2025 is already shaping up to be a good year for them as well, with their recent release ‘Polarised’ with ÆON:MODE recently released. And that’s not all, because they also announced their new 12-track album Moments in Everglow, and a London headline show in May. The album comes five years after Butterfly Effect, and will feature a full orchestra and choir to make this production bigger than ever.
We had a chat with Katie to reflect on the last 10 years of Koven, and had a little look into the upcoming future…
In November 2024, it was 10 years ago since you joined Koven, congratulations! A lot has happened since then, but what are some of the most standout moments to you?
We’ve been really fortunate to play a lot of incredible shows, but I think a pinnacle part in our journey was when we made the decision for Max to stop playing shows, our dynamic changed a lot then. We only had a couple of years of playing shows together. Max has a lot of flight anxiety, where it’s linked to flight claustrophobia. He doesn’t like being stuck in planes, and it was making the travel really difficult for him. As a DJ playing shows, being able to travel easily and comfortably is so important. It’s stressful enough to travel every weekend if you don’t mind it, but trying to do it when you have this phobia to battle at the same time… It became really difficult for him, so that’s why we made this decision that I would be the only one to play the shows. I would go in the forefront of Koven, but we would always make it very clear that Max is working his butt off in the background. Everything we do is a joint collaboration between the two of us, but I became the forefront of it. I thought it was sad because then I was suddenly playing shows on my own.
We played some amazing shows together, before that. The first big festival we did together was Exit Festival in Serbia, on a UKF stage, and it was so surreal. It was the first time me and him stepped on a huge stage. We’d done a few club shows, but we hadn’t done a big festival together. That’s a moment that we’ll definitely always, always remember. Another one is releasing our album Butterfly Effect. It feels like such an achievement to create a body of work like that. And lastly, the fact that we still are working together after all those years. We’re just really fortunate that we are two people after 10 years who are still really happy to work together.
And how have you both evolved in those 10 years?
I think we’ve just gotten better. From my side of things, I definitely feel more confident in my songwriting and vocal abilities. You can even hear it if you go back to one of the first songs. I almost don’t sound the same, like my vocal is nowhere near as strong and it’s almost like I’m nervous and holding back a little bit. And fastforward to now, you can feel my confidence levels coming out through the music, so I think that’s definitely one way that I’ve evolved. I guess you’re just going to get better at something the more you do it, but it’s a nice feeling though.
In 10 years not only a duo like yourself can change, but there have also been some changes in the drum & bass scene. Have you adapted to this change?
We’ve always tried not to adapt to the scene in a way, and we’ve been really fortunate that our music has always been well received, no matter what we’ve done. We’ve done different genres and different tempos, different vibes, and people have always seemed to enjoy what Koven is. Koven is not necessarily a certain genre, it’s more of a sound that you get from our music. I think that that’s something we’ve always tried, to stay true to ourselves, in terms of only making music that we absolutely love, and only releasing music that we love. We’ve never really tried to fit trends because honestly we don’t know how to! In the long run, that’s actually done us a lot of favours. Our fan base is unreal. We are fortunate to have so many people that just appreciate who we are as people and as artists. They seem like they’re in for the ride no matter what, which is amazing.
In terms of the scene changing, we have had a lot more bookings lately, which has been really good for us. I don’t know, but maybe that has come from the fact that there’s more women in the forefront of drum & bass? That’s been a really big movement that’s happened in the last 10 years. When we first started 10 years ago, there was not this much pressure for equal gender lineups and things like that. I’ve seen that change and it’s been amazing to be part of that ride. I was very lucky to be a woman who was on lineups when it wasn’t as common, and now one of the things I’m seeing is that I’m just surrounded by so many more women when I’m on the road. I absolutely love that, because these women become your friends. I mean, the men become your friends as well, but obviously, woman to woman, you get a tighter bond, so that’s been something that I’ve really seen, a real uprising in female power, and it’s been really nice to be part of that journey.
With what goal in mind did you join Koven?
