Having survived 12 weeks of Eats Everything, XOYO welcomes The 2 Bears to the fold for a dozen Saturdays in April. The outfit was loosely born as cubs in 2009 when Joe Goddard and Raf Rundell met working on the Greco-Roman parties, with a mind to simply play together and make a few records. Fast forward five years later, and with a second album in the making, their eclectic record box has taken them to Ibiza, Paris, Croatia, and a slew of gigs around their home city of London. Pulse caught up with them ahead of their first gig at XOYO to talk residencies, festivals, the White Isle, and dipping their toes into being a live act.
You're about to embark on your 12-week residency here, what have you been doing in preparation? Crate-digging, press-ups? Both together? Joe: We were just talking about this.
Raf: Both of those things! Actually crate digging whilst selecting records might be a bit of a tall order.
Joe: Press-ups in any form might be a bit of a tall order. [laughs]
Raf: Yeah, there’s been a bit of crate-digging, a lot of time in the record shops over the last few months. I suppose when you're buying music to DJ with, you're always thinking about places you're going to play it, but it’s really nice to be in the record shop, listening to things, and not just be about what you're going to play peak-time for two hours when you're in Bournemouth or Lancaster, or one of these places. We're going to get to play all kinds of music, which is really exciting, and because we're residents, we can make the booth really nice. There’s a couple of decorations up, and we've had a neon sign made specially with a new logo that kind of applies to the artwork of the new album. It's a bit bear-ish, so that's nice! I've got a day at home tomorrow with my records and no-one else in the house, so the little one's at nursery, the missus is at work...
Remember to eat!
Raf: Yeah! [Laughs] That's true, sometimes you end up looking up and thinking, “Oh, I need to turn the lights on.” Hopefully it's more constructive than that! It's a different kind of DJ set every week, which is a nice thing, this comfort in coming back to the same place again and again and getting it right. We've got a load of new music, we've just mastered our new album, and we're putting a live show together, so there's going to be bits and pieces of that going on, and we've engaged the services of Sink The Pink, London's premier Tranny Posse, to run things up here. We've got a few set pieces in mind downstairs they're going to get involved with so, yeah, exciting!
Quite old school, in some ways – rather than just two guys in a booth playing records every night, it gives you the chance to be a bit creative. Joe: Well yeah, anything that gives you a chance to be creative and make things fun is brilliant. We want to create an atmosphere at a party where people feel free to dance and do whatever they want, dress-up, you know…
Raf: That's very much encouraged. There's an any-dress policy. Your mum's dress…
I don't think I'd get into my mum's dress! [Laughs] So, when did this all take shape? Obviously Eats Everything's done it up to last weekend, so I presume these were conversations going on well back in last year? Joe: About six months I think.
Raf: Yeah, before the end of last year we were approached. And obviously Dan was booked in then already and starting to do all the bookings for his twelve weeks. And then it was all kind of agreed before the end of the year and we started with all the bookings. It took us a while to get it all right, where it was something we were happy with and the club were happy with.
Joe: It's really nice to be actually finally doing it, and not just talking about it.
It must be like planning a wedding.
Joe: 12 weddings, and we'll be married to each other, 12 times! [Laughs]
Raf: Not again! [Laughs]
From a DJing point of view, knowing you've got twelve Saturdays booked out, that must be a strange but relaxing situation. You'll just be here every weekend until the middle of the summer.
Joe: It's really nice. And like Raf says, getting to know the booth, the sound system, the people running the club, means you feel free and comfortable to play records. You can invite friends, they'll know where you're going to be [all twelve weeks], its' going to be really social.
Looking at the line-ups, there's some fairly outrageous things booked in. You've got Deep Shit doing the first party up in Room 2, and Henrik Schwarz, Daphni, he Hot Chip Takeover, Andrew Weatherall, Bestival. Was it a little like being the kids in the sweet shop, when you realised you can go out and get anyone you liked?
Joe: Absolutely. We just tried to brainstorm all the people that we love, and most of them weren't available. [Laughs]
Raf: So we asked our mates…
Joe: It was difficult, it took a long time to get together, because everyone's got such a plan where they play and when in London, so we're really grateful we got everyone able to do it.
But now you're 48 hours away! Raf: There's a bit of trepidation, you know.
Joe: it puts your DJ skills to the test, doesn't it!
Raf: Its' going to be good for our chops, I tell you…
Joe: The great residents of our time, like Optimo, and people like that, it's the making of a lot of DJs, doing that regular thing. Obviously they did Optimo for eight years every Sunday!
It's like Erol Alkan, doing ten years at Trash, only missing it once for his honeymoon!
Joe: It's so brilliant.
Raf: The Same with Robby doing Sunday Best. He missed two or something all time.
People used to go to a lot of weeklies in the ‘90s and ‘00s, but it seems crazy now, it's really not common at all. Playing the same club every week for fifty-two weeks, it seems an alien concept.
