With recent releases "Only Thing We Know" with Alle Farben and "Woke Up In Bangkok" with Deepend high in our Sunny Chills playlist, we thought it was time to have a chat with the German duo that is Younotus! Did they only end up collaborating with Kelvin Jones 'cause they thought he was Kwabs?
What kind of music did you listen to growing up? How has that influenced you?
Tobi: I listened to a lot of Deep Garage Metal Funk at the age of 9-12. Haha just kiding :D That phase was over when I discovered Hiphop. After having been in a few bands I was really done with making music in a larger group because there are always fights about every little detail. So I got into DJing and electronic music and am going for it to this day.
Gregor: I was more into Progressive Indian Grime Bass which led to an intense childhood ;) No, seriously. I grew up to a lot of jazz that my father was playing. I honestly was quite into pop music until my brother introduced me to electronic music. When I started producing my songs always had poppy vibe to it.
What made you decide to create music and become an artist?
Gregor: I was annoyed that a lot of tracks I liked always had something in it what I did not dig or were missing something. So I thought I would give it a try to make it better or rather more in my taste.
Tobi: I think there is no specific reason for making music. It’s just a desire I have.
Who are your favourite artists at the moment?
We really dig what Zedd is releasing at the moment. And you can always count on Galantis. Their stuff has so much energy, it’s incredible!
Has your music changed overtime?
Well, we had our big breakthrough with the song „Supergirl“ with Alle Farben and Anna Naklab as a singer. This was a cover of an old pop song in a rather electronic production. That’s what we are still doing today: electronic pop music. From time to time we really love to create club bangers that do not orientate towards pop. These are for our live shows where we like to go „full on“.
What can you tell us about the new single ‘Only Thing We Know’?
The funniest thing is the way we met the singer Kelvin Jones: there is a football tournament every year hosted by Sony Music. Tobi playing midfield, Gregor as a goalkeeper. And there was this one guy in one of the opposing teams who made us mad because he was really good and even scored against us. We thought he was Kwabs, the guy who had this huge hit „Walk“ in 2015. So when we were showering after the tournament ended, we asked him if he wants to do a songwriting session with us. He was down and we agreed to have our managements arrange a date in the following week. So our management contacted Kwabs management and they answered: Kwabs doesn’t know these boys and besides he does not play soccer. Not until then we found out we talked to Kelvin Jones :D We still did this songwriting session together and „Only Thing We Know“ is the result.
What do you do when you’re not in the studio making music?
To be honest there is not that much time that we don’t spend in the studio or on tour. So if there is a little bit of freetime we really enjoy playing soccer or beach volley with our friends. We really see our friends not very often so if we are free we always try to meet as many as possible.
What other artists would you love to collaborate with and why?
Wow, there are soo many singers we’d love to have a song with! Just to name a few: there is Sandro Cavazza, who sang „Without You“ by Avicii. Rita Ora’s voice is incredible. And last but not least Sam Martin always nails his vocal performance.
Best concert/performance/event you’ve been to and why?
We have to say Parookaville Festival in Germany last year. We played a spontaneous closing set after Paul Kalkbrenner on the second mainstage which was INSANE! The energy of the crowd we felt on stage is not comparable to anything we had so far. We played for two hours, it was raining like hell, Sunday night at 2AM, the festival was literally over but people just did not want to leave. It was a great moment.
Any news we should know about?! What are your upcoming plans for the rest of the year and what can we expect to see?
Did you already listen to our single „Woke Up in Bangkok“ which was released a few weeks ago? We did this song as a collaboration with our homie Deepend and it’s a nice vibey summer tune. After these two collaborations „Woke Up in Bangkok“ and „Only Thing We Know“ with Alle Farben, we will focus on us being the main artist on our upcoming singles. We already have finished some of them but we still have to remain quiet about those :)
3 words to describe you and your music?
So much wow…hahaha!
Find Only Thing We Know and Woke Up In Bangkok in our playlist below!
