Pig&Dan tell us they love entertaining big crowds and want to reach new audiences with their music. We asked if techno going mainstream was a good thing for the underground… 

A lot has changed in the States and techno seems to be becoming more mainstream. More people are showing up at underground parties because it’s the cool thing to do these days, not because they know the artists or the music. Is this a good thing or bad thing for the underground scene? And what in your opinion does it take to be truly underground?

To be honest music for us is an expression of our souls and our passion, we don’t really see it as underground or overground, we see it as what we love to make and what we love to play. Music is about feeling, you don’t need to know about music to feel it, my own mother aged 65 danced to Richie Hawtin 5 years ago in and amnesia and she wasn’t categorizing or wondering whether the music was underground she was just grooving to it and enjoyed it. Its like food and art, you just need to be open minded to enjoy it or not. It’s good for more people to be exposed to this music whether its cool or not. We love to see the dance floors full rather than empty because we enjoy entertaining people, in the end that is what its all about. Entertainment.

You guys have worked really hard to get to where you are right now. Do you think it’s important to hang on to some underground roots? Or would you be happy to play an EDM stage at Ultra Music Festival, for example, alongside somebody like Guetta or Tiesto – if the money was good?

We have already played with EDM DJs in festivals before because those were the lineups, and we just did our own thing. If we play next to Tiesto or Ghetta, we will still do our own thing and express ourselves the way we love too. We want to give people a great time and seeing them react to our music gives us huge satisfaction. If it were for the money I think we would have chosen a different career 🙂

You guys have got a pretty wide ranging music taste. Can you name the people who are making the most cutting edge music these days?

We have loads of love for guys like, Truncate, Skudge, Ray Kajioka,, ROD and Whyt Noyz for example…

So let’s talk about this album! It’s out now on the creme de la creme label of the underground world, Bedrock. Tell us about your concept behind it, plus what it represents in 2014 for the Pig & Dan sound.

Destination Unknown has nothing to do really with the electronic Pig&Dan sound but it has a lot to do with our other influences and tastes outside the electronic spectrum. We really wanted to show our diversity with this album which has taken 10 years in the making. Its a piece of music that you can listen at home on the beach, in the daytime, its perfect for chilling. I guess we wanted to show our fans other parts of our musical soul. For us music has no boundaries, different genres have different structures but you can always give them your special touch, its like cooking Italian, Japanese, Spanish or Thai food. They all have their rules but you can always give them your own twist. For us music is the same, you can make whatever you want, from rock to techno, from hip hop to reggae as long as you use those main ingredients, but then you can give them any spice you want 🙂

How long did it take you to write it?

We started working on ideas of other genres outside of the Techno around ten years ago. You could say this album took us ten years to make because it was a long journey meeting and hooking up with the musicians that are involved.

When we make the next album in this style i’m sure it wont take as long : )

Your own labels ELEVATE and ELEVATE groove have been extremely successful. How come you choose to release on Bedrock instead of your own label? What are your plans for ELEVATE moving forward?

Pig&Dan has a huge production output so we can afford to release on other labels such as Bedrock while still feeding our own imprint ELEVATE. We have a great relationship and share the same passion for music as John Digweed; releasing on labels is about building relationships with other musicians and sharing our passion with them. In the past we used too release on many labels but now we have really condensed it to only a few, its a bit like life, as you get older you get more selective and build deeper friendships with a select few. With ELEVATE we have loads of exciting releases coming up, and our first ELEVATE event at ADE in October we are extremely excited about it.

You recently commented that “many people don’t sit back and listen to the whole story” when it comes to albums these days”. What do you think about the modern scene’s culture attributes to this “skim over” mentality?

Well its all about choice and one thing the internet did was enable us to choose tracks from an album instead of having to buy it in its entirety. With an Album like “Destination unknown” its far better to listen to the album as a whole. This was the reason we decided to price it accordingly and to encourage people to go back to the roots of hearing the musical story.

What’s next for you guys after this busy touring season?

Loads of hard work, Travelling and what we love most making and producing music 🙂

And finally, this one’s directed at Pig: we understand you were called Pig because you used to eat a lot. Looking at recent photos, it appears you have lost a lot of weight. What’s motivated you keep off the pounds?

Being unhealthy in the longterm is unsustainable….My quality of life was so low that I hit a huge rock bottom and I had to change or keep suffering, as simple as that…The benefits of feeling healthy beat the benefits of being unhealthy so I choose healthy 🙂

Click here to order Pig&Dan’s brand new album