Not too many people had heard of Pitchback at the beginning of the year. The duo stormed onto the scene a few weeks ago when they made their Revealed Recordings debut with “Cosmic Dark”. The track began making the rounds in Hardwell’s sets in February, and became an important aspect of the label boss’s Ultra Miami set. Their discography is surprisingly short, with just one track previously on Armada Trice last June. We talked to Jorrit and Ralph about how they balanced work and school, what has changed between releases No. 1 and 2 and plenty more. Enjoy!

Interview

How would you describe your sound to those who may not be familiar with it?

Crossover between EDM and Hardstyle.

What was it like to focus on music full-time while in school?

Pretty easy to be honest. The last three years we were studying at the Herman Brood Academy. It’s a school for all kind of musicians so we had al the time and space to develop our productions skills while we were studying.

What is the more difficult part of producing for you guys: starting a project or finishing a project?

Depends on the project. Sometimes we start a project and finish it the same week but we also had projects that took more time to finish.

Your first label release, “Get Up!,” came out about a year ago. How much has changed since then?

We are definitely more experienced then when “Get Up!” came out. Since then we learned a lot about how this industry works and also our production skills got improved.

You guys just released “Cosmic Dark” on Revealed Recordings. What inspired that track, and how was the production process?

We started “Cosmic Dark” in the summer of 2015. We did some kind of a production holiday. The inspiration came from an old melody that Jorrit had made many years ago. After we settled a small part of the breakdown we let the project lay low for a while and continued it after 2 or 3 months. When we decided to continue the project we had our first version finished very quickly. But we changed the drop several times until we had the version that is released.

Did you guys follow the hype around “Cosmic Dark” before being announced as the producers? Was it interesting to watch the Internet speculate?

Yes we did, haha. We knew it was going to be played in Hardwell’s Ultra Miami set. So we were checking the livestream in the middle of the night at home. It was so sick to see such a big artist as Hardwell playing your track in front of thousands of people. After that we checked 1001tracklist, Youtube and Soundcloud a lot. It was pretty funny to see how all these people were speculating about the producer(s) behind it.

What has been your favorite moment in your musical career so far?

Our career is still in a early stage so hopefully we’re getting a lot of new favourite moments in the future. For now it’s definitely the recognition that we get from Hardwell and also W&W who always responding to our tracks with tips and tricks.

If you could give one piece of advice to yourselves, what would it be and why?

Work harder than the rest!

If you could collaborate with any artist, regardless of genre, who would it be and why?

There are many artist that we look up to! Like, Hardwell, W&W, Blasterjaxx, Headhunterz, Martin Garrix, etc. That would be definitely a dream.

What is in store for Pitchback this summer?

A lot of studio sessions. We finished our school so this summer were going to work our asses off to make a follow up for “Cosmic Dark”.

Top Five Songs

1. DJ Kenno – Will Grigg’s On Fire
2. Hardwell & Thomas Newson – 8Fifty
3. DVBBS – 24K
4. Seth Hills – Raise Your Hands
5. Paris Blohm feat. Blondfire – Something About You (Conro’s Ultra Miami 2016 Remix)

The future is nothing but bright for Pitchback. Studio time will continue to bring huge results for them. Stay on the lookout for that “Cosmic Dark” follow-up!

About Thursday Thoughts:

At Dance Rebels, we strive to bring our readers as close to their favorite artists as possible. One of the best ways to make that connection is to discuss a wide range of topics with the biggest names in the dance music scene. If there is an artist that you think we need to talk to, reach out to us on Facebook or Twitter!