Mightyfools, Andy and Jelle, have already been a festival favorite in their native Holland for quite some time now but crossed over stateside after Hardwell debuted their colossal track “Footrocker” at last year’s UMF Miami. They followed that up with the chart-topping bangers “Put Em Up” and “Go!” Most recently Mightyfools were enlisted to remake Speedy J’s classic “Pullover,” which is out now on Doorn Records via Beatport. We caught up with the ‘Fools in Miami at Spinnin’ Sessions for a chat about blowing up in America, Internet trolls, and the pitfalls of flying.
How is Miami treating you guys so far?
Very good! Finally some time off because we’ve been touring for the past two and a half weeks straight and haven’t had any sleep so Miami is a place for relaxation. We just played the Spinnin’ Sessions party and the rest are days off to enjoy the sunshine to get rid of the studio tan. It’s like an EDM vacation and it’s good to see all of our friends. Even though we all live in the same city we never see each other because either they are on tour or we are.
Last year at this time Hardwell was premiering “Footrocker” at Ultra and now everything’s changed. What’s been the biggest difference you have noticed since then?
The shows in the states for sure. In Europe we’ve had a big name for a long time and have been playing the main stages for years. We’ve always had a solid following there. Since “Footrocker” the sizes of the venues in the States have doubled or tripled in size. Now we can sell out the Avalon in LA. People know who we are now. If we walk around here a lot of people will stop us for photos. Last year we were just kind of blending in but now people recognize us everywhere. Yesterday we had tweets from people like hey Mightyfools are at the same bar or at Five Guys right now.
What’s been your favorite international gig?
Mysterylands Chile! We’ve seen a lot of crazy crowds because we’ve been doing 100 shows a year for five years straight but Mysterlands was just next level. I could see maybe 20,000 people out in front of me. From the first track at every single break, every single drop everyone was just screaming. They were all on top of each other with all the flags like the TomorrowLand crowd during Hardwell and that was the crowd the whole time.
Where does all that energy come from?
They told us that because in Chile there aren’t many raves, people save up for that one festival. There’s nothing else going on there with international DJs. It’s their one chance to experience what TomnorrowLand people and Ultra people experience. We were the first DJs that played that day with EDM. We played “Booyah” first and everyone just lost it and stayed at that same energy level for 90 minutes straight. It was probably the craziest show we have ever done and we have done a lot of great shows the past year with an average crowd size of maybe 5,000 people. The past year has been insane. It took a lot of hard work but it’s paying off now.
Mysterylands Chile, photo cred: Facebook
You guys recently remixed Britney Spears, what was the first reaction when you got the call on that?
We were so honored to remix such a huge pop star. It was a huge challenge to remix because you know Britney is not the most popular girl in the EDM scene. It was a challenge to make it sound party-proof so we took a raw, dark energy approach. The vocals were really usable to do that since it was already in an EDM vibe. It was a good challenge because it could of gone terribly wrong but it came out how we wanted it to be. We didn’t want to upset ourselves and we wanted to be able to play it in our DJ sets. We are mainly DJs and then we started producing so we make our tracks for our DJ sets like “Footrocker” for example. In the studio we don’t think about the other stuff like what label it should be on and stuff. We make music that we would play out and would work on a dance-floor. If we can’t dance in the stdio then the record goes no-where and to the trash can.
That’s a really good approach because not everyone does that. It keeps your sound unique and always high-energy.
That’s the biggest difference with guys that started out as producers like Avicii because they have a producer’s approach in their DJ sets. We started DJing then producing so we have a DJ approach in our productions. Our tracks are mainly for the dance-floor only and sometimes people don’t appreciate that online but we don’t really care.
That’s an interesting point, I wasn’t going to ask about it but since you brought it up, you guys had such an awesome year with so much support but then with “Pullover” as soon as it was uploaded to YouTube and Soundcloud there was so much hate.
Basically we don’t care. We made the track because it’s been one of our favorite tracks since we were young. When we got the news that we were able to remix it with all the rights cleared, the original producer with his cut, everyone happy, and we were going to be the first to officially rework it, we were like holy shit let’s do it, it’s gonna be amazing for our DJ sets. When we started playing the raw sketches at our shows, people were just losing it. Then people online were all like it’s a nexus preset. Nexus was made fifteen years after “Pullover” and we didn’t use the nexus preset, we used the original sample.
Some of the comments were like “my grandma’s fart sounds better than this” or “you made this in five minutes.”
Yeah it was just hilarious to see what crazy comments they would come up with next. It actually took two weeks to get the sound as close to the original. The snare is a straight 909 sample and that was the only snare available back then. The whole thing is that people don’t take the time to find that out. I don’t blame them because in EDM things are moving really fast right now. Honestly we could care less because we are really happy with it and really honored that we are the first guys to ever rework it and it works great on the dance-floor.
Yeah that’s what matters most.
Yeah it does. People are welcome to hate because we just do our own thing and maybe they will like our next track who knows. If people take the time to know us they will know we are capable of good things.
I think it is kind of good that people are critical though and it’s not just anything that gets uploaded they will listen to and love. It is important that they speak up if they don’t like it.
For sure but the feedback sucks like “my grandma makes better music than this.” That feedback is just useless. It would be better for us if they said exactly what they didn’t like about it so we could maybe change it on the next track but they just say “my grandma farts better.”
Maybe they are just really proud of their grandma’s farts.
Probably but anyway we don’t really care. We do it for us out of love and out of respect for the original. It wasn’t made with an intention of a loud drop.
Photo cred: Facebook
If you could have any super-power what would it be and why?
Teleportation! Instant teleportation – we really hate flying.
But you do it so much.
Yes that’s why we hate it. We recently had a flight from Suriname to the States during a storm so there was a lot of turbulence. The turbulence was the kind where you feel your butt coming out of the seat. Then we couldn’t make our landing because the plane bounced on one wheel so everyone got into a panic. The plane had to take off again because it was impossible to land in the storm.
At least your plane didn’t disappear.
Well yeah that happened at the same time as well. We saw that news everywhere the next day so basically I’m getting more scared of flying every week.
What’s in your rider?
Two bananas and a bottle of vodka. Bananas are the best energy food. They give you more energy than Red Bull. We used to do Red Bulls but after a while you get all shaky and sleepy but with bananas you just get a lot of energy. They’re also good for hangovers.
What’s coming up next? A collab with Yellow Claw?
Yeah we just finished our set with that track because they played after us. It’s called “Lick Dat,” it’s 150 BPM and very explicit and the video will be very explicit as well. It will be out this month on Spinnin’ Records.
Mightyfools Facebook
Mightyfools Twitter
Mightyfools Instagram
Photo cred: Mehmet Cakmak/Facebook
Comments
comments