29/03/2021
The dynamic duo from the Granite City, Aberdeen, have been making mammoth marks on the music scene. From a small town, to big cities, the boys Dan and Fraser have made a name for themselves in a short space of two years. From SoundCloud remixes of Lil Pump, to signing onto Patrick Toppings label ‘Trick’. T e s t p r e s s sat down and told us all about what’s to come.
How did t e s t p r e s s come about?
That’s a classic story. Fraser went to Ibiza for a season and had his speakers at his mum’s house.
When I came back, she wouldn’t let me put the speakers up because they’re too loud for the house. I didn’t want them sitting collecting dust and I knew Dan would appreciate them, so he took them. When I dropped the speakers off at his I asked if he wanted to chill for a bit, we then ended up working on music and ended up producing the ‘Gucci Gang’ edit which was the first thing we ever uploaded to Soundcloud.
How did you guys get involved with the ‘Trick’ label?
So, our flatmate is friends with someone who knew Elliot Adamson really well. So, we spoke to Elliot and when he came up to Aberdeen we got chatting and started sending over some of our work. We were sending him tunes one day and he called us like “don’t release any of those tunes, we want to release them on ‘Trick’”, we were like oh, shit. Totally out the blue, it all happened pretty fast.
What’s your main influences when it comes to making music?
That’s a tough one, there’s a lot. We both listen to Hip Hop and Rap on a day-to-day basis, that’s the main genre we listen to…hence why we made the ‘Gucci Gang’ edit. That’s how we clicked straight away. As times went on, we listened to a lot of different music. Bicep have definitely influenced us in a way, I wouldn’t say we go too close to them because they are obviously on a different level. Right now, we want to do our own thing, which seems like a bit of a cop-out to this question, but we are experimenting with taking little parts of inspiration from lots of different genres.
How was your reaction when you first heard your song being played on Radio 1?
(They both burst out in laughter) So… we used to make music in Dan’s room at his old flat. It was a Thursday night, and we were both sitting making a tune whilst Dan went to the toilet. From his room I just suddenly heard a massive screech coming from the toilet and was like ‘is he alright?’ It turns out Dan had found out that our song was being played live on Radio 1 at Glastonbury.
Dan: I screeched.
Fraser: After that we went to the pub and sank a good few pints.
What is your dream festival or venue to play at?
We’ve talked on this before. In a dream world, our dream gig would be headlining the Slam Tent at T in the Park. That would be so class. Right now, we have set goals, we’ve been wanting to play ‘Annie Mac Lost and Found’ for a while now. It just looks like a good buzz, a great setting, with a lot of great artists.
When the clubs open again, where’s your first destination?
We are just super excited for clubs to come back, the thought of that first night back is enough to keep us going. We would love to go to Subby first, or Tunnels. That would be class to start it all off. We’ve been trying to set up our Scottish tour that got cancelled but it’s all brainstorms right now.
What can we expect from you guys in the future?
Currently we are working on music with a few artists, hopefully we can see more coming from ‘Trick’ later on in the year. We have several singles we are excited to gradually release, probably around summertime. We’ve got some label music on the way as well, lots of new music. Our EP is being released at the start of April on Monki’s label, and we should hopefully have a remix from Big Miz on there too. We just want to get things moving, and hopefully in the late summer we can see festivals happening again.
You can listen to t e s t p r e s s’ new single ‘Wideawake’ with Lorin Logue, below.