Italian producers Merk & Kremont have joined forces with Dutch duo Tom & Jame for a mega collab titled “Big Trouble,” out now on Future House Music. There’s lots to catch up on with both sets of artists, as they each have new music and upcoming shows lined up. Enjoy our interview as you groove away to their new collaboration!
Hey Merk & Kremont, thanks for joining us today! How’s your year going so far and what have been some of your highlights?
Merk & Kremont: Hey guys, it’s been so good. We’re super excited to be back on tour finally after two years. This year has been great because we’ve finally been able to do what we love the most, which is playing live, and we’re going to drop a lot of new songs. We hope the highlights are ahead of us because we are super excited about our next festival show in June at Nameless Festival where we’re going to try out some new music and play our new banger “Big Trouble.”
You’ve got a huge new collab about to drop together with Tom & Jame titled “Big Trouble.” How did you get connected with the guys for this one? When did you first meet them?
Merk & Kremont: We’ve always been big fans of Tom & Jame. We met about six years ago during ADE and we’ve always wanted to make a collab together. We actually had an idea which was “Mr.Vegas”… it’s a long story to explain, but it was very fun to work with the guys in the studio. However we never actually released the track and just recently they sent us a song that we thought had the right groove and perfect vibe and mood for what we wanted to do, so we got the stems, we worked on them, and then we finalized the collab.
Tom & Jame, take us through the track. How did you take it from the first idea to the final version that we hear today?
Tom & Jame: We started this track playing around with the vocals and wanted to go for a looped hook that would be able to totally hype crowds. From there on we set up the first draft for the track quite fast. We sent it to M&K and they really loved the idea, but made some proper changes to finally make it the tune that it is today.
What’s your favorite element in “Big Trouble,” and what makes this part stand out to you?
Tom & Jame: To be honest, there’s two haha. On one side the really good vibes that the vocal gives combined with the groovy production, and on the other hand, we love the pre-drop bassline that opens up the second drop. Great club/festival vibes.
Merk & Kremont, you guys just performed on top of a mountain, and there’s some really sick footage from it! Tell us about this experience.
Merk & Kremont: It was really crazy because you would never think that at the beginning of spring you can have snow like that in the mountains. We were invited by MTV to play this show for the end of the ski season in Cervinia, Italy. It was really fun because we have never played in an environment like this and when we started playing, it started snowing very hard and we almost thought that the DJ booth and console might break because of the snow. It was freezing actually and it was very hard to play, but we asked the people to stay there ‘till the end… and after a while, I think after 40 minutes… all of the sudden the sun came in and we had the most amazing time of the year!
The pandemic period was a reset of sorts throughout the industry. Tom & Jame, what are some of the things that you think have changed the most, and how did the pandemic affect you as DJs and producers?
Tom & Jame: We could talk for hours about the pandemic period. It was really difficult to not have a response from the crowd to our music. We were used to that, and our music revolved around that. So a big part of the pandemic was us trying to look for that spark to keep the love for producing. We did that by producing all kinds of different genres. The biggest lesson that the pandemic gave us was that we only want to produce songs that we just feel – it has to give us excitement. Our new music is made for the clubs and festivals and we can’t wait to play the new stuff.
Merk & Kremont, what is your view on web3 platforms and NFTs, and how do you think that it will change the music streaming platforms?
Merk & Kremont: We think that the web3 and the NFT worlds are going to change the music landscape forever as a big disruption. We don’t see it yet, but it’s going to make a huge difference in the future. We think that copyrights will change drastically because with an NFT, every time that someone is playing your song, wherever they’re playing it, you can potentially be rewarded and paid with the royalties. We hope for the best of course, but we see a lot of disruption coming in the music industry with new emerging platforms like Audius and Royal, and those platforms will make a big difference for artists. Maybe the big labels are going to suffer the most, while the small and independent ones can have a better outcome. We’ve not sure, and we’ll have to see how it plays out.
Tom & Jame, as we look ahead, what has you most excited for the summer months and the remainder of 2022?
Tom & Jame: Our style has changed big time. We are sitting on more songs than we’ve ever made in a year, so we are going to release many tracks in the coming months. No waiting for our fans, just a lot of new music, which is really exciting. And the extra exciting part is that shows are starting up again, so we are finally able to have that response from people again – the screams, the laughs, the fist pumps, the bass faces. That’s what it’s about.
You can stream or download Merk & Kremont x Tom & Jame – “Big Trouble” on your platform of choice today! https://fhm.lnk.to/bigtrouble
Interview originally posted on 1001tracklists.com