I just wanted to write and release music. I never had the aim of it being a career, because I was always very realistic in that mindset of “it doesn’t get to be everyone’s career, you always have to have a side job,” and I did have a side job for a very long time. My goal was always just to create and when Max approached me about working together, it felt so perfect. He felt like the perfect person to create with and originally that was all I cared about, just making music, having an outlet to be creative, and getting music out to people. Obviously then when it does become your career, your goals change because the pressure changes. Suddenly there’s new things that you want to achieve, which is fine because it keeps you motivated and it keeps you going. We’ve now achieved every single goal that we ever set out to achieve so now we have to make new goals. It’s weird, because you achieve one thing and then you go, “okay, now we need to do that but we need to do it bigger and better,” so our goals are always to grow, as long as we keep getting some steady growth, and feel like we’re going somewhere. But we would probably also be fine if we got to a point where we can sustain the same level of success. You get made to feel like you always have to be going up and up and up and up, but ultimately, if I have a career and me and Max continue for this to be our income and our jobs, then I feel like we’ve achieved as much as we can.
That’s a good way of looking at things! How did you get this mindset?
Even though I say it out loud now, there are times when I’m like, “No, we have to get bigger and it has to get better and there has to be growth,” but I think you get to a point where you just get a little bit older and you get a little bit wiser. Then you realize what really matters in life. One of the most important things in life is financial stability. If you achieve financial stability you’re so fortunate. Friends, family, all of these things, I’m starting to put a lot more focus on those things and then it takes a lot of pressure off your career. When you start out, everything is “career focus career focus career focus” and you throw everything at that. Then it becomes something that you think, if I lose this then I lose everything. The idea of losing it is so scary, but when you get a little bit more content in life, you have to be okay with the idea that it can go away, because you can drive yourself crazy worrying about all of the what-ifs. You have to teach yourself to be content with whatever the outcome may be.
Throwing everything into it is also important, because you have to work hard to achieve those things. But you always have to have a balance for your own mental wellbeing of understanding that there are other things in life that are just as important. Hopefully you make it, and hopefully you get a long and successful career, but you can drive yourself crazy from overthinking it. I’ve had so many periods of time, before we got to this point of our career, where I drove myself crazy from worrying. At the moment we’re at a very fortunate position where we are doing well. We’re getting a lot of bookings. It’s our full time job. But there was a time five, six years ago when we were just on the cusp of making it, where it felt like we had something there and we had the capabilities to be successful, but we just weren’t quite reaching to the point we needed to be. I used to get so worked up about it. I know how it can be, and I can see other people finding similar stresses within the industry.
Sometimes you just have to take yourself out, look at what you’ve achieved from an outsider’s perspective, and realize that where you’re at is still incredible. You’ll always think that there’s something more and somewhere higher you need to be, and it’s very difficult to get out of that mindset. I managed to do it, because I just got really content with whatever happens. I am very lucky to have achieved so much that I feel like I can pat myself on the back and say, you’ve done a really good job.
You’ve just announced your first back to back with A.M.C at Beats for Love. Can you tell us more about that?
This was something we have been approached about several times, I guess since people finding out I’m in a relationship with Alex (A.M.C). But we always needed it to make sense. We didn’t want to do it for that reason, we wanted to do it because the show would be amazing. And when Beats for Love came to us it just felt right. We wanted it to be in a place where we have quite an equal fan base and that definitely works for the Czech republic. Also the ‘Love stage” at Beats for Love is one of my favourite stages in the world. It’s an incredible build and has this amazing runway for performance space, it felt like the perfect place to put on the best show we can possibly do.
Do you have any exciting projects coming up you want to tell us about?
Yes! One of the most exciting, we have just announced our second full length album, Moments in Everglow. We released our first album Butterfly Effect back in 2020 and it had a huge impact for us. We think this album is even better and we are so excited to share all the new music (we’ve already started the release process of some of the singles), as well as the new shows we plan to do alongside the release. It’s just such a positive time for us. After you spend literally YEARS making it, and you get to this part where you can finally enjoy the hard work that’s gone into it. It’s all very exciting.
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