Raf: I quite like the idea of that really! Good for the club...
Joe: Good for your skills, good for everyone really! Learning what records work in what rooms. And be experimental with it. When you're going around even the UK, you're learning slightly what works in what places. And when you go to Europe, it's even more. And when you go to somewhere like South America, you're amplifying it even more. London's always a pleasure anyway, as you can pull out older records that you're more sure that people are going to know.
When I first went out in the ‘90s, I used to go to clubs because of the residents, like Lottie at Turnmills, and Layo and Bushwacka at the End, and it seems to be a bit of an underappreciated skill these days, but they're the ones that make the clubs. Do you think things like this are shining a light on it a bit more, even though you're doing these 12-week blocks? It's getting people talking about it again.
Joe: It's good to start appreciating residents. A few people have said to me in the past that the best DJs I've seen recently are the residents they've seen in the club. They know what they're doing; they know not to smash it too hard before you come on. That's the most difficult slot at the club really, starting things off nicely. It can also be one of the most fun things to do.
You can be experimental, and there's maybe a bit more freedom. Joe: You can also get it wrong, if you don't coax people onto the dance floor at the right moment. So residents at clubs around the world are generally really good DJs because they have a difficult job to do. So it's good to get people appreciating that.
In terms of your clubbing experiences when you were starting out, what were the clubs and residents you guys used to see or revere? Joe: I was talking about this recently actually. For instance, That's How It Is on a Monday night at Bar Rhumba was a big one for me, like Giles Peterson and James Lavelle.
Raf: There were loads of good ones at Bar Rhumba. There was Space on a Wednesday, with Luke Solomon and Kenny Hawkes.
Joe: There was Movement as well, and Derrick Carter whenever he was. There were some amazing nights there.
It seems like midweek stuff used to be the norm then but it doesn't really happen as much these days.
Joe: I suppose not. It’s a shame. It was brilliant. The atmosphere was good.
Raf: Martello and Seb Chew are doing their Thursday night at the moment.
And you guys have got a new album out this year. Are you pretty done on it?
Joe: Yeah, we've just mastered it. We just wanted to get it finished as soon as we could. We've been working on it for a long time! It's pretty varied, and it'll be really, really good to road test tracks at the residency. And we'll maybe start to think about what the live show's gonna be at the residency, sing some songs to people if the mood is right.
When's the release date, have you got one yet?
Both: It's going to be September.
You can tease everyone for months! Raf: Yeah! There's a single coming at the end of June, at the end of this run, which we'll be sending out soon, so hopefully people will start playing that. The bus is on its way out of the terminal! The 2 Bears Bus Of Fun.
What's it going to be called? Raf: I don't know if we're allowed to say.
I don't want to get you in trouble. Just make something up. Raf: Its' going to be called The 2 Bears Bus Of Fun [laughs]
You mentioned the live thing. Once you released the first album you probably got sick of people asking when you were going to do a live show.Joe: We got sick of talking about it!
Raf: Like most of these things, you talk about it for a very long time.
Joe: It's that, and you know, trying to do something that's fun and exciting and doesn't lose the energy of a DJ set, but is a good live experience. We really, really don't want to be the dudes looking at their fucking laptops! We really wanted to avoid that. We want it to be modeled on things like Basement Jaxx, where it felt like a carnival almost.
Not going for the Kraftwerk bodysuits, laptops and projections?
Joe: Actually I used to find it really funny when Kraftwerk would come on in their black and neon green bodysuits and their body shapes were bulging, these mid-50s dudes, it's brilliant!
Are you going to just try and road test that here at XOYO then? Joe: In a small way, maybe some live PAs to start with.
Raf: And our friend Oli, who co-wrote some tunes and is in a band called Boxed In – who are playing next Saturday before Henrik Schwarz – he played keys on a couple of tracks, so we'll try and do something with him playing and us singing, but it's all still to be worked out.
That's kind of exciting though, as you know you're going to commit to it in some way, shape or form, but you don't really know how that's going to pan out either. Raf: Well we've got gigs booked for it. We've got live gigs booked.
Bestival, right. That's just been announced? No pressure there. You've got 4 months work out what to do.
Joe: We should be able to learn how to lip-synch our own songs by then. [Laughs]
You seem to be busy every day. You do the Rinse FM show, your online mixes, and you had the “One Love” album last year. Despite you both having other projects going on, the DJing itch can be well and truly scratched with The 2 Bears. Did it just happen by accident back at the start when you wanted to just play records? Joe: Yeah, we wanted some tunes to play out together, and to make something for us to play, which is probably a classic way that people start making music. You identify a niche in the market.
