Getting To Know: Naws

Meet Naws, the Nottingham-based production duo who turned their lifelong passion for music into a full-fledged career. Founded in 2021, they’ve already made waves in the electronic scene with support from heavyweights like Chicane, Sultan + Sheppard, and Nora En Pure. Mentored by the likes of Bound to Divide and Modera, Naws have been featured by BBC Introducing eight times, regularly spin on Capital Chill, and are signed to labels such as Sekora, Hathor, and Monowave. Known for their love of analog hardware, they built their own custom studio from the ground up, where they craft music for themselves and other artists. With sold-out gigs, performances at ADE, and an ever-growing YouTube channel showcasing live production and DJ sets, Naws are firmly on the rise—creating their own sonic world, one beat at a time.

1. You’ve built your own custom studio and are huge fans of outboard analog hardware. How does working with this equipment influence your sound and creative process?

We are lucky enough to own several hardware synths - A Moog Sub37, an ARP 2600, a Roland Juno and a few others.  Although we do use an array of 'in the box' synths the analog gear really helps the early stages of our work flow when we are trying to get an idea down quickly and expressively.  An example of what we mean by this could be using the Juno to create an interesting, evolving pad sound where we record our playing and modulation - we can really get into the vibe many happy accidents can occur which leads for a more interesting and human sound.  We might then jump on the Moog and start laying down an arpeggio or maybe a nice bassline, again modulating live and recording.   Our next step is then to get into the DAW (Digital audio workstation) - in our case this is Ableton - we can then start writing other parts without the temptation to endlessly tweak the parts that we captured on the outboard gear.

We also very much like to capture foley using a our phones or digital recorder - its amazing how sometimes random sounds end up being parts of tracks.  Our track 'My Time' on Sekora has a number of percussive parts recorded from things we found lying around the studio - i think in that example it was some beer bottle tops! As we also play live, its good to have parts that were created on our synths that we can then recreate in a live environment. 

2. With mentorship from Bound to Divide, Modera, and Lar, how has their guidance helped shape your journey as producers, and what’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned from them?

Out first mentor was Jules (Bound to Divide) - we stumbled across his youtube channel very early in our journey trying to learn about how to sound like Deadmau5.  We quickly realised that he has a very active Discord channel and from there we got 121 video call lessons.  Jules was instrumental in helping us learn technically about the production process and sound design.   It was also from this interaction that we met Lar.  We also realised that Lar was actually from Nottingham originally - we started to take a few lessons with Lar through his 'out of the loop' business.  We got a lot from working with Matt (Lar) but I would say the biggest thing was drums and bass - he has an incredible talent for creating groovy drums and melodies.   Evan from Modera is a trained classical musician and great pianist - our focus there was to go deep on music theory and song writing structures.

3. You’ve been featured by BBC Introducing eight times and have gained support from artists like Chicane and Nora En Pure. How have these endorsements impacted your career, and what has been your most memorable highlight so far?

When we got BBC introducing for the first time it kind of blew our minds.  We submitted music expecting to never hear back - I remember waking up one morning to see an email saying we had been picked and I was beyond excited.  We also managed to get track of the week and got quite a few plays which was incredible.  Our first big DJ/Producer support was from Chicane on our track 'My Time' on Sekora - we are big fans of him and getting that support on his Radio show was unreal - a bit of a pinch yourself moment!  We followed that up with support from Sultan + Shepard on our track 'The Storm' on Monowave records - again, just humbled by the fact that they chose to play their song on their radio show.  More recently we have gained support from Nora en Pure with our track 'Reminiscence' again on Monowave records - that one blew up the most as she has a huge reach on her show.  We never expected to get these kinds of supports,  we started our project out of our frienship and joy of creating music - it feels great to get a feeling that other people like the music too. 

4. Deep Underground Notts’ has already hosted three sold-out gigs. What inspired you to create this event, and how do you see it evolving in the future?

We actually started this event working with our friend TRIS who we met at a Maur gig in Nottingham.  We got chatting after he finished his DJ set and a friendship blossomed.  We had harboured the idea of starting Nottinghams first (only?) Melodic House night and one day we just thought lets give this a try. We decided to call it 'Deep Underground' We spoke to our friend Lar and he was onboard with headlining the event for us.  We then invited a number of other DJs - Beki Machine, Hilsdon, Nour.  We played live and TRIS also dj'd.  It was an incredible night which you can catch a glimpse of on our youtube.  We have gone on to have a total of three events so far, each one a joy to organise and perform at - we have had huge support from the 'Anjuna Family' with people travelling from all over the UK and abroad.  We have another event in December with Just Her and we intend to have 2-3 events a year.  All the events are held in an underground sandstone cave and the vibe is seriously off the charts.  We will see what the future holds but maybe adding an outdoor event at some point would be nice.

5. In addition to producing your own music, you also ghost-produce for others and run a YouTube channel. How do you balance these different aspects of your work, and how do they complement each other creatively?

Our primary focus is producing our own music - thats our passion and what brings us so much happiness.  We started the youtube as a compliment to the music - its a platform for our explorations in videography and a way for us to share ideas and do some live production.  Live production is fun and can be quite creative due to the pressure of knowing someone is watching.  We kind of fell into a bit of ghost production through our network - it might be something we tap into now and then when we are not writing for ourselves.  We also help other artists with mixing and mastering - not as a business, just to help people in our network out.  Right now we are focussed on getting a full schedule for 2025 - we have 11 tracks finished at the moment.  We think these things complement each other as everything provides an opportunity to learn and grow as creators.  We have a new song out on October 18th, called Horizon which is a collaboration with WLDFLOW3R and Milesy.