Hearing Nordstrom’s divulgement, Nada quickly jumps in for damage control. Though his partner in crime has not really revealed any great secret, Nada appears keen to ensure that people know they appreciate their privileged position. “It definitely has its plusses and minuses. It can be, I don’t want to say tiring, but it can be exhausting. But at the end of the day we wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. We think of ourselves as really fortunate to be in this position where we get to travel the world and see lots of cool places and meet lots of cool people. We get to play music and people get excited about it. It is really hard to complain and feel upset about it when you get so much back from it.”
Spending so much time on the road must take its toll on anyone and many musicians have crashed and burned due to the pressure. However, Nadastrom are not the types to look a gift horse in the mouth. But surely all the time away from home means that their output suffers? “That is the beautiful thing about technology these days, our studio comes with us everywhere we go. We are constantly just working on stuff, you know, on the planes and in airports.” Nada assures that the time on the road is far from detrimental, rather than finding the new places and faces distracting, instead the pair seek inspiration in the new locations and create accordingly.
A clear fan of different places and different faces, Nordstrom admits, “We definitely want to take influences from every place we go. We hear people DJ and it exposes us to new things. We are big fans of House and Techno, so going to see local guys and getting inspiration from those sets. They may be things that we are not synonymous with, but we are still big fans of them and we still like to try incorporate elements into our sounds.” Once again eavesdropping, Nada affirms Nordstrom’s thought process, “The big thing for us when we get to travel is that we get to push our music. Seeing other people perform or DJ, we definitely feed off of it. It gives us inspiration for when we get back to the studio so we can dig that bit deeper.”
While the pair clearly ensure that neither discipline suffers as a result of their increasingly demanding schedule, have they any preference between the two? Unsurprisingly, Nordstrom takes the musician’s diplomatic approach, “For us it is a matter of finding the balance between the two. We love being in the studio and working on music, whether it is something original or a remix. But then we get to a point when we want to the hit the road and play in a club. We love playing live and DJing in nightclubs, any kind of shows. But when we are on the road for too long, we want to hit the studio and shack up to work on music. Generally it is a balance between the two.” Nada’s response is a little more enlightening, albeit unintentionally, “it is really hard to have one without each other. Last time we were in Australia, each week we would have a few days off in the middle and our agent Mike setup a studio in the hotel.”
With a clear need to focus on the creation of music wherever they might be, the duo clearly keep their eyes and, more importantly, their ears open at all times for any insight into something that they have previously not discovered. While they admit that “the big thing for us when we get to travel is that we get to push our music,” the real buzz on their travels comes from the opportunity to “see other people perform or DJ, we definitely feed off of it. It gives us inspiration for when we get back to the studio so we can dig that bit deeper.”
