By Marco Bombaci

 

We caught up with Micha Heyboer from Tinlicker after his debut show in Sydney. The show took place at one of Sydney’s legendary venues; Club 77. It was part of the This Is Not Our Universe Album tour, where Micha toured solo to three major cities in Australia. We discuss the ABGT and Anjunadeep Prague shows, the duos debut artist album, touring and more!

 

Come with us as we step Behind The Decks with Tinlicker!

 

Firstly, congratulations on the first of 3 shows here in Australia for your debut album tour! How was performing to an Aussie audience for the first time?

It’s was good! They were very enthusiastic. I recognize some of them that were in Prague two weeks ago!

​

Yeah, we have a massive Anjuna-family that loves to travel to shows all around the world!

Yeah pretty crazy, and amazing that people are into this… travelling the world for music!

 

You have just come from two massive shows in Prague; ABGT350 and The Anjunadeep – Open Air parties. What was it like to play to an arena audience, and then the following day play outdoors at the famous Křižíkova Fontána?

The indoor show was really good, but it was over so quickly! Because it was like less than an hour and you’re so far from the crowd, as the stage is so high up, but it was good! For me the Sunday, closing the Anjunadeep stage felt better, with a little bit more time to play… tell a little story, and then I mean it's a closing of a whole weekend, everybody from the label was there. It was like one big party - it was really special. 

 

I can’t believe I missed that!  Although I was at home watching the live streams.  

Well that's good too… you know, in your pajamas HAHA! 

 

You have just released your debut artist album This Is Not Our Universe on 27th September, along with announcing quite a substantial tour schedule. What excites you most about releasing the album and touring? 

We are just happy that people are willing to book us! HAHA! It’s amazing that the album is well received, and we are travelling all over the world to play music that we make, for people that want to hear it. It’s not what I do it for; I make music because I like music, but it's really nice that other people take so much out of it, and appreciate what we do. I was just talking to someone who says she wasn’t feeling too well for a long time, and music helped to make her feel better! It’s incredible you know?!

This Is Not Our Universe showcases some forward-thinking sound design techniques. Where does the whole concept of heartfelt song writing, house grooves, and progressive interludes come from? You both come from slightly different music backgrounds, how does that all work together?

We (Jordi & I) don’t come from a trance background, so we don’t want to be boxed, we just make a tune. Sometimes it’s house, and sometimes it's more trance-y. We try to be as broad as we can, and also that’s the way we play. We go from deep house to trance tracks; I like when the whole set is like a story. It’s not fixed to a certain tempo, I want to be open minded, and I guess it helps because we come from different backgrounds. I don't follow too much of what other people are doing, we just do what we feel like. We see some real Anjunabeats fans and they expect maybe a bit more up-tempo, trance-like stuff, but they slowly get what we are trying to do. It’s good to see that people are in to what we are doing! 

 

Do you tour regularly as together as a duo?

Sometimes we do, I am also in a drum n bass group, and he (Jordi) just became a dad, so for us to actually not die from no sleep we have to sometimes tour separately HAHA! I also like to play by myself sometimes… I mean it’s fun to tour together, but it is also fun being alone by myself, and being in control. I think Jordi thinks the same way, he likes DJing a lot by himself. It’s nice together, but it’s also nice apart! As I mentioned, I don’t mind playing by myself, I hope the crowd doesn't! HAHA! 

 

The album art of This Is Not Our Universe is rather captivating, and forms a tetralogy of work with the singles; Lost, Breezeblocks, and Need You. Where did this idea come from? 

We came up with the album title first, and then we were like, “who can create a kind of like an illusionary universe?” The guy who took the photos and did the art I have worked with before, he is really good at what he does! So we wanted super detailed universal pictures… and then he came up with this idea of having multiple album covers and single covers. You eventually see the end product and it all ties in well together. 

 

You have done quite a bit of remix work such as; “Breezeblocks” by Alt-J, and one of my personal favourites, “Underwater” by Gabriel & Dresden… What do you look for in tracks that you would like to remix?

Well, we have to like it first. Most of the remixes start because we think it is a cool tune, and we want to be able to play it in our sets. So we think “this may be cool”, start playing around… some turn out great, and some end up in the garbage. It’s just stuff that we like and we think that we can play. For instance “Breezeblocks” - Alt-J liked it and then it came out officially, we never meant to do a remix that would be released officially, we just the things we like; we remix… or try too!  

 

I have to ask, on behalf of many fans, where did the name “Tinlicker” come from?

It was a bit of a joke! I started Tinlicker by myself, you know the concept of circuit bending? You solder a synthesizer, you take it apart, you solder it back together and it starts to make sounds. Well if you’re a one man band, you’re soldering and you don't have enough hands you have to use your tongue. So you have to lick the tin! 

The other meaning - you know we don’t try to take things for granted so go to the bottom of things, scrape to the bottom (of the tin) - But yeah it was a joke at first. 

 

What does being part of Anjuna-Family mean to you? 

To be honest I didn’t know so much about it before, until we started to release on the label. It is amazing to see that it really is a big family; to see everybody helps each other and it’s this strong community all over the world, where everybody travels for these shows! I haven’t seen it in any other genre. That there is a label so strong. I had to get used to it.

 

And coming from Drum n Bass, that must be different… 

Yeah! It’s more urban and darker stuff … yeah, yeah it’s been a warm welcome! 

 

And finally, we ask everyone the same closing question. What is the craziest thing you have seen from behind the decks? 

Behind the decks… (pauses)... marriage proposals but I think that's becoming normal now HAHA! 

No… It wasn’t a Tinlicker show, but I was playing this big festival and there was this huge mosh pit going on and I saw this girl sitting on somebody's shoulders they walked into the mosh pit and then they fell over and they kind of disappeared, and I was like, “Where did they go?” And then 3 days later, my girlfriend works at a night venue in the city I live in, she was like “you know one of my colleagues was at your concert and she went face forward into the crowd, she came in all bruised and I asked what happened?!” She was like “yeah I saw your boyfriend play live” yeah pretty rowdy!