Funktasy’s Tuew, is a dynamic Producer/DJ duo from Brisbane, Australia. The people behind Tuew, Caleb Brockman and Adam Clark, used their love for music to pursue a career in Electronic Dance Music (EDM) & House Music together in the early 2010s. Their passion for House and immersion in the EDM Scene came about through countless local festivals and performances by industry icons like AVICII and Hardwell. This exposure ignited their creative spark and fuelled their desire to contribute to the genre they have grown to adore.
While this newfound passion was a great starting block when the duo began producing in 2014, it was only in 2023 that Tuew decided to make a return to producing and fully commit to crafting House Music classics.
Singed to Funktasy Records in 2024 and known for their signature early 2010s style, characterized by impactful progressive house beats, Tuew remains steadfast in delivering the authentic sound that resonates deeply with their loyal fanbase. As they gear up to dominate 2024, Tuew has meticulously planned a series of exhilarating releases, with their most recent release being Crazy, promising an electrifying year ahead for music lovers worldwide.
Download & Stream “Crazy” by Tuew Here.
Congratulations on your debut Funktasy release, “Crazy”. Tell us more about this song and the inspiration behind it.
The inspiration behind the song was that early-mid 2010 style house that we both fell in love with! We started with some cool Brass synths and slowly the track developed into the awesome song that we hear today! The track brings a cool “New-Age” style feel to it, but also captivates us with a sense of Nostalgia and reminds of us that classic Progressive-House genre that dominated the last decade of Dance Music! We loved every minute of making this track and we hope you all love hearing it!
Tell us about the new release, what was the creation process behind it, and how did the track come about?
Just like most of our ideas, the inspiration for our new track “Crazy” started to formulate after listening to some of our favourite classic dance releases. The track in particular that we were spinning that day was the Progressive House rework of Street Sounds by the legendary Norman Dooray. We adored this track and liked the idea of creating a song with lots of Brass Instruments, heaps of energetic layers and some catchy Vocals. After playing around with both Major and Minor key elements, we stumbled across the, now iconic, Vocal Phrase sample. This particular vocal phrase just seemed to grab our attention so much and we knew we had to incorporate it into our new track somehow. After a few months of tweaking all the elements, the track is finally ready to be released! We are extremely excited to get this song out, with our Funktasy crew, to all the dancefloors around the world.
What got you into music? How did the two of you meet?
We actually met over a decade ago as teenagers, whilst both working for a local fast-food shop. Before long, we became pretty inseparable best friends and spent most of our free time, either working together or hanging out together. I (Caleb) even was the best man at Adam’s wedding a few years ago. My (Caleb) Family has always been a pretty musical family. My Grandfather and my eldest brother are both respected musicians in their own genres. While growing up, I watched my brother play alongside both local and international artists. This cemented my passion for all aspects of music. I fell in love with both creating and performing. However, it was Adam who first introduced me to dance music all those years ago. At work, we used to play artists like Calvin Harris, SHM, Nicky Romero and Alesso, as loud as we possibly could and we have been hooked on EDM ever since!
Have you always produced dance music?
(Adam) We were always fans of Dance Music but Caleb originally played Guitar and Drums for a few different Punk and Pop/Punk bands. Even though we were both massive fans of EDM, producing electronic music was never really on our radar until eventually, I started messing around with free software on my laptop that allowed users to roughly mix tracks together. After a while, however, we both became absolutely obsessed with learning how to DJ. We bought a cheap set
of decks and began practicing daily and started to explore electronic music production. Ultimately we stumbled across some tutorials from our favourite artist and biggest inspiration, still to this day, AVICII. We spent hours watching and
re-watching his “Making Of” videos. We were now officially in love with EDM and the rest is history.
Have you been inspired by Australian artists? If so, who?
A lot of Tuew’s inspiration actually comes from Artists and genres that aren’t always in the EDM umbrella. We are both big fans of a lot of pop-punk bands, country singers and some good electro-rock bands like the Perth-based boys in
Pendulum. When it comes to Aussie DJs in the Electronic scene, you can’t go past the pioneers of Melbourne Bounce; Will Sparks, Joel Fletcher, Timmy Trumpet and New World Sound! We have to give a shout-out to FLUME though, who has already taken over the world and also, Dom Dolla, who is making some serious waves right now. Looking outside EDM though, there are some amazing Aussie Singers and Bands we love, who are really taking off! Australian country star Josh Setterfield is one of our favourite artists and musicians! Also, Gold Coast pop-punk legends; ForeverOnHigh, have been coming up with some awesome, unique takes on the traditional pop-punk genre. We’re strong believers that we can take inspiration from any genre and you’ll hear that in some of our upcoming releases.
