British DJ duo Audiojack grew up in different parts of Yorkshire in the UK and began DJing in the '90s in their teens.
"Even though we sometimes went to the same places we didn’t meet until 2002 when we both spent a season in Ibiza," they say. "We’d gone to the island with a box of records and met after we both saw the same advert asking for DJs for a new event. The party never happened but we started hanging out and eventually started DJing together that summer. After the season ended, Rich got a job curating the music at a venue in Wakefield and asked Jamie to come and be a resident. For the next 8 months, after we’d got back from our day jobs, we’d head straight down there to DJ, seven nights per week."
"Meanwhile lots of the people we’d met in Ibiza were talking about moving to Leeds, and there was a real buzz around the place in the early '00s," they continue. "It had some of the best electronic music clubs in the country and everyone was going out raving on weekends, so we readily waved goodbye to Wakefield and moved onto the next chapter. We took full advantage of the Leeds music scene, went out every weekend, often weeknights too. A year in and we were loving Leeds, but it was hard to get DJ gigs, and we really wanted to play out. We needed to give promoters a reason to book us. At that point we could see three options: start a club night, a record label or make our own records. The first two required start up money (which we didn’t have) so we decided to learn to make music and create an act."
Audio jack was born in a Leeds park.
"At the time [it] was derived from the term 'Jack' of all trades," they say. "So Audiojack basically meant someone that does sound, with the dual meaning of the 'Jack' in the classic house sense. It didn’t occur to us that it’s also the port you plug headphones into. We locked ourselves away on evenings and weekends, gave up socials lives and started making tracks. As they started to get semi decent, we would take them to a local music bar where DJs like Denney, Matt Cooper and Dan Tait had residencies, and they played our tracks so we could hear them out loud. After a about a year and 40 tracks later, we had 8 tracks we thought were good enough for a demo CD so we sent them to all of our favourite labels. Didn’t get one reply."
"During this time, we were back and forth to Ibiza each summer, partying in all the big clubs, our favourites being Space and DC10," they add. "Our ambition at that time was to get a track played there. Back in Leeds, and a little crest-fallen, we went into our local record shop and played the tracks to DJ Jay Kilka. He listened through the first 7 and had a similar reaction to them all, which was maybe a bit nonplussed. Then on track 8, an experimental techno track that we put on last as a wild card piqued his interest. He said Matt Tolfrey was starting a label and might like this one. He called him there and then and played the track to him down the phone. Matt liked it so Jay sent the CD down to Matt in Nottingham and before long we had our first record signed."
What came next took them completely by surprise.
"The record got picked up by lots of big DJs and quickly rose up the Beatport charts to no.1 in it’s genre and stayed there for six weeks," they say. "That summer we were back in Ibiza with our friends and back on the dancefloor in DC10. Luciano was playing and all of a sudden were heard something familiar. He was playing our track Robot! We were ecstatic, it’s a day we’ll always remember. Not only did he play it in DC10 but when the track was ending, he mixed it again into itself and played it twice. You can see the video up on Youtube. After that the DJ booking started rolling in, our first gig was in Bristol, second in Beijing and then Shanghai and all over the world for the next two decades, we’ve played in 74 countries to date."
Regarding their sound: "Over the last 20 years we’ve played and made many flavors of electronic music, but we always have the same modus operandi, which is music that works on the dancefloor," they say. "We were always DJs first and music production was there to facilitate that. Right now, we play quite diverse sets with different flavors of house, bass music and UKG, some more electronic sounds and often end our sets with more groovy disco vibes to leave people in a happy mood."
Their latest release is the "Rumours" track.
"Well, we’re very excited to be back on Dirtybird, a label who started about the same time we did and one we’ve held in high regard, playing their releases for all those years too," they say. "We have a bit of an indulgence for music that lures you into a false sense of direction before twisting into something different. The early 00s glitch house music on labels like Dubsided was a big influence on us in that regard. So Rumours started out being a quite groovy summery track, sampling Dirty Laundry by Sandra Isabel & Embee. We then realised it probably wouldn’t be something we’d play so we took the parts and remixed it. The breakdown is the sweet and soulful vibes with the vocals and then it drops into a grimy dancefloor groove. Funnily enough we had this approach for our first demo for Dirtybird ‘Stay Strong’, which was euphoric and melodic and then into a dirty bass banger, but Claude Von Stroke suggested we kept it melodic and euphoric rather than going “gangster” and on that occasion it was better that way."
As for gear: "We started out DJing on vinyl in the mid-'90s and transitioned to digital really when we started playing internationally, around 2008. In the studio we’re all in the box. We’ve tried hardware over the years but it took too long to get ideas down, so we reverted to digital. We started producing on FL Studio around 2005, as it was the most accessible one at the time, but we moved to Ableton after a few years, which is what we still use today. Our main studio is in the Ibiza countryside, a room built inside an auto repair shop, so we don’t bother anyone with the noise."
Looking ahead, Audiojack has plenty planned for the coming months.
"We’re just about to head off on tour to Australia and New Zealand for two weeks, we have a new single coming out soon on Alexis Raphael’s Creche Records, a remix on Vision Music and we’ve remixed two huge tracks from two legendary acts, one of which is coming next year and another we’re trying to negotiate but that’s all we are allowed to say at this point, so watch this space."
