On October 31st Above and Beyond performed at Roseland Ballroom for the very first time on Halloween for the New York edition of the album release party for the Anjunabeats Volume 7 compilation. This was their only other scheduled tour date for the month of October besides the launch party at The Gallery, Ministry of Sound in their hometown London. Jono and Tony were present for this particular performance and although Tony was physically not feeling well, they were still prepared to tough it out and present the show for the fans that awaited them.

The event was not only their album release party, but also the album release event for Fedde Le Grand's debut artist album entitled Output.

We met with Jono and Tony prior to their performance merely minutes before daylight savings time took effect for an in depth Q & A session which proved to be very informative.

How are you guys doing?
Tony: Very ill!

How about you Jono?
Jono: I'm good. I just had a lovely dinner and some rest so I am all ready for the gig.
Tony: I'm really sick; I've been in bed since 6 O'clock.

Oh wow, I am sorry to hear that! I hope you feel better.
Jono: I can tell you that artists have this amazing ability, because were kind of used to that. We've done some gigs when we've been ill and we kind of play on through.

You got to be a trooper right?
Tony: You can't be a pooper, you've got to be a trooper.
Jono: When you are back stage sometimes and you are with people they ask "are you okay; you seem really tired." You kind of want to say "look shut up I'm just relaxing because I want to save my energy for out there."

Absolutely!
I also wanted to say congratulations Jono! I heard you are an uncle.
Jono: I am an uncle. It's great, two times over now.

How is the baby?
Jono: He's had a little bit of trouble actually since he's been born.

Oh no!
Jono: He seems to be getting better, so that's good.

I am glad to hear that.
When you are performing around the world why does one of the members of Above & Beyond stay behind at times?
Tony: Because he's lazy (jokingly). It doesn't really make sense for three people to DJ. You can do back to back, but back to back to back means you have too much time out of the loop.
Jono: It's difficult to get a rhythm. To build a good set with three people it's better to prepare the set beforehand, which can work really well, but it's not the way we like to DJ. We like to have some rough ideas on the kind of records we play and then play it by ear. I think it's much better when you have two people because you can build a better set. I think a lot of DJs use a lot of people in the studio to help them make records and we don't have to do that so much because we have a lot of time in the studio since we take it in turns. We do our own music, which is really nice.

How do you mutually decide which group members are going to attend the performance?
Jono: Generally we try to rotate it around. Whoever was in New York last, one of those people will carry on since there are three of us.

Are these your Halloween costumes?
Jono: I guess we really don't celebrate Halloween in the same way as you guys. In the UK unfortunately it's a time for people to throw eggs at people's houses, whereas here it's more of a party occasion. I think it's good that you make a more positive thing out of it.

This is your first performance at the Roseland Ballroom venue. What do you think about the venue in terms of the size, appearance, and sound?
Tony: We haven't really seen that much of it yet but it looks like a proper old ballroom.

It definitely is; the lasers are also phenomenal.
Jono: Well I'm glad you've seen it and can confirm it.

Yes, I've been here plenty of times. Can you tell me more about your upcoming Tour dates in November?
Jono: We have fifteen dates over the period of about three weeks. It's pretty full on, nearly everyday. It's going to be really good, we are promoting our new album.

Tour Schedule:
Nov 11 Opera, Atlanta, GA
Nov 12 Crofoot, Detroit, MI
Nov 13 Lure, St Louis, MO
Nov 14 Glow @ Fur, Washington, DC
Nov 16 Talbott St, Indianapolis, IN
Nov 18 BoMa, Columbus, OH
Nov 19 BETA, Denver, CO
Nov 20 Epic, Minneapolis, MN
Nov 21 Vision, Chicago, IL
Nov 22 Moon, Las Vegas, NV
Nov 24 Barcode, Sacramento, CA
Nov 25 Last Supper Club, Seattle, WA
Nov 26 Celebrities, Vancouver, BC
Nov 27 Club 101, El Paso, TX
Nov 28 Travis County Expo Center, Austin, TX

What do you have planned for the broadcast of the 300th episode of Trance Around The World?
Tony: A fairly comprehensive package of live and recorded entertainment.

Very well said.
Tony: We haven't announced it yet. The 300th show falls on Christmas day were going to do a multi-headed thing. The 300th show is going to be presented by the fans. They are going to record themselves introducing their favorite record and post it on YouTube. The most popular tracks will be included in the show, and the best intro's will be in the show as well.

Have you started accumulating any of the content yet?
Tony: No not yet, you are the only person in the world who knows about this so far.

I feel so special.
Tony: We are going to do a 300th episode of Trance Around the World Live as well in Russia. Russia was the first place to syndicate Trance Around the World so we're going to Russia in December and we will bring some of our friends along. We are bringing Super8 & Tab…

I love Super8 & Tab!
Jono: They are great, really talented!
Tony: We are also bringing Daniel Kandi, Proff, and some very Trance Around the Worldy kind of people. We are trying to mark the occasion as best we can, and 301 will be special as well. It's going to be bits from the 300th live show broadcast. We are looking into streaming the show.

