We can all attest that throughout history, musicians have had a tendency to embody, or become the essence of the genre most akin to their music. A quick example could be Ini kamoze and his life long reggae work. For a more recent example, you need not look farther than a duo who have been creating hard hitting bass music across the pond in Portugal. We had an awesome opportunity to interview André and Carlos of Karetus, enjoy!
To start of, why the name Karetus?
We wanted to have a project name in our own language and the idea for it came from a Portuguese tradition named Caretos.
Did you always want to produce electronic music, or did you have a prior background in music?
We used to talk about making our own music project since we were kids. André had a metal band and I (Carlos) have been producing electronic music for over 15 years now.
Why dubstep/bass music?
One word: energy. Bass music have a lot of energy and we are able to mix it with every genre you can think of. This type of music relates a lot to our personality as musicians.
How did it feel signing with big labels like Protocol, Dim Mak, No Tomorrow, Never Say Die, Rottun, and most recently Dongle recordings?
We feel really honored to be able to work with those labels, they are great. Rottun was our first opportunity to show our work to a broader audience, Excision is for sure a legend in the bass music and he was really nice to us even when we were new kids on the block [laughs] (by the way his new project Destroid is insane). Never Say Die is one of the best labels in the bass segment and they are doing awesome work with their new brand No Tomorrow. Working on a remix for Nicky Romero on Protocol was also amazing, a dream come true. Dongle is the label managed by Felguk and we are big fans of them, they have very original tracks like “Side by Side” and “2nite”, they are HUGE in Brazil. We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to remix Felguk’s track with Infected Mushroom, the largest psytrance project in the world. Another project that we are also proud of is our remix of “Day By Day” by the UK band New Ivory, we did this remix for Dim Mak and Steve Aoki have been playing it since then. All the hard work is paying off and we’ve been able to improve each day, there is still a lot to accomplish and we are loving this journey.
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I remember watching the Trailer for your EP Entrudo on Reddit (as well as the one for Rave On) and it blew my mind, I absolutely fell in love. How was it like seeing all of the reaction from that?
Feedback from fans and artists is one of the things we love the most, including negative ones. We are constantly updated on what people are talking about us, we check tweets, blog reviews, Facebook and Youtube comments all the time; every single feedback is important. It is amazing to have so many people giving us great feedback about our work and this is what motivate us the most to keep making music. We like when people have a feeling and something to say about our music, love it or hate it; indifference is the worst feedback an artist can get.
So you guys have been working very hard on releases/remixes, even remixing, Skism, Infected Mushroom, and Far Too Loud, what is that like? Did you have a positive reaction to your tracks? (The infected Mushroom release was really good haha)
Hahahah thanks! Just like we mentioned on the other question, remixing and working with those artists is a dream come true, we’ve been receiving great feedback from our fans which makes us really happy. Looking forward to remix more great artists 😉
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So now that you have multiple EP’s under your belt, Loudness War EP, Entrudo EP and Rave On EP is there something you would like to tease to your fans or possibly another EP (would love to have a remix EP of Rave On).
We still didn’t invite anyone to remix Rave On but it is a great idea. You can expect a lot of collabs coming soon but there is nothing specific we could tease right now. We are working with great Portuguese artists and will invite more people that we are fans of to work with. It is always fun to cook some new tracks with projects we like.
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Speaking of new tracks, what are some ways that you know a track is truly complete?
We only consider a song finished when we are both happy with it. Basically we criticize each other on the ideas that we have until we think we have something really good. Then we send to our manager Gui Tannenbaum who is the one that keeps our feet on the ground. He is always involved on the creation process by giving very constructive and honest feedback and helping us when we get stuck, plus he is a great musician. How great is that?
A very big thank you to Karetus and their manager Gui Tannenbaum for their incredible patience and flexibility, it’s much appreciated.