Getting into Music. And Getting Serious!
If you’re not already familiar with the Dutch duo, the masterminds behind Detroit Swindle are Lars Dales and Maarten Smeets. While they didn’t grow up together and only released their debut EP Starvin’ in 2012, they share a common love for and inspiration from old-school music from the Motown era, as well as Funk, Hip Hop and Jazz. And ever since that first release, they have kept producing tracks together to be pressed on vinyl as well as for live shows.
One of the first things we wanted to learn a bit more about was the duo's background with regard to music. “I have been DJ’ing for as long as I can remember and also had fun messing around with software like Reason and Hammerhead, mostly creating breakbeats, but I had not released anything before Detroit Swindle got going,” says Lars. “In the beginning I was DJ’ing Hip Hop – all vinyl stuff – and there is just something about that 90’s Hip Hop era that I still love. I mean, there are some great new Hip Hop producers around as well – like Kendrick Lamar or Danger Mouse (Brian Joseph Burton, ed.) – but then you also want to dig deeper and understand more about where all of those cool samples they use are coming from. And then you enter the very cool eras of Disco and Soul and Funk.”