Meet Brandon & Danielle Redoute

 

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brandon & Danielle Redoute a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brandon & Danielle, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

We were blessed to be born in one of the most historically relevant musical cities in the world, Detroit. So, when we are looking for inspiration, or a creative boost, we drive. This city has provided the backdrop and inspiration for some of the most influential music in the world, like Motown, or Techno, and if you take the time to listen you really start to understand where the music came from. We never know if hearing a soulful voice on the corner, or an interesting sound in the distance will end up inspiring us, sometimes beyond the music.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Brandon and Danielle Redoute are Deeper Waters. They met on a dance floor in Detroit in 2013, and according to them, they never left. They love the spirit of Detroit’s underground electronic music scene, as well as the community that keeps it alive year after year.  With their shared passion for music and the Detroit community, it was a natural step for them to start creating music of their own soon after they met.  They moved to the city proper in 2016 and became further entrenched with the culture, finding inspiration in the city and those that comprise it.

With a few years of practice under their belt, they had their first DJ gig lined up: a Halloween party at The Crofoot in Pontiac on 10/29/2016.  To their great disappointment, this event ended up being cancelled just hours before it was scheduled to begin.  While this setback was difficult to accept initially, they started to look at it as a call to action. It motivated them to start throwing events themselves. And by July of 2017, not even a year after that previous Halloween, Danielle and Brandon’s production company, Detroit Techno Family, threw its inaugural event, Take Me Back, at Tangent Gallery in Detroit.  Aiming high from the start, the event included 3 stages, 9 artists, and went late into the morning, from 10PM to 6AM, all the while maintaining the core values they felt the Detroit community deserved in an event organizer.

As Deeper Waters, they have created a sound and vision that not only incorporates generations of seminal electronic underground tracks but mixes them in a unique energetic set that keeps you glued to the dance floor. The last year, they have turned their focus to LIVE performances, that take you on a journey and allow you to escape into a reimagined sonic atmosphere that you’ll dive deep into and never want to come up for air. Their live set debut will be March 7th, 2025 at the Frisky Whisker lounge in Atlanta, GA.

As of January 2025, Danielle and Brandon have officially announced that their production company Detroit Techno Family will now operate as a record label, offering new opportunities for local Detroit artists. With a full year of releases lined up, you can expect to hear a lot of quality music from your favorite Detroit artists, both from the old school and new.

At the end of the day, it’s their understanding and love for the history of electronic music in Detroit that has inspired not only the tracks they present but the environments they create at the events they organize and play.  “You won’t find a better backroom, hot-box, underground party than in Detroit. If you look even deeper, you won’t find a more diverse, supportive, group of people who are eager to lift each other up and are so fiercely protective of their community and city.”

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Being a duo, we bring different things to the group and it’s important to realize that even if you are a solo artist, no one achieves anything alone. So, one of the skills that we are both always trying to improve on is communication. To us, it is the most valuable skill you can have and the more you practice, the better at it you become. Also, it’s important to surround yourself with doers, dreamers, and believers because the people that are around you matter more than you think. This industry is full of people that are always trying to take your two most valuable assets: time and energy, so the best thing you can do is be part of a group where everybody gives. Finally, there are always a million reasons not to do something, and when we started out on this journey, Danielle was a classical composer and Brandon had a free copy of FL studio that he used maybe one time. We had never touched a turntable, pressed a cue button, or even looked at a wave form when we decided to start DJing and making music. So, if we can do it, trust us you can too.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

When we first started on this journey, we were just a couple of kids from the suburbs with absolutely no connection to the underground electronic music scene in Detroit. We would go out to see our favorite DJ’s play and stand off to the side studying what they were doing and how they were doing it. We would spend hours reading articles, watching documentaries and interviews, and getting our hands on anything and everything that had to do with the history of Detroit techno. So, in 2020 when we found out that the new home we bought was only 3 blocks away from the home of Mike Clark and Buzz Goree of Underground Resistance it was like we were stepping into a documentary ourselves. We spent the next few years learning from these underground legends. We mastered things like spinning vinyl, drum machine programming, and recording techniques. We learned how to play different synthesizers, the importance of analogue, best practices for sampling, and much more. Most importantly, we were introduced to and started working with those very same musicians that we had spent so much time watching before. If you think about it, every other musical genre has been around so long that we don’t really have access to the people who started it, or pioneered it. But, techno is still so young that the people who started it are still around, and all of them have played some role in our success.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Craig Davis
Karl Baker

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