EKKAH are a disco/funk duo comprising of Rebekah Pennington and Rebecca Wilson. They’ve played Glastonbury, Bestival and Secret Garden party to name a few! We caught up with them to see how they were doing disco in covid times.
Introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from…
Hey, we’re EKKAH – we’re a London based duo made up of Rebekah & Bex.
Name one person who has had a big impact on your music career and tell us how they have helped you
Would have to go for the cheesy option and say each other. The music industry can be quite lonely
sometimes, but a consistency in all this has been each other – without that we’d have nothing. There have been so many people that have been important to our musical journey, but it all comes down to us two in the end.
What’s on your rider?
A kettle, the classic Lemon, Ginger and Honey combo, a bit of fruit and some wine, for post-show.
What is your favourite piece of music equipment and why?
Our drummer the Roland TR- 505
What is your music plugin and why?
DX7 by Arturia, always gives our tracks a vibe during our writing process.
If you could change one thing about working in the music industry what would it be?
The shame around artists having to work a job whilst following their dream (especially right now!) it’s a really tough balancing act, but you gotta support yourself. It should be praised rather than looked down on because so many artists have to do it.
Describe your creative process / routine.
It depends if we are working alone or with another artist/producer, but it used to be going into studios or working in our home studio together (at Rebekah’s place) – usually, music comes first, but Bex is constantly writing batches of lyrics that will get saved and placed to the right project, it’s like a big puzzle. Unfortunately, right now it is more sending songs to each other and working remotely, and we have done sessions on video call with other people and that’s actually gone better than expected – just got to adapt!
Do you get nervous before playing to a crowd, if so how do you cope with the nerves?
When we were touring and doing loads of festivals, the nerves did drop down, but if it’s been a while
since our last show, we do still get nervous. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes on the run-up to a show, and you want it to go perfect for the people who have paid to come and see you, but you got to accept that perfection doesn’t exist and just have a good time on stage! Think there will be a few nerves flying around on our next show back whenever that will be! We usually just try and do our warm-ups and breathing properly to calm our minds.
What song/project/album are you most proud of to date?
We both really love our latest single Wendy’s Yard, it is a pure party banger (casual plug) and it’s so fun to play live, we thankfully got to play it live pre lockdown. We are also very proud of some of our older releases, when we released Homesick at the beginning of 2019, we did it fully alone, we had no management, no label, no publishing, no booking agent, nothing, so we were really proud of self-
releasing that song and the journey we’d been on to get to that place.
What are you currently working on that we should be excited about?
We have another single dropping in early 2021, and we are leading up to something special, but we
can’t actually tell you what it is yet….
How much time do you spend making music? How long does it take for you to finish a track?
Oh, that can vary so massively! Sometimes we will write a track in a day and have it done, completed, and sometimes you sit on an idea for months, even years before it's in a place you can say is ‘complete’. It depends on if we are working alone, with anyone else, how they work, what moods we are in, what inspiration we are pulling from what’s happening in our lives at the time – so many factors!
Any advice for new artists?
Get a support network – we have each other, but if you are a solo artist, make sure you have a strong support network around you because it can be really tumultuous and wild sometimes. Also, be prepared to adapt, since we started out in the music industry, the whole place has changed and you have to be open to that.
Find EKKAH on Instagram here – @EKKAH
Watch their latest music video for the single ‘Wendy’s Yard’ here –