MÖWE: THE ART OF CREATING TOGETHER

The Art of Creating Together

Ask touring artists and bands what they remember most and it’s rarely just the gig. It’s the ridiculous after hours in hotel rooms, the travel disasters that became inside jokes, missed trains, questionable breakfasts and those strange little moments that only make sense to the people who were there.

Touring alone is a different animal: empty hotel rooms, sterile corridors and a rather brutal silence once the adrenaline of the show disappears.

But creating together isn’t one endless backstage love in either. Collaboration is a strange balance between inspiration and compromise. Two people can push an idea somewhere neither would have reached alone, but getting there means listening, adapting and occasionally accepting the deeply inconvenient possibility that you might actually be wrong.

Few people understand that balancing act better than MÖWE.

The Vienna based duo of Mel and Clemens have spent years DJing, singing, producing and performing together, developing their own urban take on dance pop along the way. From Vienna and stages across Austria to international shows and an Amadeus Award nomination, their career has been built around doing something that sounds simple but rarely is: creating together.

They came from different musical worlds. Somehow, they found a shared one.

We sat down with MÖWE to talk about the art of being a duo, creativity, compromise, life on the road and what it actually takes to keep two people moving in the same direction for years.

Interview:

MÖWE is built around two creative minds. What is the biggest advantage of creating music together rather than alone?

More heads mean more ideas. Sometimes it can also be difficult because our visions do not always align, but it keeps your mind open to different angles. Most of the time, the combined vision ends up being better because of that mental ping pong between us.

Every creative duo has different strengths. How have your individual personalities shaped the sound of MÖWE?

Clemens is definitely the happier side of MÖWE, while I am the more melancholic one.

Clemens constantly has catchy melodies flying around in his head. It really does not matter what time of day it is. Whenever I am stuck or a track is missing that final bit of catchiness, he can somehow pull three melodies out of thin air that fit perfectly.

I am more interested in unusual chord progressions, which is not always easy for Clemens to swallow because things can get weird pretty quickly. I love those jazzy, R&B influenced chords. But then again, we do not always want to fall back on the same magic chord progression that everybody else relies on.

Every partnership eventually faces creative disagreements. How do you decide whose idea makes it into the final track?

We simply talk about it and ask what the track is actually supposed to represent.

We always manage to reach a decision because neither of us is particularly ego driven. That makes compromise quite easy for us.

Has there ever been a moment when one of you pushed the other beyond what you thought was possible?

Many times throughout our career. Otherwise, we probably would not have made it this far.

What is the hardest part about sharing one creative vision between two people?

We cannot speak for everybody, but for us it feels very natural. We both grew up playing in bands, so having somebody beside you to work with, experience things with and shape a unique vision with has always made sense.

There is nothing quite like the rush when two minds suddenly align. For us, there is actually not much that feels difficult about it.

After all these years, what have you learned from each other, not just as artists, but as creative partners?

I have learned to give a project more time. I used to be very quick to say, “Yep, that is finished.”

Clemens was almost the opposite. He could keep building a project forever. But working on something endlessly does not necessarily make it better. At some point you start overthinking everything.

I think we have both learned to find the space somewhere in between. And quite often, your initial instinct turns out to have been the right one anyway.

What is one piece of advice you would give anyone thinking about starting a creative partnership with a friend, producer or fellow artist?

If you do it, do it with somebody who does not value money above everything else.

A lot of duos eventually break apart because of money. Clemens and I work because we really do not give a fuck about that. We want to have a good time, make music and create memories together.

Looking back, what has been the greatest gift of building something together rather than chasing success alone?

A never ending friendship, and a lot of incredible memories and experiences.