Floor’d magazine caught up with the London based up and coming DJ/Producer duo ‘Late Replies’ made up of Josh and Kastro, to discuss their career and get to know them a little better. These boys have huge personalities and cracked me up during this interview; it’s clear to see why every crowd they play for warm up to them instantly! Late Replies are absolutely a name you need to look out for.
How did you get into DJ'ing/producing and when did you decide to DJ together?
Josh: When I turned 18 my brother took me to my first lads holiday to Ibiza before then I didn’t listen to house music or anything like that. We went to all the big clubs and I absolutely loved it. When I came back all I listened to was house music non-stop.
I got out of touch with other genres because I just loved the vibes at house raves so much and then I met Kas in 2013 and we pretty much met out in Ibiza.
I realised that all I wanted to do was just control the music all the time wherever I was, in people’s cars, literally everywhere… I was just showing my mates' house music all the time.
Then all my friends came out to Ibiza with me including, Kas and he had just started getting into house music too. After that, we went to hideout and when I came back I was like "that's it I need to be a DJ!"
I had my last money saved and spunked it all on decks and Kas started coming over and started to learn with me then he decided he wanted to do it too and then by 2016, that’s when we jumped on it and became Late Replies.
Producing came hand in hand with it really, we both have musical backgrounds. Nowadays if you want to make it big as a DJ you have to be able to produce so we built a studio and started making music.
How do you go about planning your sets?
Josh: Our sounds changed a little bit over the years we used to be more power music and pumping like Solardo and Andrea Oliver, more northern energy stuff and now we’ve started to get into the groove more and play just straight groovy beats that make you want to dance.
Really it's just whatever we like at the time, sometimes we mix in key and sometimes we just listen to the tunes and order them together and see what goes with what. We usually start with some powerful music and then move into a groove and finish with some disco; if it’s late we finish with some melodic techno beats.
What’s your favourite track at the moment?
Kastro: How long is a piece of string?
Josh: So much good music about! Truth be told by Nuevo is a fucking banger or Will Taylor and George Smeddles's track Boom Song.
Kastro: Boom Song goes off all the time!
Josh: Our other favourite tune at the moment is our tune called ‘Raw’, that’s a banger. Look out for that one!
Who would you say your music is influenced by?
Kastro: Our music is influenced by every genre and every piece of music we’ve heard since we started listening to music, so it's not just house really. I was a die-hard West Coast Hip Hop guy but I’ve got the music theory knowledge. Josh played the piano and knows his music too so we just put it all together when we produce.
Josh: Yeah I was a grime MC back in 2009 and was involved in the industry and started rapping at age 17/18 and thought 'nah fuck it' but I knew I wanted to get back to the music.
Kastro: House wise, the first DJ that we used to chase believe it or not was MK. We used to go out there and see where he is and rave to the deep house happy music but Solardo are the ones who opened the door for this tech house movement. When we heard their music we were like ‘fuckkkking hell!’
Where do you think the scene is heading in say five years from now?
Josh: There’s going to be a new wave and a lot of producers that are not about so much at the moment but are going to absolutely take over the scene we’re seeing it from all the people we’re surrounded by like us, Made You Look, Ren Phillips and YingYang, Tim Taylor, Del 30 definitely!
Kastro: George Smeddles definitely and Will Taylor as well, it’s going to be good. It’s heading towards the groove.
What would you be doing if you didn't get into music?
Kastro: Raving! I’m an estate agent and I sell houses at the moment but that’s not cutting it.
Josh: It makes absolutely no sense for us not go into music because otherwise, we'd be bums spending all our money going to raves and getting into trouble. We’d be fucked if we weren’t doing music!
What single night out has been the most memorable for you? As a DJ or as a raver?
Kastro: I can’t really single out one night! To name a few for me personally Hideout Papaya MK pool party with Anime Edge and Dance afterwards or even WHP Elrow where Josh and I stood smack in front of Eats Everything.
Josh: I went to Space in Ibiza and I think it was Dusky playing? We were right at the front and we nearly deafened ourselves next to the speakers, just raving all night... oh and Annie Mac’s Lost and Found castle party was so lit it was Martinez brothers, Skream b2b with Richy Ahmed. It was insane.
Kastro: As DJs, our ABODE debut was massive! Big up ABODE for the call-up.
Josh: ABODE in the park too! 33 at The Steelyard was a big one and also their event at Metal Works was so good and then we went to play at Sankeys at 338 afterwards. Every time we’ve played the EGG terrace it has been memorable. There’s too many to choose from.
If you could eternally be stuck in one year's music scene, which year would it be?
Kastro: That's so hard, but I think the one that influenced us most was literally when we started getting into house around 2013/14. I can't talk about the old house scene because I wasn't raving then and was into different music but what I still love is the house music and the moments that actually got me into doing this. The older lot might see this and think ‘oh they’re newbies’ but its real.
Josh: I’m going to be boring and say this era now and what it’s going to be in the future. I think it’s going to top anything we’ve ever could have lived in in the past life.
What challenges have you faced in your career so far and what advice would you give to aspiring DJ's/ producers?
Kastro: Technology! Fucking technology holding us back but we're getting there. Of course producing and DJ'ing goes hand in hand and takes you far but what I would also advise anyone to do is go out, rave, network and speak to people.
Josh: Yeah, really just getting our production level to a record label standard and we're finding that a challenge but we are getting there and I believe in the future of us. The advice I would give is that if you’re DJ’ing but not producing, start producing and if you’re just producing, get out and DJ there’s a whole world out there for you.
What have you got planned for 2018?
Josh: Hopefully we’ve got some nice releases coming up. We can’t really say anything right now but there’s stuff in the pipeline. Right now we’re stacking up our music and firing it out to a load of labels and you will see some big releases soon and hear our music being played a lot in 2018.
Kastro: Gig wise, other than the 33 residency that we have, and I gotta say they are doing bits and spreading their wings! There are a couple of bookings already like Strawberries and Creem festival and expect to see us back at Swing, but really and truly just spending time in the studio, producing and stacking up on the archive.
It was an absolute pleasure to interview Late Replies. If you’re not already, follow the boys on their social media accounts here:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/latereplies
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LateReplies/
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/latereplies/
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/latereplies