Oceans are a duo made up of British producer/writer/vocalist Kiz, and Danish producer/writer Ubizz. After initially meeting on a songwriting camp on the stunning Greek island of Santorini, they later bumped into each other by chance in Berlin. The rest, as they say, is history.
Taking their chance encounter as a sign of fate, the duo decided to work in the studio that very week in order to create some musical magic. Their debut offering ‘Cold Ain’t For Me’ has already amassed a combined 40+ million streams, which led to the duo receiving support from YouTube and MTV.
Today (September 29), Oceans have released their brand new single, ‘Deep Blue’. To coincide with the release, we got to speak to the duo earlier in the week about their musical endeavours, their success so far and their future plans.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZfn_unFqm5/?taken-by=theoceansown
First off, welcome to CelebMix! Please introduce yourselves with a little known fact.
Hey CelebMix! Thanks for having us! We are Oceans! A duo that love commercial and tropical house music with a twist of summer sadness. We are here to bring our music to the masses and want you to escape with us into our world of seasons, travel and lifestyle vibes.
We’re loving your new single, ‘Deep Blue’. What was the inspiration behind the song?
Thank you so much! The inspiration behind the song as you might be able to tell from the lyrics is a relationship. We talk about missing times with a loved one. It’s a story about remembering a summer full of awesome moments and looking back on it, missing that feeling. “Summer love and it’s never been so cruel”. The main inspiration is that summer sadness you experience when it’s all over. You are left with the blues and you just want to get back!
What was the production process like?
The production process was natural and fun but difficult. We wanted to build on the sound of Cold Ain’t For Me but also keep the same feeling to the instrumentation and the melodies we used. Its very important for us that the chorus repeats a lot and that the arrangement is based around that main song lyric “I’ve got a suitcase full of memories of being with you”. We wanted to keep the organic vibe going to, so we were sure to use piano and guitar as fundamental instruments in the mix.
Will there be a music video for ‘Deep Blue’? If so, what can we expect from it?
There absolutely will be a video for Deep Blue, and you’ll be pleased to know its already finished! The love story we have described just above is what we depicted in the visual and we took to the golden coast of California, where we shot in Malibu, Venice, Hollywood and Santa Monica. Its quite the adventure and we can’t wait for you to see it.
Check out the newly released music video for ‘Deep Blue’ below.
Your previous track ‘Cold Ain’t For Me’ has amassed a combined 40 million+ streams and counting across both Spotify and YouTube. You’ve also received support from YouTube and MTV. How does it feel to achieve such success already?
We are still shocked at how well the first song performed. We weren’t expecting more then a few million hits really, but shortly after we released CAFM, people started really feeling it and interacting with it. It’s kind of become a phrase now, which is awesome! If you check out Instagram or twitter and search #ColdAintForMe, there are some awesome posts where fans quote the lyrics and also make travel videos. It’s mind-blowing to have this kind of support and we couldn’t be more proud that people liked our first song! The short answer to the question is that it feels amazing! We just want to give more now.
Why do you think people have taken to the song so much?
I feel that Cold Ain’t For Me is a simple, effective story. It’s a very personal song for me but I hoped explaining it in the way we did would make it appeal to more people. I wanted everyone to have felt the same feeling some way or another, so when we created it in the studio, it was more about capturing a feeling then writing another song, I wanted to write a feeling! Jacob worked hard to make the sounds summery and we also made sure the video had the same feeling to it too. I feel like that helped people get the idea of what we were trying to do and therefore they related to it.
Who are some of your musical inspirations?
We are both passionate about music and we love writing songs for other artists, too. Therefore our musical taste is very wide! We enjoy everything from Major Lazer to Buena Vista Social Club. We are inspired by the likes of Calvin Harris, Drake, The Chainsmokers, Kygo and so on. There are many amazing musicians out there that we know and love!
Kiz is British and Ubizz is Danish – how have your respective countries influenced you musically?
I would say we both bring our own vibes to the table, but we work well together on songs with that exact formula. Kiz tends to bring a lot of urban, electronic and R&B elements into the songs from his writing to his vocals. Ubizz has that Scandinavian cleanliness in his production sound and musicianship. Together we sat down on guitars and created this cool yet emotional record, which we didn’t realize would eventually be our own song. It was really the night we created CAFM, that we realised what a writing team we could be in the future to come. We are good friends too and often spend time in each other’s cities.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BVw1EUcDY6N/?taken-by=theoceansown
What would you like to achieve in the next five years?
In the next five years, we hope to achieve many things, which means we are going to be working really hard! We want to release more songs and tour with our own creative stage show. We want to produce more visuals and build the brand and sound of Oceans. I hope we can become a household name in commercial music eventually. The best achievement would be to have a Billboard top 5 with one of our upcoming songs. Hoping and praying for it! We just want people to know our songs and vibe with us. We want them to feel good when they hear our music and go out to create memories that our music is the soundtrack to.
What do you have planned for the rest of 2017?
Well… Deep Blue of course is coming out soon, so we have to really push it out there and get on the road. We will be playing a few shows and also working on new music. Maybe a third video shoot is on the cards soon too, so stay tuned on our socials for that! Yes. Third single is on the way shortly.
Thank you for your time!
Thank you for having us!
Thank you once again to Oceans for their time! ‘Deep Blue’ is available now.