Unless you've been living under a rock, you can't quite escape the infectious current UK Number One Smash "We No Speak Americano" by Yolanda Be Cool & D-Cup. We wrote about the video when it first came out in June and predicted it would be a bit of smash so it comes as no surprise that it's topped the UK charts yesteray. Johnson Peterson (one half of Yolanda Be Cool) recently answered some burning questions about their runaway success with "We No Speak Americano", the love they’ve received from the hit single and what the chart-topping dance producers have in store for us next…
You've now achieved Number 1's in 9 countries (Denmark, Spain, Holland, Luxembourg, Ireland, Sweden, Romania, New Zealand & now the U.K) with "We No Speak Americano". Did you ever expect the track to be so successful?
Not at all. We wanted to create a fun party track that could be played poolside in Sydney or early on in a club. We were more than happy when we discovered that some of our favourite DJ’s/Producers such as Round Table Knights, Solo and Mowgli were playing it.
Tell us about you're collaboration with D Cup, how you discovered Renato Carsone's original version, and how you produced it into a 2010 dance-floor hit.
Well D-Cup is an amazingly talented producer and he’s on the same label as us (Sweat It Out). He lives around the corner from us, so a collaboration was always going to happen. As for the original, Little Bambalam (the amazing Female DJ’s on the same booking agency as us in Australia) were playing the original in their party sets and suggested we sample it. So we did! As for the re-jig that we did, it was completed in two sessions in the studio.
The single has obviously become one of the biggest tracks in Ibiza this summer, but where have you witnessed the best and biggest reaction from it when you've played it live?
Hmm… Well I guess it’s probably our biggest track that we play in our sets at the moment, so it goes pretty crazy everywhere. We played a gig at RUST in Copenhagen the other day and the crowd there were ABSOLUTELY crazy, so that was awesome. We definitely want to go back there.
What would you say to the people who brand your sound as 'Gimmicky House'? How would you describe yourselves as artists?
Well, we are open to new names to describe our sound, I haven’t heard that one! But we try to push what we call ‘Party Tech’. Other’s call it ‘Midget House’ or ‘Gypsy House’. We also like ‘Quirk House’, ‘Non-Serious Techno’, ‘Batty House’, ‘Non-Batty House’ [laughs] It’s all good If it makes you dance and if you like it. I think Teki Latex said it best when he said that he likes hard stuff when it’s creative and groovy, and minimalist stuff when it’s not boring nor serious… We kind of agree.
When can we expect the follow-up to 'We No Speak Americano'?
Well we had planned to have it (the follow-up) finished already but we have been in Europe for the last six weeks and D-Cup is now in the USA. Hopefully we can have a week together in August and we can get something done. We already have lots of ideas, so the answer to that would be soon!
Tell us about the shows you have planned for the summer.
We are back in Australia for Splendour In The Grass which is a three-day long festival. Then, we’re going to be doing some club shows and after that we are coming back to do gigs all over Europe between August 10th and September 20th. After that we shall head back to Australia for the Parklife festivals.
Finally, we'd like you to sum up how it feels to have a Number 1 single here in the U.K.
It’s surreal to say the least, but obviously a privilege too.