Zenker Brothers Interview: ”Being popular became more important than music”
The fact that you are brothers, beside the incredible talent, makes you even more interesting to the crowd. Was music something that brought you together and what pushed you to this beautiful partnership and how this developed over the years?
After growing up together and a short break of regular communication when Dario moved out of our Mum’s house, dance music actually brought us back together. We always had the same idea and vision of what music should transport and from this point on everything just went it’s natural ways until today and will probably develop as long as we do this.
What is the difference, judging by your own personal experience, when you are playing together as brothers and when you are playing separate sets?
Playing together is mostly more challenging and improvised as you never know what the other will play next. Playing alone is a different thing as you mostly build bridges in your head already while playing and you can plan ahead. This of course always changes and variates with the crowd.
When it comes to your label ILIAN Tape – how does the process of deciding on what to release?
The stuff we release has to transport a feeling that we both get and can connect with, it’s less about functionality but more about the vibe of a track. Most of the times the tracks we release are laying around for a while and grow on us.
How do you manage to craft such a pure and authentic sound?
We are both music heads and quite into the hardware space. We are always changing things in the studio, getting new machines or selling gear, it is really a never ending field of experimentation. Making and releasing music is a constant process too, with ups and downs but it’s important to try to keep things moving and to stay honest at the same time. For the label we are always open for music that touches us in any way.
Do you implement a particular life philosophy when producing music?
Not really, but everything that happens in life goes into the studio in our case. Spending time in the studio is essential to our happiness. It’s a never ending challenge trying to make a slammer.
When signing new artist, what is the special thing they have to have to make it on the label?
An own sound for sure. We always look for personality within music and positive vibes.
You have recognized music integrity in one of our finest DJ and producer Miloš Pavlović. What is that something special that drown you to his work?
We are friends with Milos for many years, and he did not release much on the label yet actually. But we always loved the stuff he did and included him as much as possible.
Your website biography claims that you do not believe in the hype. But how do you feel about the situation on the global scene where hype seems to be everything?
Hype always comes and goes, but we always wanted to something that lasts.
Trends in music are always a tricky thing, as it brings up artists way to fast to handle everything and to build a good fundament for a career. Thats why you see so many artists disappearing after a while when they got to big to fast.
Some hypes are justified and some are based on an image, that seems very calculated and backed with money. Popularity becomes more important than the music. It becomes very predictable and therefore boring.
We heard you couldn’t handle a portion of 10 ćevap when you visited Serbia last time, are you ready to give it another try?
Who did tell you that? I think we even had 25 Cevap each..
