Disclosure Interview

Disclosure’s Howard Lawrence can’t wait to get back to Ireland. The last occasion he performed here things got... interesting. “A Howard tried to run on stage and our tour manager, who is a big fella, with a shaved head and beard, took him down by the neck,” he laughs/shudders. “Our gigs often blur one into one another. We definitely remember that one.”

This was in 2013, when Howard and older brother Guy were conquering the world with break-out single ‘Latch’ and the accompanying album Settle. Just out of school, the duo appeared to take overnight success more or less in their stride -notwithstanding a schedule that would reduce most artists to smoking rubble.
“To be fair, we were a little burned out by the end,” says the 21-year-old. “At the wind-down of the final Settle tour, it felt it was going on a bit. We needed time off. Or so we thought. The funny thing is, as soon as we actually got time off we went straight back into working on music. It turns out that writing songs is what we enjoy. We couldn’t stay out of the studio.”
The truth of this is made indisputably clear on Caracal, the siblings’ effervescent new LP. Riding a swell of can’t- be-faked exuberance, the album is a high-kicking tour de force of crossover dance-pop. Leaving nothing to chance, the Lawrences have supplemented their glimmering grooves with top rate cameos by The Weekend, Miguel, Lorde and Sam Smith, their old mucker from ‘Latch’.
“’Latch’ was definitely a big thing for all of us,” says Howard of the late 2012 smash single, which introduced to the world Smith’s powerhouse falsetto – and thus changed the lives of all involved. “We always knew Sam was special. He was working in a bar in London when we first met – and he seemed like a star to us even then. We thought he was incredibly talented and deserved to be huge. Of course, just because you’re talented, things don’t always turn out that way. It’s great that it has for Sam.”
Also bringing the a-lister wattage is The Weeknd, aka Thriller channeling Toronto native Abel Tesfaye. Because he rarely speaks to the press and cuts an elusive figure on record, Tesfaye had cultivated quite the aura. Get past the mystique, say the Disclosure boys, and he’s a stand-up dude.
“We’d only met him once but were huge fans. It turned out he was a fan of us too so it all worked out. He’s a lovely individual, definitely with an aura. If you saw him walking down the street, you’d think ‘hey, that Howard must be famous’.
“He has a presence – as do Sam Smith and Miguel. Me and my brother, on the other hand, have no aura at all. It has pros and cons. We can walk around London relatively untroubled. If Sam wants to go out he needs to bring security.
Of all the studio hook-ups, their collaboration with Lorde was the most memorable, says Howard. She was hand-on to a degree neither of the brothers had experienced
previously. Turns out that when you’re collaborating with Lorde it really is a two way street. She isn’t just there to add angsty coos all over your song. “We knew she had strong opinions about how she wanted things to go. We were surprised by the degree to which she got stuck into it. Weeks afterwards we were getting emails from her – could you do this or that to tweak the song. It was pretty full on.”
Disclosure began nearly seven years ago, with Howard and Guy messing with the family computer in Reigate, in deepest Surrey. They truly had no idea what they are at. At that point Howard was 15, had never even set foot inside a nightclub, and was in the process of discovering artists such as Burial and James Blake via the Internet.. Seeing Burial on YouTube was their equivalent to watching Bowie on Top Of The Pops and having their world knocked out of its orbit.
Even as their career began to soar towards the stratosphere, they remained winningly naive. Because they’d never gone clubbing they had no idea what was expecting of a pair of hotly tipped young DJs. They’d turn up to bookings with crates of analogue equipment with which to perform their set – stumping promoters who expected two EDM jocks with a memory stick between them.
For all their sweetness and innocence, they are not exactly strangers to controversy. Eighteen months ago the internet had a minor hissy fit over the video to their single ‘Help Me Lose Your Mind’, which appeared to show young model -types taking drugs (in fact the debauchery was hinted at rather than explicitly depicted). They also “feuded” with Azealia Banks, who scrapped a planned collaboration after the Lawrences casually mentioned in an interview that she was on Twitter lot a and that their hook-up was possibly being hyped a little. (“”I did something with Disclosure but they were, like, really rude in an interview, so I canned it,” proclaimed the ever controversial Ms Banks).
“We just wrote the first verse and a build-up — there wasn’t a chorus—and she kind of took it away,” Howard would subsequently elaborate. “Then she thought we were rude in that interview, but we apologised and everything. It didn’t seem to matter that we apologise... We made the beat on the way there in the car, so I don’t give a damn if she uses it. Whatever.”
“Maybe when I said [in the interview] that she’s ‘taken to it quite heavily’, it came across as rude— but what I meant was that whenever we’ve worked with anyone in the past, we just keep it secret,” Howard continued. “Because if nothing comes of the session, nobody’s disappointed. But if you build all the hype before, then you have to deliver an amazing song.”
“We’re ambitious in terms of challenging ourselves,” says the musician as he looks back on everything he and his brother have been through. “Career-wise we’re not crazy ambitious though. We’re motivated and work very hard. In terms of fame and money, we have no goals. That’s not how we think about what we do.”
Their extreme youth is at one level advantageous. What 20-year-old wouldn’t jump at the chance of being a pop star (a deeply credible one at that)? On the other hand, age has its drawbacks too, as Howard laughingly confirms.
“I’ve been doing this since I was 15. I had to grow up really quickly and pretend I was 19 , just so I could get into the clubs where we were supposed to be playing. You do have to take on a lot of responsibility and grow up quickly. Then, everyone has to grow up quickly at that age – it’s the time when you go from a boy to a man in terms of responsibilities. We understand we’ve been given a great opportunity and are determined to work hard and make the most of it.
“Do we have pinch-yourself moments? Of course. Not every morning – but certainly now and again. We are very lucky. Our parents spent much of their younger lives trying to get into music. It never quite happened – they couldn’t get where they wanted. So we understand how fortunate we are and are determined to make the most of it.”
With stardom have come inevitably approaches from major artists seeking a sprinkling of Disclosure credibility. Though Howard is too much of a gentleman to spill the details, he confirms that several big names have looked to work with the brothers. They’ve tended to say no – not out of any snobbery but because they are at a phase in their career where they have opportunity to make music that excites them.
“Production is something we’d like to do more of. As we grow older we can definitely see ourselves getting more into it and it begin our main thing. But for the moment we’re too focused on our own music. That’s where it is for us.”