Excellent!
The following question is to each of you. What is your favorite classic trance track of all time?
Jono: My god that's such a difficult question.

It is, isn't it?
Jono: There are so many to pick just one is very hard. I like Café del Mar - Energy - 52, I wouldn't say it was perfect, but I love the groove of that track.

Now this is giving Tony time to think.
Tony: It's always the same for me. It would be Disco Citizens - Footprint.

Can you provide some details in regards to your new iPhone application A&B connect?
Jono: It's an application that allows the fans to see where we are, for example all the venues we are playing at and it actually hooks into the iPhone GPS so you can locate where the venue is which is pretty damn cool. It takes tweets from Twitter, it combines all of the social networks that we are on and everything that we do on-line in one application so you can view all of that information in one place. It also has opportunities to hear our tracks and buy our music from the application. We have our biography, photos, and background information for Above & Beyond on it.

I wouldn't know; I'm sorry I don't have an iPhone.
Jono: Version two is going to really kick ass, there is going to be lots more stuff on there.

(Tony shows me the application on his iPhone.)
Tony: See it has photos; about fifty tracks, flicker, and also our YouTube videos from Above & Beyond TV are on there.

It seems very informative.
Tony: It's very useful. There are so many things that can be done on the iPhone for example counting the BPM's of records or guitar tunes. I think others do that better than us, but we just did something that we think our fans would want.

In celebration of your new iPhone app, you are hosting a contest to win a 32GB iPod Touch. What is the deadline to enter? It is unclear when the contest will be concluded based on the details on your website.
Jono: The journalist wants to know the deadline.

Sorry to call you out on that one but people want to know.
Tony: We aren't sure yet.

Approximately how many demos does Anjunabeats receive on a monthly basis, and which group member is responsible for reviewing them; or is it a combined effort?
Tony: Yes, it's that guy over there. (Tony points to a guy in the room with us.)
Jono: He goes through our demos including the promos we get, probably around the thousand mark a month easy, may be even more. They get filtered down a little bit, well some of them anyway. What we get is about a thousand after they have been filtered to be honest but that's demos plus promos. In terms of pure demos, it's at least fifty a week probably more like a hundred a week so we are looking at four or five hundred a month. It's becoming increasingly hard to get to the really good stuff because I think it kind of bottoms down as the productions have gone up but there is so much it's harder to find the really good ones because you have to go through so much. The price of equipment has gone down so there are a lot more people that are able to make music therefore there is more music out there. It's easier to get your music to anybody or us because we have the Internet now. Before we had filters like releasing it on vinyl for a DJ to play and records would kind of be demos at a promo stage before they press up five hundred white labels for tastemaker DJs to play and then a bigger label might pick it up. Nowadays the people just send you an email with a link or something so it's a different time now from say 2000. In nine years it has changed a lot.

Who are the freshest new artists to be signed at Anjunabeats?
Jono: We just signed Cold Blue who has had a lot of tracks on Anjunabeats. Jaytech has been around for a while but I still think he is very important and fresh on Anjunadeep. We just signed a guy from Italy named 7Skies who is a really good classic Trance producer more on the Super8 & Tab kind of tip. He's got a really good release coming up on our label. There is so much going on.
Tony: The philosophy really is to sign artists not records so the roster looks familiar every time we look at it. We get people that can release records regularly. There is going to be a Nitrous Oxide album next year.
Jono: A Boom Jinx album, and an Oliver Smith album.
Tony: Now these guys aren't new necessarily but they keep producing stuff and we work with them to make sure their stuff is good and they are moving, growing, and learning as an artist. That's the plan rather than to keep signing new people.
Jono: It's interesting I saw some other label saying that we are the label that gives the artist the freedom to do what they want, and that sounds very nice and it's an interesting concept. Actually if you look at the best artists, normally they have had some kind of guidance from their record label like a great A & R guy and a great infrastructure around them so I think that's what we try to do. Hopefully we can provide that for our artists and guide them. It's not like were telling them what to do but we just give them a bit of guidance because there is only so much you can do on your own and with a great team of people you can do so much more. Bringing the best out of the artist is the most important thing.

Are you currently working on a follow-up artist album?
Tony: Yes, we are. We are writing and recording it. We took October off from touring pretty much to concentrate on it. When we planned that month I think we hoped we would be knocking it into shape but actually it's got broader, wider, and it's got more ideas than it did before the beginning of October.
Jono: It's not a bad thing really.
Tony: It feels like it's less finished to me because there are so many more ideas.

How far along in the process are you?
Jono: About half way may be I'd say. Like Tony said before we were probably about halfway as well so we are probably in the exact same place we were but it's not a problem because I feel if you have a bit more to play with you feel more relaxed about it whereas when you've got ten tracks that you know are going to be on the album, the pressure is to finish those ten tracks. Now the ones that we really like will inevitably get finished and the ones we think are good but not good enough they might get put in for something else later or they might get shelved for good but it just takes the pressure off when you have twenty ideas as opposed to ten.