You dabbled in other genres, what led you to electronic music?
For us, the main attraction to Electronic music was the freedom of what could be created. We were drawn to sounds and emotions that we had never heard before. We were amazed by seeing how producers were creating brilliantly emotive music, most of the time, without the use of any traditional instruments. Of course, there are plenty of artists who still use live instruments in their productions, but what captivated us was that this was no longer a requirement or hurdle. The creative freedom was such a massive draw to us, and honestly still is. There were still challenges to overcome and we learnt these rather quickly! No longer could we simply turn up the distortion on a guitar, to cover up some bad playing, or mess with the vocals mid-performance, because something doesn’t quite sound right. When producing, you need to be perfect. You need to create life, without over-dressing. You need to maintain space, without sounding empty. It’s challenging, but it is so much fun, and we are loving every minute of it!
What’s your production setup like? Hybrid or digital?
Our production setup is pretty much all digital these days. While our studio has plenty of guitars and other instruments in it, these are mainly for jamming and coming up with melodies and chord patterns. Basically, every new track we
produce these days is a combination of highly edited samples, snippets and a few layered VSTs and Plugins. Being big fans of Daft Punk growing up, we adored their ability to select small sections of existing samples and songs and melt them into something completely unique and entirely their own. We try to recreate this process as much as possible in our tracks, therefore we don’t use a lot of analogue synthesizers or any other such instruments.
Have you ever had a wardrobe malfunction on stage?
Thankfully we haven’t really had any yet. Fingers Crossed it stays that way.
What can an audience expect from a Tuew live performance? What makes your performance stand out from the rest?
One Word: Nostalgia. A Tuew set is a wild blend between the latest and greatest house anthems and all the classic tunes we all grew up listening to. The quality of house music production has increased so much in the last decade, but the emotion and energy of some of our favourite house tracks can never be replaced. This is where a Tuew performance really stands out. The audience can expect a set that will take them through the memories of their younger years. We look forward to seeing everyone at a Tuew show soon!
How did an Australian duo link with Funktasy – a Canadian record label?
The link between Tuew and Funktasy was actually by pure chance. We first started following and regularly listening to the Club Hoss Spotify Playlist. We loved the tracks that Hoss curated and we would always play them while we were
setting up, packing down or getting ready to go somewhere. When Tuew began producing tracks again, we knew that we wanted to release our music with Funktasy. The quality of Funktasys releases and the professionalism of their label, brand and their entire staff, made the choice to work with them a no-brainer. We may have come across Funktasy by chance, but we stuck around by choice and we love every moment of working alongside them.
How do you compare with different record labels? Label versus independent?
Like all things, there are pros and cons with both! For us, the pros of working alongside a Label outweigh any potential Cons we have, however, this may vary from artist to artist. Some musicians may want the freedom to release whatever
they want to, whenever they want to. In this case, releasing everything independently is probably your best option, although all marketing, scheduling, merchandise, social media and live shows will also need to be organized, so keep that in mind! For us, the ability to have all of our tracks reviewed by an A&R team, through every rendition and version, is a massive help. We like to know that our mix is heading in the right direction, and the quality is equal on every device. This is a big benefit from working alongside a professional label. Not only do most larger labels already have their own fan base and demographic, but they can introduce you to industry people you may never have met on your own accord. We also appreciate having a team that we can bounce ideas back and forth between, whenever we think of them. This is massively beneficial for us, as we have gotten some of our best ideas from simple chats and meetings. However, we’ll always encourage any young or upcoming producer to do as much research as possible and find the label that’s not only beneficial for your career but a label of people you genuinely enjoy working with, as this will make all the difference!
Dream artist to collaborate with?
Funnily enough, the two of us have two different answers, but from the same band! For myself (Caleb), it would be Sebastian Ingrosso! His energy and personality is so vibrant and you can see the passion he holds for house music. This is the exact same way with myself, and I feel like we could really create some cool house music together. We both love a good party as well, which would make the studio time such a fun and creative experience. For Adam, it would be Axwell… being such a massive fan of his music and also his own label, Axtone, there would be plenty to talk about and plenty of ideas flowing in the studio. However, If we could collaborate with the entire Swedish House Mafia, that would be even better.
What’s on the agenda for Tuew?
Tuew will be focusing on releasing some of the most incredible music we have ever made. We have a list of some awesome local artists that we would like to collaborate with. We also aim to kickstart a tour across a number of Australian nightclubs and festivals. We hope to see you there!
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