Artist On Artist: Motez + DOOLIE Team Up For 'Tell Me'

In the world of electronic music, certain collaborations ignite a spark of excitement that resonates with fans and critics alike.

Australian DJ and producer Motez, in his latest endeavour, has teamed up with the sensational Melbourne singer DOOLIE to create an infectious dancefloor anthem, Tell Me, which serves as the focus track of Motez's immersive techno EP, Coalesce, which dropped on October 5th.

"Coalesce is an audiovisual project that exists in the space between virtual and physical worlds, it is a fusion of digital art and tangible elements, blurring the boundaries of reality and imagination," said Motez.

"To demonstrate that, we’ve decided to create a hypercube where the world of Coalesce and its detail can live within, each side of this space, including the very heart of it, is a living, breathing structure that represents each song of the EP."

For Tell Me, Montez and DOOLIE take the best bits of euro-dance to create a two-step anthem destined for Ibiza d-floors.

"I wanted the entrance into the world of Coalesce to be bright and colourful, you can still see the sky and its vibrance before you enter into its dark, concrete world, so ‘Tell Me' was the perfect reflection of that," Motez said.

In celebration of the talents joining forces for the banger that is Tell Me, we had Motez and DOOLIE interview one another to talk about everything from their collaboration to what’s next for the dynamic duo.

Doolie: Can you tell me what artists inspire your music that would surprise me/fans?

Tez: So, so many inspirations for me but they all provide different purposes. I'd say Madonna (2000s era) has always been a huge inspiration because she brings the most incredible producers on board to help her produce her albums. The last couple of years I’d say, Manni Dee, Elkka, Wax Wings and nthng.

Tez: What about you? What’s your weirdest or wildest inspiration?

Doolie: For me, I get inspired by really specific things I hear in tracks, it could be structure, sounds, or instruments.

I love a lot of music that comes out of the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, lots of tech and DnB. But one of my biggest inspirations at the moment is Overmono. A few others are Bicep, TSHA, Baltra, and Saluté.

Doolie: What was your expectation vs. reality of working with me creatively?

Tez: I had no real expectations per se before working with you, but I’ve heard from a friend that you’re very nice but a bit serious.

They were right about you being incredibly nice, but I wasn’t prepared for how funny and far from serious you were.

I loved how prolific you are in the studio, and apart from having an impeccable voice, you’re totally plugged into the zeitgeist, and that translated to every project we worked on. Oops, did I say we’re working on more than one song?? ;)

Tez: How did you find working with me online vs. working with me in person and hanging out?

Doolie: Omg, spilling all of my beans Tez!! It was so fun working with you! I felt so educated; you were teaching me so much.

You’re also super quick in the studio, it was so easy to get ideas down and flow with you, which meant more time for meme breaks.

Doolie: We’ve got a night planned, what’s the itinerary?

Tez: First and foremost, we need to have a “theme” for our attire: casual? fancy? or all of the above? Maybe we start with a couple of drinks somewhere local, perhaps Good Gilbert or ALT. Then we head to dinner somewhere like Aficola or Oggi.

TEZ: Not sure what we can do post-dinner though, what do you reckon?

Doolie: Post-dinner, this looks like a perfect set-up for a house party! We set up the decks, everyone puts their USB in the bowl (Iykyk), and we do b2b2b2b all night long.

Then when it gets late enough, we hop in the studio, show everyone a few sneak peeks, and then write a hit at 3 am. Thoughts?

Doolie: You’ve been stuck in the studio all day, nothing is hitting. a) What do you do? b) What advice would you give to someone in the same spot?

Tez: I would say if it’s not working for a while, then just take a break. Go for a walk around for a few minutes, maybe grab a coffee on the way and just decompress.

Trying to constantly push through brick walls, while admirable, will only make your creativity suffer more, and you might end up sabotaging whatever you’re working on.

Sometimes, what I would do is leave any project that I’m getting no breakthrough from for a day or two, and potentially work on something else.

Tez: Alternatively, a “meme break,” which is what you and I did, right?? What’s your favourite meme atm?

Doolie: Omgggg, this is a really tough ask because are we asking about Tiktok memes? Instagram memes? Facebook memes?

I would have to say my favourite thing to share with everyone is the Facebook page “Bad Taxidermy.” It’s really an art, bad taxidermy, I have so much respect for it.

Doolie: What journey did you want to take the listeners on in our new song?

Tez: You and I have always thought of the song as the soundtrack to the height of the night, when you’re on a busy, sweaty dance floor and you’re really feeling the music and bathing in the lights, and then you see a person from across the room who you’re instantly captivated by and you start to wonder whether you’ve met them before, but perhaps that’s sometimes what it feels like to meet somebody you know you’re going to spend the night with.

Tez: Have you been there before, Doolz?

Doolie: Yes, hard relate, have experienced this many times before.

One story that comes to mind; to set the scene, I was at a friend's house party when I was living on the Gold Coast. It was late, the party was at its peak, and I kept seeing this guy. I was so confident I knew this guy, and I thought that he was looking at me like he knew me too.

All night I was going through my memory bank trying to figure out how I knew him, and I was so certain we had met, and I even remember thinking “We were really good mates.” The second before I was about to approach him to ask “How do we know each other,” my friend took me over to introduce me to him.

Turns out he was on a really big reality TV show... so he did not know me, I just recognised him from the TV. *Insert clown emoji*