Joseph Ashworth and William Green joined forces in 2006, and since
then they have progressed their sound into something extremely energetic
and playful whilst keeping a dark, atmospheric edge. They are currently
playing loads all over in Europe, but expected to extend their domain
into much larger scale. Not only the amazing music they create,
which is backed up by the solid experience and enthusiasm, but also
the close connection with the fashion field is definitely worth
noting. Loads of reputable and upcoming releases under their belt,
Joe And Will Ask? will soon go all the way.
- Could you give us a brief outline of what you
do and also introduce each other to us? How would you describe your
partner?
W: This is Joe. He is a boy. (laugh) He's sometimes quite introverted,
very polite good at making music...
J: We've never had to do this before (laugh)
W: He likes earl grey.
J: About tea?
W: Yeah, I'm done then. Joe's go.
J: OK. This is Will. We make music together and also we live in
the same house, so we spend almost every hour of a day together.
He is quite quiet, the same as me. We spend so much time together
and make the same jokes at the same time. We are quite similar I
guess.
W: My best friend from school basically was living with Joe, when
he moved down to London a year before me. I used to hang around
the house quite a lot.
- How did you come up with the band name Joe and Will Ask?
J: We just liked it. It's not anything specific... just fun. We
thought it's catchy.
- What does Ask mean?
J: It depends... whatever else we can get at a time.
-So the meaning is open?
J: Yes it's open because our style changed a lot from when we first
started.
- What kind of stuff including music has inspired you so far?
J: As we are DJs, we spend so many hours a day listening to other
music, so obviously we are inspired by other dance music.
W: What dance music though?
J: Producers like...
W: Style Of Eye
youtube : Warm It Up
J: Yeah he's great at the moment. And Dubfires.
He's a techno producer who's very good. We are also kind of inspired
to be a band by some friends of us,
autoKratz.
We knew them before and they persuaded us to be like this.
- Do you have any music activity before this project?
W: Joe did.
J: I used to make Drum'n'bass music before and always more into
electro, so we decided to mix together.
- Do you create your music together? Do you have roles to share
the production?
W: Not really.
J: With the production, mainly I do most of the
production, and we do together more the DJing and the whole live
sync.
- What kind of equipment do you use to create your music?
J: I produce everything on computer in my bedroom. We use Cubase,
which is quite old, and not many people use Cubase at the moment.
I have plug-ins. We use Ableton for live.
W: For live, we have two laptops, two MIDI keyboards and a mixer.
youtube : Live @KOKO
- Choose one word best describes your sound.
W: Driving.
J: Basic.
- You have put a couple of singles out so far and the new one coming
out in November. Have you started to working for an album? Can you
tell us a little about it?
J: An album is kind of end point at the moment and we are working
towards it. We wanna have more behind us before we started. It's
something always in our minds, but we don't have so much of an idea
what we are gonna do for yet. Obviously we have to make it less
techno, but more songs.
- Your pieces don't have lyrics yet, but do you
have an intention of writing lyrics at some point? If so, who would
sing your songs?
J: Yeah. We are writing a song with a singer in a band called The
RGBs. She's called Becky who has got an amazing voice. We are doing
a song together right now and will see how it turns up.
- So you don't sing your own songs?
W: Nah.
J: Nah. You should hear that. (laugh)
youtube : The RGBs Live @Birdwatching
-It seems your background is quite fashion orientated.
Can you tell us how fashion has been involved in your music activity?
W: Music wise, Balenciaga used our songs for their A/W 08, and Joe
does a lot of music for runways and stuff. That's kind of why we
started as well as to do fashion I suppose. I do a lot of fashion
parties because of my college and there was electro music then which
was how I got into. I kept going on and on Joe to make electro songs
for me, and he did and it was good.
youtube : Balenciaga FW08
- Do you do fashion design as well?
W: Yeah. I'm just doing my final year at St. Martin's.
- Where do you usually get your clothes from? Any recommendation
for shops?
W: You know the clothes shop called ''twosee''
J: In Carnaby street.
W: Levi's are very kind to give us clothes.
J: We just got clothes to get them to us.
W: If I could choose any label... er... I don't know what I'd like...
I like ''Patrik Rzepski'' and ''David David''. I quite like just
plain clothes to be honest, jeans and shirt like Levi's.
- What's your favourite item of clothing?
W: I have a semi-see-through silver jump suit (laugh)
- Did you make it?
W: Nah, I don't really like it though. It's kind of horrible.
J: I like the t-shirts we made, our own t-shirts. I always wear
t-shirts that well designed. I have 10 of our t-shirts and have
1 for everyday in a week, wash them and wear them again. This is
my one of other t-shirts.
- You've been involved in the music business for
a few years now and also strongly related to the Shoreditch, East
London scene. Have you seen any change of the scene, compared with
the time when you started?
W: It looks like West End or something.
J: Yea, I think East London was more exciting.
W: It was kind of before our time, It was never that cool. It's
just got a lot more money in and everyone from Central London comes
here.
J: It's moving outwards. Places in Dalston now are just like places
in Shoreditch 2 years ago, them and Hackney. We just moved to East
London for the first time. Before that, we have lived in North London
for a few years. We've been living in London for 4-5 years now.
- Where would you see yourselves in the next 10
years?
W: Playing in O2 Arena with Justice supporting us.
J: (laugh) Hopefully, just playing around the world. In 10 years,
it'd be nice to have a couple of albums finished, and have... you
know...
W: A nice house.
- So you'd definitely be doing music?
J: Yea me for the rest of my life.
W: I might try to do a clothing label, at least I'll have a go.
- You have played extensively, not only in the UK, but also loads
in Europe. Have you got any good tales from gigs you have done?
J: We've played in Bucharest, in Romania, which was a really strange
city. It was cool.
W: Nothing really happened though.
J: Actually it was a weird night. It was in that posh club we played.
I don't think there're many posh clubs there, so we were playing
for really rich people. The club was almost like inside of an iPod.
Everything was white any curvy.
W: But the rest of Romania was really like, poor...
J: Stray dogs and everything everywhere.
W: That's not really a tale, is it? Lots of tales
are about getting drunk. One of the best show was probably our first
live show, which was when we played for Shoreditch Festival last
year. Everyone was having fun and people loved our music, which
was good.
J: My favourite show we've done so far was ''Durrr'' at The End
which was amazing, because so many of our friends came down. We
didn't really know how much people liked us as it's indie kind of
venue.
W: Their sound system was amazing.
J: It's definitely our favourite show.
W: Shame it's closing.
J: But I'm glad that we played when it's still there.
youtube : Live @Durrr
- Have you got a plan to play anywhere else? Are
you looking to come to Japan?
W: We'd love to!
J: We keep meeting people who are trying to sort us out, so I think
it's gonna happen next year. It's probably one country I wanna go
to most at the moment.
- You haven't been there, have you?
J: No, never been.
W: Everyone told me it's amazing, and I think I should go.
youtube : Hell Hawk
- Lastly, do you have a message for your Japanese
fans?
W: Book us! (laugh)
J: Come to our show in Japan when we have one.
