Jordan Ullman: “We basically just wanted to take A Place like This [EP] and turn it into a real piece and body of work. We just go to our influences and pull inspiration from there.”

Majid Al Maskati:  “[We listen to music] all the way from Motown to house music to electronica, and we listen to a lot of Janet Jackson and Marvin Gaye. We really appreciate young producers that go out and experiment with sound as well, like trap artists that take a different approach to music today.”

JU: “Timeless music is what we wanted to achieve with this album. I think something timeless is not really based on time but more in the enjoyment of the sounds. We feel like we can listen to an album and enjoy it, regardless of whether it was made five years ago, 10 years ago or 20 years ago. You don’t really know when it was made, so I feel like that is what timeless music is.”

MAM: “I like that there are not certain topics or subjects or sounds of the music that you can place on a timeline. It’s best when I don’t really know when a song was made, not even down the line, when it’s twenty or thirty years later.”

JU: “We really express ourselves through our music sonically and lyrically. We’re touching on subjects that are lyrically about love and heartbreak. Everyone goes through that struggle, where we figure out what love really means.”

MAM: “It’s very difficult to not put a limited view in music as well. It’s coming from us. And it’s always going to be, even when you don’t realise it while you’re writing the music. Sometimes after we complete a song, we discover later that something that had an effect on us became a part of the track. And that adds another layer of perspective while we’re looking back on it in hindsight.”

MAM: “We enjoy music as a communicator and as a link between different creative scenes. Design and fashion and film and scoring, anything like that that music can marry together, is almost natural for us.”

JU: “I feel like Majid and I have a creative urge to really visualise our music. So, that crossover to doing other things outside of music like fashion and editorials is really important to us.”

MAM: “We take great care in visuals. We like placing those elements together.”

MAM: “I think that I have experimented vocally over many different types of tempos and different types of sounds. Changing my voice on different tracks and seeing how I can sing on different songs.”

JU: “In a lot of my work I’m trying to really pull from similar types of sounds, like dance records that use 100bpm, that use the same electric piano sounds. We’re definitely trying to make it sound like Majid Jordan as an authentic entity. So I feel like for this album, we’ve really been able to pull from a bunch of our different influences.”

MAM: “I moved to Toronto in 2008 and I really didn’t have that much knowledge in music history in terms of going back to classic rock and post-punk and house and hip-hop and everything. I learned all of that in the city by going to school, because there were so many students with so many different backgrounds. I got to learn a lot about music. And the fact that the school is in the downtown core brought in people that are really interesting and eclectic.”

MAM: “For our latest music video ‘Learn for Each Other’, we wanted to achieve the sort of feeling where you learn and connect with somebody in a moment, the feeling of lost in that kind of moment. And then snapping out of it and back into reality, and learning from that experience together.

Unfortunately sometimes lessons aren’t always positive, but lessons are lessons. That video was us trying to depict one version of that. That’s life, you know? It’s not always good and it’s not always dream-like.”

JU: “We have the deepest connection to music. When I was growing up and starting to produce, I feel like it was something that I would do to release energy in myself. Whether it was a fight with somebody or I was going through something internally, music was my outlet to put something on paper or in sound to actually really let it out of me. I’ve always had this crazy connection with music that I’ve nearly personified. It’s like a relationship now or something.”

JU: “OVO definitely gives us the opportunity to live our dreams and allow us to work day in and day out on what we want to do. We’re in LA right now rehearsing for a show and it’s a blessing to work with everyone on the label. They’re our mentors, they’re our friends, and they’re everything.”

MAM: “If I could be in Australia next week, I would. I think we’ll be coming up pretty soon. I actually did go to Australia a while ago, and it’s beautiful down there and I’d love to go back.”