Delta Heavy x Dirty Audio Talk On Massive New Collaboration “Stay” [LISTEN + INTERVIEW]

Two electronic music’s finest artists, Delta Heavy and Dirty Audio, just collaborated for a track of epic proportions!

“Stay” will have you literally wanting to pause the moment in time in which you heart it — because it’s just that infections! Dubstep meets drum and bass for a perfectly intense blend of wubs, with soft, futuristic elements and melodic arrangements to match as singer Holly‘s vocals seep into your soul and melt your bass-loving heart.

We had the privilege to talk with these guys on how this amazing song came to be. It’s truly a match made in bass heaven, and a true blessing for both fan bases.

Delta Heavy x Dirty Audio — “Stay” featuring Holly (Out Now via Monstercat)

What does this track mean to you guys?

Delta Heavy: It means a lot. Funnily enough it’s our first collaboration with another artist in the bass world that has actually seen the the light of day. It’s also our debut release on Monstercat, who we were talking to for quite a while about working together, so on both counts it feels very satisfying.  Andrew DA and ourselves have been really excited about this track since we finished it, it’s gone off everywhere we’ve all played it so we’re feeling very proud on release day.  The response so far has been amazing.

Dirty Audio: This song is so different from everything i’ve ever produced, so it was really fun to experiment and create a new hybrid song. The vocals are really pretty, and I’ve been closing out all my sets with it. I think it’s a great song to close out with.

How did the massive collaboration come about?

Delta Heavy: I moved to LA last year so our manager was looking for artists here to collaborate with and suggested Dirty Audio, who we jumped at the chance to work with, as we are big fans of his sound and had supported tracks of his like ‘Gorilla Glue’ in our sets and ‘Clipped’ which featured in our BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix.  We got in the studio one day just before this summer and I played him a few rough ideas we had including the Stay top line.  We had the vocal done and the chord progression but not much else, but Andrew loved the vibe and wanted to jump on it.  We slowed the bpm down a touch to 85/170 and the track spiraled from there.

Dirty Audio: Originally I was supposed to remix one of their songs, but we got in the studio and ended up making an original instead!

The decision to pair the sweet vocals and build with such a nasty drop — who thought this craziness up!?

Delta Heavy: Well sweet vocals and nasty drops are somewhat of a trademark of ours but with this it was entirely a mutual decision by all of us.  In the first studio session with Andrew we sorted the intro but didn’t really nail a drop idea so we left it with him for a couple of weeks and then he sent us over an initial  idea which basically sounded like the finished drop. We were all like ‘yep, this is a banger now’ so we went in on it and added a few our of signature bass sounds and drum hits and together we very quickly finished the track from there.

Dirty Audio: We all agreed that we want to make something that we can play in our sets. Since both our sets are high energy, we decided to make it heavy! The vocals sounded kind of weird when they were slowed down or speed up too much, so we gave it a drumstep/dnb feel to keep the energy.

How did Holly end up in the mix?

Delta Heavy: She was the first — and one of the most important components — with the track. Si had written the vocal with her in London a while ago and we were convinced we had a strong vocal both lyrically and melodically but we couldn’t really come up with a concept for the rest of the track we were happy with.  Originally I think we imagined it turning into a bit more of a more minimal DnB vibe but Andrew immediately blew new life into the idea and the rest is history!

Dirty Audio: Delta Heavy had the acapella recorded with some chords. We got in the studio together, built the structure, then bounced stems back and forth online & finished it!