Clubbing Magazine


Chris Agnelli and Robbie Nelson have been writing and producing dance music together since 1997. Their massive Balaeric classics “El Nino” and “Everyday” have helped define the sound of the Ibiza party spirit, while five UK top thirty hits and countless buzz chart remixes have ensured that the pair remain synonymous with the more musical end of club music. Robbie and Chris have remixed major artists from rock legends U2 to dance music kings Ferry Corsten and Armin Van Burren. Recent club incursions have been with touch-ups for Matt Darey, Jon the Dentist, Scott Bond vs. Solar Stone and former label-mates Chicane. Agnelli and Nelson produce music for Xtravaganza and under pseudonyms (Afterburn, Cortez) for labels such as Tsunami and ID&T. Their most recent original track “Holding Onto Nothing” was championed by the likes of Oakenfold and Paul Van Dyk, who made a special re-rub of the track for his own Vandit imprint. On the travel front, the Irish duo have been spinning throughout the world from the U.S. to Japan, as well as regular European and UK dates such as Passion, Godskitchen, Gatecrasher and Slinky. Robbie and Chris are represented in the UK by the Fresh DJ agency and internationally by Dance Therapy (Holland). Clubbing Magazine talked to the lads when they visited Denmark.
You have released the excellent track ”Holding On To Nothing” where did the idea / inspiration come from for this track? - It is always difficult to say, where the inspiration comes from. There are all sorts of elements that inspire. It’s just how you feel in the time of your life. We never force the outcome, we just let the motion come. Do you feel that it is a blue stamp to be released and remixed by Paul Van Dyk? - Our record company phoned us, saying that they got the Paul Van Dyk remix, and we asked how it was, and they played some different sections. I liked that he had put a kick drum on. And he did not mean it to be a remix, more like an edit.
How come it’s released on Vandit and Extravaganza? - We have been with Extravaganza since 1998 and in 2000 they were bough by Sony, so we were signed to Sony for the World, but in 2002 they de-merged and became separately. Extravaganza was an independent label, and they had to find partners, so we signed it Vandit in Germany, Central Station in Australia. All other singles were on Sony worldwide. When they de-merged we were free to pick labels, and the situation got better for us. When Sony got the track, they did not really care. How has it been received by the audience? - It was an important single for us. We have been away for two years, taking one year off. We have used all our energy from 1998 to 2002. And it was our comeback single. And had it not taken off then we had major problems - but we came back, after two years away working in the studio with different stuff, and not DJ´ing much.
	You are also working in the studio – can you tell us a bit about the new tracks? - We are working on a lot of stuff right now. We took some time off, we have been doing remixes, for Armin Van Buuren, Ferry Corsten, Matt Darey , Stone Cold and Alex Gold - we are just doing remixes. We build a new studio in January and we got other sorts of ventures in the background that we can’t talk about now, but hopefully it will come to something. We have been talking with Ferry Corsten’s wife as a world wide agent. There were quite a lot of things happening, we had four singles in the last nine month. We did some festivals. We have just this week finished the next Agnelli & Nelson single. A new Afterbrun single and new Cortez single is on its way. There will maybe be a new Agnelli & Nelson album on its way. We got some ideas for an album hybrid.
You have also used the guise “Afterburn” where you have done the brilliant “North Pole”/ “Frattboy” and you have released “Summer Sun / Winter Sun” on Ferry Corsten´s Tsunami sub label Tatsumaki – why use this guise and release it on Ferry´s label? - Extravaganza has the name Agnelli & Nelson signed, and they had a schedule for the Agnelli & Nelson releases, albums and stuff, and we had written a tracked that’s didn’t fit on Agnelli & Nelson, then we came up with another name, we came up with Afterburn. Extravaganza put the first Afterburn single out in 2000, “North pole” And “Frattboy”, they never took up the option for the next single. Afterburn is more an underground project for us. It is a bit darker it is not a big commercial sales thing. Not under a big pressure to make chart hits, it’s something we like to do, besides the Agnelli & Nelson thing. We do not expect Afterburn to chart, like the releases from Agnelli & Nelson. With “El Nino”, we had advertising, there was this program called Eastenders, big soap opera, we had advertised, we had posters, We became this big, big thing, we never wanted to be, it was a huge success, every Agnelli & Nelson release had to be bigger. Afterburn was just like, let’s do music, let’s go back to what we did before it came so big. Our next Agnelli & Nelson single has to be vocal, to get up to the highs of “Holding On to Nothing”, but there will properly come an instrumental version, we can do what we want on Extravaganza, we are independently so we have the freedom. Tiësto does not do 50.000 pound videos and go for the charts, and Armin Van Buuren…. Ferry does have chart hits, “Sweet sorrow”, it’s not really a radio hit, we sometimes get uncomfortable with the chart hits, we were offered to do “The Top Of The Pops”, a big TV-show in the UK. We got the phone call, you are on the “Top Of The Pops” this week, you have to go do it. We are not doing it, so we sent three black girls, on drums, on guitar, on keyboard, and a vocalist. We would not go, it is not us. We are producers. This is getting too commercial. We just got uncomfortable with the whole “Top Of The Pops” and Radio One. It became out of control, it became so big, and now we would like to pull it back, “Holding On To Nothing” is a BIG commercial thing, we love it. You have used the guise Quincey & Sonance for remixing U2´s “Beautiful Day” and “Elevation” – how come? Is it due to name right or music style? - A friend of mine and Robbie’s, a guy call Richard Rainey, we have known him for about ten years he is from the same time as we are. He recorded the U2 album and Robbie and I worked with Richard, he has mixed a lot of our singles. He has been with us from the start. I actually worked 2 years with Richard, before working with Robbie. U2 was looking for dance mixes. They got Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk and people like that to do the mixes. They were not that happy, they phoned us, and said look, can you do a remix, we said yes. But Richard was involved, so it wasn’t an Agnelli & Nelson remix, so we called it “Quincey & Sonance”. The thing with “Beautiful day” was that they wanted “Even better than the real thing” the perfecto remix, they wanted a big up club track, which we delivered. They phoned us the next day, Bono said this is amazing, this is perfect, and this is what we wanted. With “Elevation”, the brief was, do what you want to do, so it was like, let’s do it. “Elevation” is a really up poppy song, let go the other way, let’s go dark, Break beat, and lets us make it dirty. The thing with “Beautiful Day” was there was only made a few hundred copies of our mix ever produced. We were tortured by DJ´s phoning us wanting that mix. We had only two copies ourselves, and we couldn’t get Island records or U2 to make more, everybody just wanted it, but no one could get it.
Interview by: Nikolaj Chorfitzen