Aloe Blacc on Pharrell and NZ shows

Aloe Blacc. Photo / NZ Herald

Aloe Blacc plans to get the audience up and dancing when he plays here this month.

TimeOut: Tell us about the evolution of your creative approach between Good Things, and Lift Your Spirit

Aloe: Good Things was produced by a group of soul musicians, and they generally just focus on soul music, so production wise, the change from Good Things to Lift Your Spirit, in this new album is more of a pop-leaning mixture of genres. It's a mixture of soul, hip-hop, and rock. I wanted to put all these elements together, and I wanted to expand my sound, and the concept of what kind of music my folk-soul vocal can be presented on.

So you specifically chose to work with producers like DJ Khalil and Pharrell, knowing they would bring something different to your music?

Khalil has a great background in every style of music, and so does Pharrell (Williams), even though we mostly know Pharrell for hip-hop and pop music. But both these guys are really well educated, they play a lot of instruments, and they both understood what I was going for in trying to combine these different genre elements.

And they obviously share a similar musical philosophy to you, in terms of positive social change?

Yeah, they both understand that stuff. When I was working with Pharrell, I mentioned I just want to make music that creates joy, and makes people happy, and funnily enough, at the same time, the song that he was working on, was Happy. So he completely understood.

Wake Me Up has been a huge hit for you and Avicii - did you ever expect one of the biggest songs of your career could be a dance hit?

I think every song that I've written could be a huge dance song. What I think about dance music right now is that it's the production hallmark of our time, and so it becomes a really great marketing tool for a good song that might otherwise never be heard, because the production or format doesn't warrant mainstream radio play. So I was lucky to have Avicii produce my lyrics and my vocal melody in a way that would attract a lot of ears, and would attract the programmers.

You've always been keen on dancing - you were a young B Boy, and you like to get people dancing at your shows, do you think about making people dance when you write a song?

I did at first, and when I started this most recent album I really did wanna try and get people dancing, I was writing songs from the stage perspective. But those songs didn't end up resonating really well after they were recorded - they're better done live, rather than on record. So what I ended up doing was modifying the songs, but tailoring the show to getting people to dance and participate.

The first time you played here, you parted the crowd and got some really old-school dance routines happening, which people went nuts for

That was a lot of fun, I remember those first shows and they were a lot of fun. People can expect that this time, too - there will be lots of call and response, lots of dancing. I love to get the audience involved. I think it's a better experience when you're participating in a show and not just watching it.

Who: Aloe Blacc
What: 2013 album Lift Your Spirit
Where and when: Performing at the Powerstation in Auckland on Tuesday October 21, and at St James Cabaret in Wellington on Thursday October 23.

- TimeOut