album. That just blows my mind.”
Are they looking forward to playing Ireland next month?
“Yeah! Absolutely man, of course. It’s great fun over there. We love it.”
How would Guy sum up Caracal?
“It’s a big mixture of genres. What we wanted to do with it was move away from house a little bit because we did house and we did garage with Settle – almost every track is a house song. We wanted to expand a little bit. There’s a massive variety of tempos on there, loads of different singers, which was really fun.
“It was a natural evolution,” he continues. “Showing people that we’re not just about making house, we make all kinds of electronic music and we love all kinds of different music. We’re not just trying to do the same thing over and over again because it worked. Our favourite artists of all time never did the same thing twice, they always tried new things on every album. Even if you didn’t like that second or third album as much, I still respect artists that move on and change and try new things every single time. They’re the ones with the long careers and they’re the ones that really push things forward.
“That’s what me and Howard want to be. We don’t just want to have a few hits on the radio and then disappear. We want to be making music for a long time, always pushing forward and changing things up a little bit.”
Are they already working on their third album?
“Nah, we’re just touring at the moment. Caracal only came out six months ago so there’s definitely no album in the pipeline. We’ve done some remixes, though, of ‘Magnets’ and ‘Nocturnal’. When we’re on the road we tend to do more club–based stuff rather than writing pop songs, so there might be an EP this summer. Heavier and more uptempo, something for the DJs to play.”
What would be their ultimate ambition?
“Just to keep doing this for as long as possible,” states Guy. “Nowadays I think the key and the hardest thing to get is longevity because the world is so fast moving. Things have become so disposable and there’s so much music out there for people to get lost in. I think to be an artist and to have a decent career of four or five or six albums or more, that’s what you want nowadays. That’s what every artist dreams of having – a long career. To maintain where we’re at right now for as long as possible, that would be the dream.”