Galantis and Steve Aoki tell us how to create the perfect banger at V Festival

We love to get down to them a Saturday night, shoulder shimmy to them in the car, or dance to them like no-ones watching when, erm, no-one's watching. We're talking, of course, about bangers.

Making them is, as you'd imagine, no easy feat - but what are the essential ingredients for a banger you can't do without? We caught up with two huge dance acts - Galantis and Steve Aoki - at this year's V Festival to find out.  

Galantis are Swedish, so have excellent pedigree when it comes to hit-making. The duo have notched up four Top 40 hits in a short space of time, with tracks like Runaway, Peanut Butter Jelly and No Money taking over dance floors across the world. All are capable of getting hands in the air, despite being very different. Galantis think switching it up is key.

“We just try and get in the right headspace to make something that we haven’t done before," They told us. "You’ve got to change it up, maybe start a song differently. If you did something that went really well with a piano, then maybe don’t do that next time.”

Electro house legend Steve Aoki is in agreement; his latest hip-hop/EDM hybrid album Kolony has turned the tables within his genre, and he thinks it's important to always work with someone new. 

“Kolony is a curveball and that’s the point. I love switching things up. What's life without surprises? It's really good for me as a producer to change gears, always. I like to think outside the box when it comes to challenging myself. I prefer to work with artists who have never worked in the EDM space because I want to find a whole new way of developing a song."

As for how to kick things off at the start of a banger, Steve uses his track Neon Future as an example to demonstrate that melody is where it all starts.

"Every song has a different starting process but melodies are the go-to for sure. Then you can develop everything else after. With Neon Future, I had a melody idea and I'm just putting that on loop. It all started with us diving head first into the melody. From there and what my concept of Neon Future being more just a song means to me, I have an archive of drops and see what makes sense with the melody. From there, I can start frankensteining the song." 

What it really boils down to, Galantis think, is not overthinking it. When you're doing that in the songwriting process, that’s when you’re going wrong.

“We just go with where the song wants to take us. Really, the most important thing is to not think that you’re going to write a banger. I feel like every time you set out to do that, you’re going to fail. There’s no math to it. I don’t think there should be a formula. Some in music may have success with that but I hate that and I think its boring. The formula is no formula."

Steve concluded by imparting wisdom on what he considers the biggest step on the road to a banger: the drop.

"Everything else leads to the drop. The rest of the track is the ramp up to that moment. It's the punchline for the comedian, the story that leads to the big final joke where everyone is laughing. You've got to have every humming the song at that moment. If you can hum with it, jump to it, dance with it and it hits you right in the gut, you got it." 

You can hear the fruits of Steve Aoki's banger creations on his latest album Kolony (out now), while Galantis release their new album The Aviary on September 15.