Raf: I don't know if we ended up making the records that we intended, but it just unfolded very naturally. And with a great encouragement from the label. Nathan at Southern Fried who signed us, they put the first two EPs out then said, “We want an album” when neither of us had really thought about it that much. So he needs to take a lot of the credit really, as he's been so supportive. He's really helped us find our inner bear! It's really been crucial to the whole thing.
What I really enjoyed about the album and the music was that you could tell there were influences from reggae, and dub and dancehall, and rave, and old school house, but it kind of just felt like people making music that referenced what they loved, and didn't feel forced in any way. There wasn't much around that was like it at the time either, and it just sounded like two people having fun, which isn't as prevalent as it should be sometimes. Joe: Yeah, and that's really important when you're listening to music, to not feel like people are slavishly, studiously just trying to engineer something until it was like a stainless steel dance floor bomb. There's got to be a bit more life and soul to music than that.
Raf: I bit more imperfection too.
Joe: That's a really, really important thing with music in general for me. That's what people find endearing in music, when you can hear someone's personality.
And then having listened to that, and then seen you guys DJing, it looks exactly like the music you make, just fun, and that's not always the case. Your music tastes cross so many genres, a real crate-digging style, especially listening to some of your mix-tapes. Is that what you try and do every time? Raf: Whatever we can get away with!
Joe: I was reading an interview with Harvey just a week or two before, and he was saying that's what a crowd wants from a DJ, anyway, is to hear their personality come through.
Raf: It's bravery though. There's times when I'm more confident, and other times when you just go, “I’d love to play that but I know it's not going to work,” but maybe that's exactly when you have to play it.
Joe: That's a skill isn't it? When you feel like you can take a risk, or when you can't.
But then that's hopefully what this residency will give you. You'll get to the end of it kind of going, “Right, there's a whole load of stuff I didn't think I could play but.” Joe: That's exactly it. And those will be the memorable bits. Like, also the idea of finding records that become something that someone might expect from the night. That would be incredible.
Especially with some of the new stuff for the album, if some of them became these anthems for the residency. Joe: Oh totally. That'd be wonderful.
For 2 Bears, is a lot of the joy that you can go anywhere with a bag of records? Raf: Or a USB stick! A bag of records becomes superfluous, especially when you turn up at a place and the turntables don’t' fucking work! Or you're playing after someone who's playing off 9 iPads and you get on and you look like a complete joke.
You played at We Love… a few times last year. Are you doing dates there this year? Raf: I think so, it's not been agreed yet though. There's been a few changes there at We Love…, so we're just waiting for the dust to settle really. We played there three times in the last few summers, and loved it there. The last time we played there I only then felt comfortable finally. It's a hard room to get your head round.
Joe: You want to do a really good job, and you have that weight of expectation.
Raf: It's the Space Terrace, you know? But you have to get over that and do your thing. Also, the first time we did it, we played at Lovebox on the Friday where we had a stage, then Sonar on the Saturday, and then we got there on the Sunday and we were just like "Go!" Not that it wasn't great, but it was just a long haul.
Joe: It was like we were saying – it was just about learning a new room. It was exactly that.
It's a world-famous room. I mean it's no longer a daytime thing, which is a shame, but the room now works really, really well in a different way. But it's nice that you feel you've got the hang of it now. Raf: Yeah definitely it felt like we'd cracked it the last time we were there. But it's all about attitude really. You need to be ready and not get overawed by it, just responding to the challenge that's put in front of you. But you know, it's a big room. We're not used to nightclubs that have two or so thousand people in there, it's massive! It's about having the weapons to take in there that you're comfortable with. And I think that's what I found last time, where you struck that balance of playing something I really felt I believed in but that was still going to work.
That's also exciting in a sort of shit-scary way!
Raf: Oh I'm up for taking those risks!
What else have you got planned for the rest of the year after this? You have Bestival first up. Raf: We're doing the Green Man, and one called Beatherder, which we keep hearing is off the scale. And Unknown in Croatia, and one in Paris called We Love Green. It's fun. We're playing there in the afternoon, then taking a train back and coming here, in June. And then we're doing Glastonbury Thursday and Friday and coming back here on Saturday, though Joe's talking about going back Sunday to see whoever it is on Sunday…
Joe: Dolly Parton!
I guess it's good to finish mentioning this week's very sad events with Frankie Knuckles' passing. I didn't want to be overly morbid maybe, but I mean it's obviously a devastating loss to music this week.
Joe: No, not at all. It was a tragedy really.
Are you going to get a few more of his records out to play over the next twelve weeks here? Joe: Yeah, of course. And beyond. I mean, it's a terrible tragedy, he made amazing records, and we'll definitely be representing him, yeah. It's an incredible legacy for someone. The things that he did for house music.
The 2 Bears start their twelve-week run at XOYO in London on Saturday 5th April. Head to www.xoyo.co.uk for all the details. Their new album is out in September, and for all info on releases and their plans, visit www.the2bears.co.uk.