Nearly all of the releases on the Anjunabeats, and Anjunadeep label feature similar designs usually consisting of the Anjunabeats logo in various colors along with the artist and song information. Do you feel that cover art is not as important as the music that the release contains?
Jono: That's an interesting question actually.
Tony: The color of the sleeve reflects the music. We decided to go with a house bag a long time ago because we thought it would instill more impact if he had more of a consistent sleeve. Instead of it being the same color every week we change the color depending on the track so for example Amsterdam is the color of the Dutch flag and Sky Falls Down is sky blue.
Jono: It's also to help the DJs remember the track because when you have hundreds of records you have to remember which one is which so you remember the blue one from Anjunabeats and say that's the one I want to play next rather than digging through a lot of the same color records. I think you were also asking about the kind of brand of it.

Not necessarily the brand of it, in comparison to other labels which create art or graphics for the covers whereas you like to keep them simple.
Tony: Most dance label twelve inches come in a house bag.
Jono: I think it's a mix of both. Some do and some don't. I think the idea behind Anjunabeats is that hopefully if you like this kind of music you can trust the brand Anjunabeats and that's why we have the same artwork on every release. Artists go for their individual sound but it's like the Anjunabeats stamp of approval. It enables a DJ to perk their eyes and ears out to these releases because they like Anjunabeats and that works well for us and the artist.

What are the most unique personality traits of each member of Above & Beyond, and how do they affect the dynamic of the group overall?
Jono: Paavo is very emotional.
Tony: He is the most spiritual out of all of us.
Jono: I would say Tony is the wittiest; he is very quick.
Tony: Jono is possibly most comprehensively talented musical person I have ever worked with. He has an enormous mind full of sounds and tracks that he can remember and it's just an amazing thing to see.

That's a great compliment!
Tony: He remembers everything he's ever heard which is incredible when you are trying to make a track and you think may be it should sound like this or like that, or may be this sound from five years ago and Jono remembers exactly where it goes and the sound of it and he can change it an adapt it so he just has a very powerful brain.
Jono: Awww!

That is a very good quality!
What activities do you engage in to relax and unwind in between performances?
Tony: Sleeping (Jono laughs) Well I also like to play golf and I like scuba diving although I don't really get to do those things very often. I also make music in my spare time and I don't really consider it work I just write or play musical songs.
Jono: I like cooking quite a bit actually.

Cooking, really? What is your favorite dish or is there a certain type of cuisine that you like to prepare?
Jono: Quite a lot of Italian based stuff. I like simple meals for example Jamie Oliver's recipe's are very good because they are very easy to make but also very satisfying. His cooking is very Italian based and I also like baking cakes.

You bake too?
Jono: Yes, brownies, cakes and all those things. It was quite nice actually because after a month of being in London I've had time to do all of that. Normally I just can't be bothered when I get home after traveling a lot it is just so much easier to eat out. I'm glad I've had a bit more time to do that recently.

How is your latest single Anjunabeach succeeding on the charts?
Jono: It's number one on the Beatport chart at the moment.
Tony: It's been the number one on their Trance chart for three weeks now. It's doing really good actually. I'm very happy about that.
Jono: It's a bit different. It's not an out and out obvious track, it's got a mixture of Trance, Progressive, and it's quite edgy.

How soon can we expect another single to be released?
Tony: I don't know we were talking about this on Friday when we were in the studio last. We were thinking about releasing the album next, but after this last month has gone we have more stuff to work with so we will probably put a single out. The time period is variable.
Jono: It depends on when we finish things really. There is a good chance we might put something out within the next couple of months.

What other projects are you currently working on?
Jono: We are working on the album as well as the Trance Around the World radio show.
Tony: We are working on our retail thing out now since the CDJ shop is shut down. We are going to be doing something with Recordstore.co.uk. I think we are close to launch on that but I am not really sure since I am not involved in that side of things. We've got a new version of the app coming up. There will be a new Anjunadeep compilation with James Grant and Jaytech mixing this time. Michael Cassette will also be doing an album on Anjunadeep.
Jono: We have so many artists doing albums now so there's the case of pacing them correctly. We are going to need a certain amount of material very soon. Hopefully it won't come all at once or else we will have to reschedule but there is a lot of exciting stuff coming up. It's really important for artists to do albums because it's a chance to express themselves in a different way. Singles are the chance to catch attention and albums are the chance to truly express yourself as an artist for sixty minutes or so. I am really excited to see what everyone comes up with. We had to oversee a lot of the material that is coming up and it looks promising.
Tony: They will have pictures on the front.
Jono: Yes, they will have pictures. The brand carries the singles to some extent but obviously the music also has to be credible.

365Mag would like to thank Jono and Tony of Above & Beyond for their time and answers!

http://www.aboveandbeyond.nu/