On a mystical night in Bristol, the worlds of dub, garage, house, RnB, and reggae crossed paths with the creation of AishaZoe and TheOnlyRichard’s duo: AZ&TOR. Alright, well that not might be the actual story, but damn — these two have been churning out heat since Day 1. With the upcoming release of their highly awaited ‘Sit Back‘ EP, we got the chance to chat a bit with AZ&TOR about the makings of the album, how they met, and how their manager became one of their closest friends.
Check out our Q&A with AZ&TOR and be sure to pick up their EP ‘Sit Back’ on July 8th, via MadTech Records.
Alright, here’s the question I’m sure you’ve been asked thousands of times, but how did you two meet? Were you working on separate projects before AZ&TOR became official? What’s the story?
Zoe: Once upon a time Aisha Zoe met TheOnlyRichard.. It was Bristol 2011.. a blustery and momentous night in the history of music.. the night that the dub soul garage and house planets aligned…
Rich: Aha, yeah complete luck really, I was working on individual projects before I met Zoe but since meeting her its definitely been a lot more fun!
What kind of music did the both of you grow up on? With some classic sounds, it seems like you’re drawing influences from all over the place.
Z:I grew up on heavy Dub, Reggae, Garage, and Old-Skool Hip-hop. My main influences are Erykah Badu, Zed Bias, and Bahamadia.
R: From early teens I used to listen to a lot of RnB, Hip Hop, garage, Dnb/Jungle and then that developed into house, which I started to produce. I love a lot of old disco too.
How do you guys come together in the studio and create new music? With such different and varied backgrounds, how do you unify your sound for a record? What’s the usual process like?
Z: Theres never a usual process! TOR’s got an endless imagination with beats, so he sends me his riddums and then when i’m feeling inspired I’ll record melodies/ rhymes over them, usually just on my phone. Then we jigsaw them together in the studio to create a song. It can be a long process as we go back and forth, and have lots of discussions over how the sounds/songs should sound.
R: It normally involves me sending a track to Zoe, she put her ideas on it and then we go over the bits we like and develop it from there. Sometimes Zoe will give me an idea and i’ll write a track to suit her mood.
I first caught onto you guys with the ‘Save My Soul’ video. Can you tell me a bit about how that record came into fruition?
Z: Good times!! That was all thanks to my boyfriend at the time, he sent me Rich’s track, then I laid down a vocal, which I’d been saving for a couple years and we recorded it at college in two takes!
R: Yeah I basically sent the track to him, then Zoe and I met and we made the finished article in a studio, it was fun!
With Bristol being a major hub for new music coming out, what do you guys think it took to inspire you to come together and form the duo? Is there anything about your area that just directly inspires musical creativity?
Z: Bristol is about unity, so for us two, as completely different characters, it was very exciting to come together and learn from one another especially as despite our varied influences , we both had a lot of passion for the ever evolving garagey/house scene. Rich lived just down the road so would give me lifts to college everyday. Since then we have just been going from strength to strength, he’s like my brother!
R: The main reason we came up with the idea of working as a duo was because of how much we’d enjoyed making Save My Soul and Unbeatable. And yeah, Bristol is a very inspiring place, its easy to be creative there, so that defiantly helped.
Your ‘Sit Back’ EP on MadTech is absolutely phenomenal. Can you talk to us about how that came together. It houses three completely different sounding tracks — how did you make that into a solid, unified project?
Z: Thanks very much, we are so grateful to hear that! It was definitely about selecting tracks that unite through a narrative. The EP is about Love, expressing self-respect and establishing how positive outcomes can triumph from your struggle. It was written from the heart.
R: Thanks! Yeah i think all the tracks have a pretty different feel but there is definitely a constant theme throughout, especially lyrically.
How did you get linked up with the label and what do you have planned for the future?
Z: We were discovered by MadTech at Farr Festival last summer, by my new found soulmate-sister and now manager! I can’t say too much other than we have a huge amount of music stored up thats eagerly awaiting to be released from our musical zoo ;)
R: We’ve been working on a lot more new material.. And very much looking forward to sharing it with you!
The post Interview: Bristol duo, AZ&TOR talks with us about musical influences, UK garage house, and their ‘Sit Back’ EP appeared first on PB&J.