You have a background in metal and punk bands. How come you ended up making drum and bass, dubstep and EDM music?
Growing up in France, we heard about The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk at a very early stage and it had a huge impact on us. We discovered the possibilities that electronic music offered in terms of soundscapes and textures. These duos had a punk attitude in their music that really resonated with us. Soon after, we were swept up by drum and bass, which had a similar intensity and grittiness to metal. We fell in love with the energy and the forward-thinking nature of the scene. In the early 2000s, Pendulum paved the way for blending drum and bass and metal with a super-powerful mix and sound. We started Dirtyphonics by making drum and bass, and we knew we wanted to create something that would blend many influences, including metal. Shortly after, as dubstep evolved into a more distorted version of itself, it shared similarities with drum and bass, just slower, like a breakdown part in a metal song. We’ve always been into trying new things and blending many of our influences together because we get bored quickly doing the same thing over and over. One constant, though, is the energy that comes through in our music.

Mentioning how these can be traced back to how you sound now. Is this blend something you’ve actively sought or did it simply come naturally?
It definitely came naturally. Guitars have always been a central part of our writing process, and you can hear it in the riffs, even when we’re writing synths parts. It was only a matter of time before we incorporated actual guitars, bass, and metal drums into our songs. We wrote “Walk In The Fire” for our debut album, and the love we received for that song, along with the energy it created at shows, motivated us to write more metal/rock-influenced tracks. “Power Now,” “Gasoline,” the entire “Vantablack EP” with Sullivan King, and more recently, ‘Burbank Nights’ are all essential parts of the music we’ve released. Learning the basis of writing and mixing music during our metal bands era definitively has had an impact on the way we sound.  

Since starting out, you’ve released remixes on tons of major labels and collaborated with artists like Linkin Park, Skrillex, Steve Aoki, Kaskade and many more. How do these collabs normally happen? And which have been some of your favorites so far?
Our “Scary Monsters” remix is an interesting story: Skrillex called us while we were in the studio and asked if we wanted to remix his hit song “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.” It was one of his biggest tracks, and since Noisia and Zedd had already remixed it, it was a pretty big challenge for us to come up with something different and unique. He said, “If you’re down, you have 48 hours to deliver it.” We accepted without fully realizing what we were getting ourselves into. We spent the next 48 hours in the studio, working non-stop, and delivered it on time. This was the fastest we’d ever written a track, and I think it forced us to get to the essence of who we are. Sometimes having too much time slows you down because you can imagine too many possibilities and directions. You shouldn’t question your choices too much, or you can lose yourself in the rabbit hole of musical options. Most of these artists approached us for collaborations or remixes. If you had told us when we were teens that we’d work with Marilyn Manson or Linkin Park, we would have freaked out. We’re very honored to have had the chance to do this and are looking forward to the next opportunities.