Late Guest at the Party Reveal the Secrets to Their Success

Originally from Rimini, Italy, Late Guest at the Party moved to New York City in 2013 to record a follow-up to their acclaimed debut LP. In 2016, after some personnel changes and left without a vocalist, drummer/producer/group mastermind Renzo Mazzotti started exploring different elements in composition within electronic genres closer to his musical influences growing up.

Beth Hansen was brought on board to co-write their first new-era single (“Give You a Life”) and ended up becoming the permanent singer for the group. Bringing in her musical influences from the US, Hansen and Mazzotti started blending modern house and disco ideas with 90s dance and Europop they respectively listened to growing up.

Their new single “Add It Up,” comes from their acclaimed dance release “Late Nite,” an electro take on their own songs.

We chatted with the quartet to get the inner thinkings of what goes on behind the scenes.

Congratulations on your latest single release “Add It Up”! What inspired you to pen the track?

The remix version of “Add it up” came from the idea of adding new light to song and trying to bring it to new territories, closer to dance music or techno. But the original idea of “Add It Up” came when Renzo was inspired by a late 90s, early 2000s UK dub track. Especially with a specific reference to certain synth sounds, and certain feelings and cadences in the keyboards.

In your eyes how does the new single differ from your past work, but also how does it coincide?
The “Add It Up” remix is obviously connected a lot with the original song and the music that we try to create; a pop version of dance music. We think the remix is getting into disco and almost techno territory and this gives a new perception to the band, as well as more variety. Definitely the dance element is still strong in our band. Generally we’ve been playing with two worlds of our own music, and we’re starting to connect them or drive them together more. Beth says “I remember the time when Renzo mentioned doing Remixes of our own songs. I love our pop sound, but I really love some of our darker and dirtier tracks like “Uh Oh” and “Joy”. I told Renzo to get weird, and I personally had little to do with the track changes. I’m just a huge fan of Renzo’s production and it’s a delight to push him to do these songs.”

When it comes to constructing the lyricism for your songs, do you pen the words before the music ?

Renzo is constantly working on the instrumental side of the tracks while Beth is working on the lyrics. With this clear division of work, most of the time the instrumentals and lyrics are created separately until we come together and share ideas are created before the lyrics. Usually Renzo tries to convey a feeling or an idea in music and Beth tries to translate that into lyrics or trys already written lyrics and melody over the track, catering both as we continue to work on a track. After the first demo, we all come to an agreement on how that song should evolve and the final lyrics are penned down.

Do you keep a journal of both lyric and melody ideas?

Not physically, but yes, Beth keeps vocal notes and typed notes on their phone. Beth says “Often I walk around Brooklyn by myself singing new melodies or trying to finish a song. Second verses are particularly a hold up for me personally. Inspiration sometimes comes at the worst moment, like on a long subway ride, but that has rarely stopped me from humming a few notes or singing to myself.”

What is your favorite part of being a musician?

The best part of being a musician is definitely playing in front of a crowd, something that now we cannot really do but hopefully will do it again soon. Also it’s pretty fun to come up with new song ideas and have a studio and practice every week and translating the feeling of being together into something that we share. Being in a band and collaborating with other artists is also definitely something that interests us as musicians.

As this year is a bit away from the norm, have you found new ways to engage fans? What do you foresee as the next wave of focus for musicians ?

Obviously now it’s more important to engage with fans and try to create as much as possible a true relationship online. It could be gigs in front of a camera and even smaller gigs with the selected crowd of friends (while maintaining the proper distance….the proper 6 feet). We are also planning to create an event and stream it online but we will have more details about this soon….we don’t want to reveal the secret for now!! It’s going to be something that’s never done before and it could be something that, especially in this moment, can get us closer to the fans.