We have been soaking up the sounds of TWO LANES and their latest EP Drive of late, and if you haven’t heard it, it’s time to give this collection a listen. To get to know the sibling duo a little better, we hit them up for a chat.
Read on to learn more…
Hey guys, good to chat! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself as an act… what is your signature sound?
Hey, thank you for having us! We are two brothers based in Berlin producing indie-electronic music under our artist name TWO LANES. We grew up in a very music oriented family and were exposed to a lot of different musical styles. Leo studied classical music and graduated from The Juilliard School in New York City and Rafa has been producing electronic music since his early teens. The TWO LANES sound is a mixture of trap, future bass, electronic, and indie/organic elements. It’s also important to us that we can perform our music live on stage in an electronic live set.
What are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned since you started making music? What have been some of the challenges so far, both individually and as a pair?
We think that the most challenging part is to actually finish a song. There are many creative stages that a piece of music goes through until it becomes the version that will be released. There is so much music coming out nowadays that we only want to release tracks that we think sound unique and a little different.
As a producer duo we like to work together on a song as much as possible. When Leo went to New York to do his Masters at The Juilliard School, Rafa lived in Berlin and we could only work separately on new music. Now that we are together in the same city, it enables us to work faster and more creatively.
Do you remember what first got you into wanting to create music? What do you listen to when you’re not making it?
Our dad is a Jazz musician and introduced us to music very early on. Both of us learned how to play instruments and at some point we just started messing around with some tunes together and that’s how it all started.
We listen to a bunch of stuff – all kinds of electronic music, hip-hop, classical music, jazz, and some soundtracks of movies that we dig. We actually get a lot of inspiration from movies. The combination of music and motion picture can have a great impact and we are often picturing movie scenes while making music. Rafa actually thought about becoming a script-writer, so he went to LA when finished High School learn about the film industry. However making music felt like the best way to channel his creativity.
Your new EP Drive is making waves right now. How long did it take you to put together and did you enjoy making it?
It took us a little less than 4 months to finish it. It mostly contains brand new music, whereas “Long Way Home” is a song we wrote a while back. It was definitely great fun to make it! With an EP you can tell a little musical story and show different musical styles/ colors. We wanted to a have a good mix of purely instrumental tracks and songs.
What’s the story behind it?
We wanted to take the listener on a little musical trip. Making music means being on a constant journey, which leads to new ideas, opportunities, people, and places. This EP is the first milestone of our musical journey as TWO LANES – it’s only the beginning!
Do you have a favourite track from the EP?
We like how the track ‘Drive’ turned out. We produced it in only one night and all the ideas came really naturally, so it was a lot of fun making it. Now when we listen back we still feel the good energy from the session where we started the track and we never get tired of it!
Did you enjoy working with the featured vocalists? Do you have any new collaborations in the works?
It’s always exciting to start something new with a vocalist. We prefer being in the studio with them rather than sending song ideas back and forth. This way you can contribute most to the creative process and get the best results. At the moment we are in Los Angeles working on a lot of new collaborations with amazing vocalists – we will reveal some names once we get closer to the release dates.
Lastly, what have you got coming up next? What are you most excited about for 2018?
Right now we are working on a lot of new music, we have been locked in the studio almost for a month now doing a lot of sessions and producing non-stop. This year’s focus is to release a lot of new music and shape our sound more and more, so that our live set will contain only our own music & remixes. We are super excited to play our debut show – will be great fun!
