Ghost In The Machine

After extensive Disclosure-related research, it's immediately apparent the electronic music duo comprising Howard and Guy Lawrence have already answered their fair share of questions about being young (19 and 22 respectively) and the fact that they are siblings. Mr Lawrence is a guitarist and Mrs Lawrence, a singer. So does drummer/producer Guy Lawrence have any memories of watching his parents perform when he was a lad? “They'd kind of given up playing live so much after we were born,” he explains. “They were in bands and stuff before that but, yeah! Obviously I never got to see that. My mum's – actually, no! That's not really true. I have seen them perform a few times. They've both been in bands just for fun and they sometimes occasionally play in a pub or our mum used to do, like, a little piano bar – that kind of thing – but, yeah! No, I never got to see them perform any original music in a band, but I've seen them do loads of covers. And obviously at home I used to watch them perform a lot [laughs], just messing around anyway.” When asked whether there are any Disclosure songs in the parental covers repertoire, Lawrence sounds suitably horrified: “Oh, I hope not! Oh, it would be so weird. I think I'd – nah, I think I'd put a ban on that. I don't think I'd be okay with that.”

Lawrence becomes very animated when discussing his favourite drummers. He singles out Jamiroquai's stickman Derrick McKenzie as one of the “drummers that [he] used to play along to, learning when [he] was growing up”. “[McKenzie] did a workshop once that I went to and after meeting him and stuff I was, like, a massive fan obviously. I was only seven or eight [years old] so I was like, 'Wow, you're the best!'” Lawrence says he was also inspired by “jazz fusion” drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, adding with a laugh, “I never got as good as him, unfortunately.

“Stewart Copeland is one of my favourite drummers as well and what The Police used to do with production on their records, with drumming, is partly why I liked him. One of my favourite songs ever is Walking On The Moon and I love all their effects and the delay they used to do with the hi-hats and with the drums, that kind of thing, 'cause it made it sound like [Copeland] was playing some crazy, complicated rhythm, and I kept trying to copy it. And then my dad was like, 'You'll never be able to do it, because they use all these machines to make it sound like he's playing more than he is,' and it's like, wow! I think they were pretty much the first people to really sort of experiment with dub delays and rhythmic delays in that way… Also, apparently they recorded Roxanne literally down the road from our house. [The studio's] not there anymore, but my dad recorded there once and he was like, '[Puts on gruff 'dad' voice] Oh, yeah, The Police recorded Roxanne there,' and I was like, 'Oh, that's cool!'”

As luck would have it, Sting is “best friends” with Martin Kierszenbaum – the guy who runs Disclosure's American label, Interscope – and he recently introduced The Police frontman to the bro duo at one of their three shows at Terminal 5, in New York, back in January. “He came to the last one,” Lawrence recalls, “[during] which, um, Mary J Blige came out and sang with us as well and, yeah! It was really great that he came that one, 'cause he got to see her come and sing and it was really cool, really great to meet him. I met him before [the show] and afterwards.” Did Lawrence manage to hold it together? “I think so, yeah,” he hesitates. “He told Howard that he was a good bass player after the show, so that must be something [laughs]. Every time in sound check, [Howard] will, now and again, just be like, 'Sting said I'm a good bass player.'”

Later… With Jools Holland was always on the Lawrences' TV set on Friday nights and Disclosure have already appeared on the show, just days after their debut album Settle dropped on 31 May 2013. Lawrence describes the experience as “weird”. “It was one of those things where you go into the actual place in real life and it's so much smaller than it looks on TV and, you know, so much different to how you think it's gonna be. But it was really a cool experience, yeah.” After further discussion about Holland's “nice mixed bag” programming, Lawrence admits that Lorde gained his “real big respect” after her appearance on aforementioned show. “She had to follow Kanye,” he remembers, “and then she was going before someone else, like, absolute A-list massive as well and she completely nailed it!”

Earlier this year, Disclosure and Lorde collaborated to perform Royals reinvigorated at the Brit Awards as part of a mash-up into their own Aluna Francis-featuring White Noise. The fact that the guest artists on Settle's tracklisting now reads like a fantasy festival bill certainly isn't lost on Lawrence. “It's great for me, as well, to see them all doing so well,” he enthuses, “'cause we're good friends now… There's a lot of people on [Settle] that no one really knew before, or at least when we wrote the songs anyway. Sam Smith, no one knew him before Latch, and London Grammar, they were just sort of bubbling up when we wrote Help Me Lose My Mind, so we're always looking out for fresh talent and fresh voices as well as working with established artists.”