In a world of unicorns and strawberry shortcakes, Major Lazer is a Jamaican commando who fought in the “Secret Zombie War of 1984” and lost both arms in combat (this is pretty LOL stuff). In real life, Major Lazer is the collaboration of two of dancehall, reggae and electro’s biggest brains today – Diplo and Switch – who with appointed “Hype Man” Skerrit Bwoy, lay mayhem, madness and some pretty sharp tunes on the dancefloor. Diplo explains.

Your album Guns Don’t Kill People – Lazers Do was produced in Jamaica. Was it a good place to do a record?
Yes it was! This year, we have been doing lots of stuff in Jamaica and I still work there for other projects too, not just Major Lazer, like I DJ there quite a bit and was just there trying to finish Santigold’s new record. I have a good relationship with some studios there too. Actually, it was more difficult to work with the first album than it is now with the second. With the first album we were working from scratch with the songs. Now with the second one, we have established a fan base and a lot of artists want to work with us. Makes it easy.

Great parties in Jamaica?
Not really, since the studio is out in the woods. But it’s good like that – when you are isolated you can get more stuff done. But we are often in Kingston too and there is a lot of great energy there!

Nice. And you are doing a new album with Major Lazer right now?
Yeah, we are going to do like 20 albums before we are done….

How does Major Lazer make the world a better place?
If not for our existence, there wouldn’t be shows like tonight’s and the world will be a bit darker. I’m really just happy to be here.

Read the rest of this interview in the September issue of JUICE, now out at these spots.

www.majorlazer.com

Text: Heidi Lahtinen
Image and Interview courtesy of: Zouk