Locnville. double trouble or twice as nice?

“I started making music because I’m fascinated at how powerful it can be…”- Andrew Chaplin.

Locnville is New York born and South African raised twins Andrew and Brian Chaplin. As their surname suggests the two are in fact related to the late and great Charlie Chaplin and with a connection like that one wonders if that has affected their success or how people perceive them, Andrew explains “For people that know Charlie Chaplin and what his ethos was, I would definitely say that the relation affects their view of us. In terms of whether it has affected our success or not, I’m not too sure. If it did, I would hope it’s for the best!”

I have to know, are the twins, double trouble or twice as nice? Well, that all “depends on the day! laughs Andrew.

How they picked the name, Locnville “Is quite a long story” says Andrew “but basically it’s a metaphorical way of saying that we have both American and South African influences in our lives.”

As to their music influences Brian explains “There isn’t one specific artist or group as a main influence…” he adds “I like to take a little bit of everything and interpret it into our music.” He describes their sound as “Melodic Hip Hop infused with electronic and organic synths.”

Andrew explains how they started making music, as something almost instinctive. He says “Our family has always been quite musically orientated, so I think we got a pretty good sense of melody and rhythm from a young age. Music, in general, has always interested me. I find it amazing how music can completely alter your mood or your perception of something. I think, for me, I started making music because I’m fascinated at how powerful it can be…”

In the beginning their focus was on making rock music but then they started experimenting with Hip Hop, Brian explains that the somewhat drastic change “came purely from a change in circumstances.” He continues “When we moved back to the states at 11, we weren’t able to play our instruments because of sound restrictions, so we started downloading Hip Hop instrumentals and writing to them – and eventually really got into it.”

At a relatively young age their musical endeavours had them working with Gabi Le Roux and R&B soul singer, Given Phike and then to top it all off their group III then earned double platinum status from Mxit Music alone. Andrew says “It was a really good learning experience for us, as well as the fact that it was a lot of fun. Gabi le Roux is an internationally acclaimed producer; he really helped us get a sense of what the music industry actually entails. There’s a lot of stuff behind the scenes that people don’t really know about, he gave us a sense of what that is and how to deal with it in the most appropriate way. Given Phike is an amazing singer, and he really gave us a sense of cultural diversity in music and how it can work together. Our history with Mxit Music, that’s a different story, it was an unexpected excursion that ended up making it possible for us to pursue Locnville.”

After their success with III and Mxit Music Andrew and Brian decided to create Contra-Banned.com as they felt “like many forms of music distribution, artists end up getting a tiny percentage at the end of it all for the music that they have dedicated time and effort to…” Brians adds “We came up with The VirtualCD concept around the same time that we were recording the album, so when it was done we figured we’d be the first to release our debut in The VirtualCD format and see how people took to it…”

Their album name “Retro Electro” came about to “describe the ideology of the album. Our reasoning being that we wanted to bring back the “Retro” or “70′s” ethos of music where more thought was put into the lyrics and the music was all round more socially aware than the majority of today’s popular music. The “Electro” part was really just making the music more commercially viable for today’s pop culture. However, the Deluxe Edition that will be available in stores February 2010 is named after our debut single, Sun In My Pocket, for obvious reasons of recognition.”

Recording the album “was great” Brian continues “We did the recording the day after we finished school while the Plett Rage was going on, so of course no one was in town and it gave us a chance to focus purely on the album. All in all, the album only took about 2 weeks to get done…”

Andrew’s favourite track off the album “is hard to choose” he elaborates “To be honest, I love all of the tracks on the album, but my personal favourite is definitely “Get To You”. I was really happy with the production on that track, and it has a very personal message in it.”

Off the wall antics took place whilst in studio, as to what exactly happened Brian laughingly says “I probably shouldn’t divulge the details…”

Their live shows have had some interesting moments, Brian explains “we once did show where there was no stage and nothing separating us from the crowd – we both had a bottle of water and a glass of something special on stage, and the people in front went a little crazy and knocked the glasses all over us and hit the laptop off its stand, luckily Andrew managed to catch it mid-performance, but the whole experience was quite an interesting one.” Interesting moments aside, Andrew’s favourite part about performing is “that you really get a sense of the diversity of people that listen to the music at performances. I also just love to jam out with the peeps!”

They happened to have just released the video for their second single, 6 Second Poison and it already looks to be a very popular follow up to Sun In My Pocket, even more successful dare I say? The sleek look of the video gives it an international “feel”. Andrew says “We decided to go with 6 Second Poison as the follow up single because it’s so different from Sun In My Pocket and we wanted to give people a sense of the versatility on the album. The concept of the video was dreamt up by the director, Kyle Lewis. Kyle has an amazing ability to convert a song into a very appropriate visual representation. He also directed the video for Sun In My Pocket, he wanted to go more ‘stylized’ on this one. It was a 2 day shoot that took place at the AFDA Studios in Cape Town, the rest was shot in an airplane hangar in Stellenbosch. It was a lot of fun to shoot, and we had an amazingly talented and young crew working on it…”

The third single they are releasing will be a surprise; just because “We have two specific tracks in mind to pick from for the new single” explains Brian “they’re both quite different to each other, so depending on where the world is in a few months time, we’ll be able to choose the next one.”

They are releasing the Deluxe Edition of the album, Sun in My Pocket, in February, later this year. The Deluxe Edition will have completely new artwork as well as the fact that all of the tracks have been re-mastered by Ministry of Sound’s Wez Clarke. It will also have some remixes that haven’t, as of yet, been released, as well as a DVD that will include their music videos and other visuals to do with Locnville.

There is also word of a second album, which Brian confirms as true. He says of it “people can expect something slightly more experimental – we’re going more “epic” on the production and playing a lot more with our vocal range, so don’t expect Retro Electro. I really think we’ve stepped up the production side of things as well as our vocal range on this new one, I’m really excited to see how people take it.”

The duo have “just signed a deal with Just Music” something Andrew “is really happy about it. They understand our vision and aims, and are able to make them a reality. We’ve also signed a licensing deal with Sony Music in Belgium for the Netherlands and Brussels region, so I’m really hoping that will give us a foot in for the European market.”

As to what they would like to achieve in the music industry Brian says “The only specific goal is to see how far we can take Locnville. I want to expand our boundaries by collaborating with people you wouldn’t expect us to; I want to do it all.” They do plan to go international but they wanted to have “a foundation” in their home country before taking it overseas.

The two clearly never have been satisfied with only being artists and their enterprises ranging from record / publishing company to a film production company reflect just that. Andrew explains “We’re both shareholders in our own record / publishing company. We both love film and other aspects of the entertainment industry. Our film production company recently did Flash Republic’s new music video, which hasn’t been released yet, and we plan to do many more for other artists in the near future. I’ve always been interested in the ‘back-end’ of business. I love to work behind the scenes, there’s so much more to all of this than it seems.

Locnville are on the rise and with what they have accomplished an even higher level of success is sure to be achieved in the near future.

My interview first appeared on Musical Mover and Shaker!