Decent Rides On Like We Do, Vinyl Culture, And Running Interloot Records

With a steadily growing reputation for blending deep house, techno, jazz, disco and hip-hop influences into their own distinctive sound, Decent Rides have become one of the most exciting underground duos to emerge from Bavaria in recent years.

Through releases on respected labels including Quintessentials, Morris Audio, Moment Cinetique, Inhale Exhale and their own Interloot Records, they’ve developed a style that balances meticulous drum programming with warm musicality and dancefloor energy.

Now they return with Like We Do on Fortunea Records, a four-track release that moves from peak-time house workouts to melancholic deep grooves and cosmic dub textures. We caught up with the duo to discuss the new release, their creative process, inspirations and what’s next.

Like We Do feels like a presentation of several different sides of Decent Rides. Was there a particular concept or story connecting these four tracks when you were putting the EP together?

Not really. There wasn’t a specific concept or story connecting the four tracks.

Our main goal was to create different moods for different playtimes. We always try to keep our music as multifaceted as possible, so it felt natural to explore different house styles with our signature sound throughout the EP. Honestly, projects don’t always end up exactly the way we imagine them when we start out, actually almost never, haha.

The title track is built around powerful drum programming and evolving synth sequences. What elements do you feel define the Decent Rides sound today compared to your earliest productions?

On the title track “Like We Do,” the focus was actually on a groovy, slightly rough drum pattern that pushes forward, along with driving synth sequences inspired by Detroit music.

We’d say that in the past, we approached house tracks more like hip-hop productions, very sample-based, with rough and shuffled drums, a lot more swing, and everything was kept very dusty and lo-fi, except for a few edits. Today, we pay more attention to making sure the tracks work well on the dance floor and jam around more with different synths and stuff like that. Still, we find it hard to come up with a common thread, which means that some of the tracks sound very different. Maybe that’s part of what makes our music interesting. Anyway, we hope you can always feel and hear a touch of Decent Rides in our tracks 🙂

Your music draws from house, techno, jazz, disco and hip-hop. Which artists, records or scenes have had the biggest influence on your musical identity over the years?

The list would be too long. There are so many great artists who have influenced us in one way or another. As is so often the story, it all started with the old-school hip-hop scene, though let’s try to limit it to the start of our first house music productions as Decent Rides.

Just to name a few, probably producers like Max Graef, Glenn Astro, Soulphiction, Leon Vynehall, Uffe, Frits Wentink, KRL, Medlar, Dam (Detroit) Swindle, Homework and Brame & Hamo, along with records from labels like Wolf Music, Quintessentials, Local Talk and many others. Think you’re getting the idea 🙂

You’ve released music on a number of respected labels while also running Interloot Records. How has owning a label changed the way you approach making and releasing music?

We think the focus has shifted more towards making dancefloor-oriented tracks and getting more music ready for release. The whole process has become a bit more structured over the years. That’s mainly down to the fact that free time gets rarer when you’re juggling family life and a regular nine-to-five. So whenever we get some studio time, we try to make every minute count.

“Colours” has a beautiful sunrise and sunset atmosphere that contrasts with the more driving moments on the EP. Do different times of day or environments influence the way you write music?

For “Colours,” we recorded the bassline first and then built everything else around it. That’s how this melancholic atmosphere gradually took shape. We think the contrasts on the EP are very well defined by the A-side and B-side of the record. We really like the way the tracks are split up.

Yes, the different times of day, along with the weather and the mood, definitely make a difference. A Sunday morning in winter after a great breakfast is probably our favorite and most creative time in the studio, or we’re just getting old 🙂 As always, we never know exactly what will come out of it, even when we set out to work in a specific direction, haha.

After years of DJing together, how has your creative partnership evolved? Have your studio roles become more defined, or is the process still very fluid between the two of you?

We’ve always had a pretty clear division of roles, if you can call it that. Most of the time, we work on ideas separately and send them back and forth. We give each other feedback, suggest changes and see if there’s real potential in them. There are also plenty of unfinished projects that one of us gets stuck on at some point. The other person then picks them up, finishes them off and adds their own touch. That said, we’ve also created a lot of tracks together, from jamming in the studio to bouncing ideas back and forth.

Jesko takes care of most of the label and admin work, while I, Sebastian, handle the mixing and get our tracks ready for mastering.

Looking back at your catalogue so far, is there a particular release that you feel marked a turning point in your career or helped you discover your true sound?

What career are you talking about? Haha.

To be honest, it was never our intention to make it big with our music. I mean, if it happens, great. If not, that’s totally fine too. We just enjoy being creative. The whole social media game really gets on our nerves, and honestly, neither of us is particularly good at it anyway. This naturally affects our reach, though that’s fine by us.

Stylistically, we don’t really want to commit to anything specific. We just release what we like and what feels like “us.” I think there’s a certain thread running through our music, along with a few signature sounds that keep appearing in our tracks. I’d say our “true sound” doesn’t really exist.

In the end, the most important thing is that it feels real and authentic.

If you could go back and play one of your tracks to your younger selves when you first started DJing, which track would it be and why?

We’d choose “Low Grav.” We really liked the track when we were working on it, and we still like the result today. It’s 100% pure Decent Rides. Furthermore, it was our first release, and it came out on Quintessentials, a label we highly appreciate and have dug countless records from over the years. Shoutout!

Here’s a fun one: if Decent Rides could create the perfect after-hours session with three guests, living or dead, from any field, not just music, who would be invited and what record would open the night?

Hahaha.

Let’s keep this short: Seth Rogen, James Franco and Jonah Hill. We don’t know why. Those guys were the first ones that came to mind, haha.

Moodymann, “Freeki Muthafucka.”

With electronic music constantly moving between trends and micro-genres, what do you hope listeners will still hear in a Decent Rides record ten years from now?

You know, we’re totally bored with trends and all those funny names for micro-genres. No hate, though we love and respect the music and the culture too much to jump on temporary trends. We want the whole thing to have substance and feel timeless. We hope that listeners will still hear that on a Decent Rides record ten years from now.

We hope this doesn’t sound too much like “true to the game” and “keeping it real” stuff, haha. Don’t get us wrong. We respect every good artist, including those who jump on trends. It’s simply not our cup of tea.

The release is limited to 200 vinyl copies with no repress planned. What is it about the vinyl format that still excites you in an increasingly digital music environment?

For us, DJing started with digging records, so it’s an essential part of it. A visit to the record store was, and still is, something very special. You become passionate about it and a little addicted too 🙂 You also build a very intense relationship with the music that helps you create your own personal style. The physical aspect also plays a role because you can literally touch the music. It’s a bit like a shell for the soul.