drumandbass.ch: where u been the past weeks?

the upbeats: over the last week, been, fri portugal/austria, sat brighton/london/moscow, weds tokyo, fri auckland, sat wellington... home sweet home

drumandbass.ch: many euro gigs. how did u like it in europe?

the upbeats: yeah europe was wicked, think we played 12 shows over 3 weekends. It's always fun for us to get the chance to catch up with friends, see some different sights,and taste some different flavours.

drumandbass.ch: when your touring europe. do u usually add soem holidays or is it purely touring?

the upbeats: generally its pretty much just touring.. although this time we did get a few days to chill with some friends in Netherlands. Last time we came out though, which was about March 2008, i took 2 months holiday after the tour to travel round europe a bit with my girl.

drumandbass.ch: where u been to?

the upbeats: on holiday we went to south west Ireland, then did a trip around the north of Italy. From there went to the south of Spain, caught sight of Morocco, so we jumped on a boat across to Tangiers where we spent a few nights. Then back up to France to explore Paris, and stay with a friend in Tours.

drumandbass.ch: so u seen quite a lot. where would u say is the main differnce between europe and nz?

the upbeats: central europe, and even western europe is still kind've familiar... but eastern europe, especially ukraine, russia etc feel completely otherworldly compared to nz. which is cool for us, because its a really full on "experience" for us to go to those places.

drumandbass.ch: how u like the djing in east euro / russia?

the upbeats: yeah really like it man, generally the crowds are really passionate, and really responsive to our "sound". it also feels quite raw, in a good way, a lot of energy out there. and of course some first class vodka.

drumandbass.ch: what will the near future bring us from the upbeats?

the upbeats: well, we're back home for a 10 date tour to promote the 3rd release on our label "Non Vogue". The 12" will feature two solo upbeats tunes "Ghost Radio" and "1968". While we're home we're also aiming to finish our 3rd album "Big Skeleton", which is due out later in the year on our label as well. We've been working on it for a while now, and are really excited about how it will be recieved, it's a bit of a departure from "Nobody's Out There". Then following on from that we're back overseas, for a 1 month tour of USA and Canada.

drumandbass.ch: what is ur fav piece of hardware in your studio?

the upbeats: well really it would have to be our quad core Mac Pro... but otherwise we're using motu 828 mk2, korg prophecy, korg kontrol 49, mackie 824s and dynaudio bm6a's. everything else is software

drumandbass.ch: what sequncer u use?

the upbeats: logic 7. we'll switcch to logic 8 at some stage. maybe once the album is finished

drumandbass.ch: any wordsd of wisdom to our readers?

the upbeats: Luke, as you can attest to, we're not very wise... just try enjoy doing what your doing. write music for the love init