Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time. Do you feel that you have done this with a specific song?

Johan: I mean, I guess for me, it’s 'Warm Heart of Africa'. That song obviously has become a big track. I mean the whole project for me is kind of like, not in a bragging kind of way, but I think it was kind of forward and fairly new. I would hope so. I guess the song 'Warm Heart of Africa' is the song that people will look back at in ten years time and be like that was a cool track.

Do you feel that by having such a song you may find it difficult to create other songs that will match its degree of appreciation?

Johan: I don’t know. For me 'Warm Heart of Africa' wasn’t even the big song when we were releasing the album. It just became the big song. I guess it's always going to be hard to live up to it. I mean it's not like we had a fucken number one hit either, you know. It was a hype song and we had a lot of attention for it, but I am hoping we will accomplish something a lot bigger than that one day. Of course there is some kind of pressure, but I don’t feel pressurized at all. We will try to have fun like last time and do what we like.

Esau: 'Warm Heart of Africa' wasn't like one of my favourite. There were quite a lot of songs on the album that I liked, but 'Warm Heart of Africa' turned out to be everyone’s favourite. I guess that we can do it, as long as we are both alive, we can still do it.

You are a very diverse group. Each of you come from different backgrounds – Sweden, Malawi and France. How do you compromise in creating the very best music?

Johan: I never feel like there is any compromise in The Very Best. I’ve never been in a situation where I felt like I had to compromise. I think we just know if we are making a good decision or not, and if we are not, then we all agree. We are all very like minded in that way. That’s why I think the project has worked so well. It's such an easy project to work with for us because you never had that power struggle and difference of opinions. It's amazingly smooth. And if somebody does really believe in something and somebody might not, which doesn’t happen often. I don’t really know because its never happened. But if we came to the point where it was like that, I don’t think we would find it hard. I mean if somebody was not happy with something we would scrap the song or take that particular part out or whatever we are disagreeing on. We don’t find it hard in anyway being creative together, whether its making music or creating a live show. I have this feeling that about music in general that there is always good shit around the corner. Sometimes I'll make a remix for someone as Radioclit and I might have used something tiny from the song and done something that I’m super super happy with and I know its going to work well. Then I might think for a second that I should take out that little bit that I took from the original song, or fuck the remix I’ll my own song out of it. But then you can always understand that there is no limitation to the amount of creative outcome that you can have. There is always better and more of everything, so there is no point to get hung up on creative differences or trying to have to compromise all the time. That’s not how we work.

Esau, can you describe the process you go through when writing your lyrics. How does this process complement Johan's production?

Esau: Some of the lyrics I write them before I hear Johan's beats. But when Johan makes a beat, sometimes I translate it into the beat. But I’ll say that twenty percent of the whole work is something that I’ve written before. Sometimes I don’t even keep my lyrics. But when I hear a beat and some rhythms, they remind me of something that I’ve done before.

Do you think that the process of translation suppresses the original meaning and intention you may have had?

Esau: Not really. Most of the time, the process of translation makes my lyrics better. What I have is just the lyrics and not the beats. So when I translate it into a beat it becomes something that is complete; something better. When it’s just the words you have, it’s nothing. When I hear a beat I think of new ideas.

Have you ever found that you were looking for a certain sound and particular result and you've ended up finding something different, something better?

Johan: I’m the worst producer when somebody comes to me and says ‘I want a song like this’ or ‘I want a beat like that’. It always comes out wrong. I can never sit down and think that I’m going to make something specific. It always comes out wrong or like nothing I’ve ever imagined it to be. The best way for me to make music is to sit down and start working and see what comes out. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. It’s hard when working with more pop kind of acts because people are very specific with what they want and they expect certain things from you and I find that more difficult. It’s getting better though. With the Very Best it’s just very free. Sometimes I might have a beat that I think is going to be amazing and Esau is going to do something amazing. Sometimes we try something and it doesn’t work and I realize straight away and say ‘fuck, this isn’t good’. Sometimes I would have something that I wouldn’t think Esau would sing on, something that I really like such as ‘Julia’ and then it became one of the big songs as well. I think you always have to have that feeling that you’ll accomplish something more that you were expecting otherwise you wouldn’t be satisfying yourself. It’s kind of a test. You work on something for a day and the next day you come back to it and you completely forgot what you’ve done. That's when you listen to it with fresh ears. It’s almost like you are listening to someone else’s music and it’s on that basis that you judge it. If you are still blown away then it’s like ‘fuck, we’ve done something really cool here’. If it’s not then you scrap it. You have to have that feeling of ‘damn, this is cool’. It’s like someone else did a really cool song. I think you have to impress yourself more than anyone else.

Besides impressing yourselves, is there anyone else you try and impress with your music?

Esau: For me, no. I just try to impress myself. I don’t try and impress anyone with my music. When you do music some people like it and others don’t.

Johan: I mean I’ll never say that I’ve made a song that I’ve tried to impress someone. Saying that though it’s an amazing feeling when you have made something that someone you look up to says that it’s really good. This is how we end up working with people such as Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend. That’s obviously a great feeling and its great but its not why you make the songs in the first place.

Is it right to suggest that you are never persuaded by public or critical opinion?

Johan: It’s a combination of everything. It’s not like we don’t take other people’s opinions into consideration. When we make a song I play it to my wife and my friends. If everybody is giving us lousy feedback, well sometimes I’ll just say ‘fuck it, you just don’t get it’. Sometimes if I really feel like this is good I won’t care. Sometimes they’ll open your eyes and I’ll think maybe I should work on this a bit more. Of course you take other people’s opinions on things. I like to play songs to random people. I feel very nervous playing songs to family and friends because it might be something I’m really happy with. It's always good to get feedback.