Carmada is the East Coast-based brainchild of L D R U, aka Drew Carmody, and Yahtzel, aka Max Armata. Party boys at the core, the pair are also deft beatsmiths, with an EP on the way promising a diverse array of musical influences. The duo will be playing Stereosonic at the Claremont Showgrounds on Saturday, November 29, and their single, Maybe, is available now. SHAUN COWE catches them for a chat ahead of planning the final stages of their new EP.
“I reckon it’s like 90 per cent done,” says Armata. “Pretty much all the beats are finished, we just need to get all the vocals finalised and then get it all mixed down and it should be ready to go,” . “It’s a bit hush-hush at the moment but there will be a few guests. We got a sax player on one song and a few vocalists that we’ve worked with. We’re just sorting out which bits we like best.”
The coupling of Armata’s trap/club stylings and Carmody’s 808 drum rhythms and vintage synth presents some interesting possibilities for the upcoming release. Fans of the pair will already be well-versed in their live performances due to an extensive history playing festivals together. However, it wasn’t until this year’s Splendour In The Grass that the pair decided to create Carmada.
“We’ve been playing together for a while now, after Field Day and Circo and all that; it was always fun playing festivals together,” Carmody says. “Then when we walked out at Splendour and there was a crowd of 10,000 people cheering us on, I think we kind of looked at each other and I was like ‘Fuck, I think we should make this official. Actually do it.’ And then we got real ‘weird’ in the tepee one night and just decided to make it happen.”
As for the working relationship, the pair say that it’s taken some time to get used to changing their habits from working alone to exchanging ideas with another person. For them, the symbiosis is an exchange of style and technical ability.
““It’s taken us both a while to adjust to each other’s lifestyles and trying to work with each other. But I think as of now we’re actually starting to get the hang of it and it’s starting to work really well – which is good,” Armata says. “Drew’s type of producing is quite different to mine. Drew’s production skill is, in a lot of ways, a lot better than mine. But we both work in different ways and we both work with each other’s downs and ups – sort of like yin and yang.”
““I like hearing Max’s stuff, its good hearing someone else that’s a little more chilled-out and hearing the way he works,” Carmody says. “Everything’s a bit different to what I do. We’re pretty good friends as well, so it’s good to hang out and make music at the same time. It works really well.”
When it comes to hanging out, the boys have some fairly crazy anecdotes to tell. One of the best comes from this year’s Field Day festival in Sydney…
“This year on New Year’s I had to nearly kick down Drew’s door of the hotel because we were half an hour late for our flight and he was still in his room. I nearly kicked down the door and then he finally opened it and he had half a boner and he was just laughing his ass off,” Armata says.
“Then we went downstairs, jumped in a taxi and ran to the airport. When we got there they were like, ‘I’m sorry you’ve missed your flight.’ It was the only flight out there, which means we would have missed our set at Field Day. Then she said ‘Hold on, I’ll see what I can do.’ Then she came back and said ‘Run, run, run!’ so we went and we just made the plane and we were still a little bit drunk – I’m not gonna lie – we were definitely drunk. And we got on the plane and it landed in Sydney – and we still hadn’t taken off our hotel slippers – and we just walked onstage with them, drunk. That was a pretty loose New Year’s.”
