The Layabouts are a lot more than their mellow moniker suggests. Together for eight years now ‘thirty-somethings’ Leigh Darlow and Alex Paschali have been tirelessly working the clubs as DJs, throwing themselves into remix work and touting their own tracks on reputable house imprints such as Defected, Soulfuric, Mn2S and, of course, Papa Records and Reel People Music.

It’s fair to say they’ve built up quite a following in clubland. The duo’s rock solid reputation for quality deep house – house with soul and polish in equal alluring measure – has earned them some big fans, peers and punters, along the way but remarkably the boys are restless. They want more. Staying at the same level isn’t an option. Maybe The Layabouts isn’t such a great name after all?

Darlow laughs, appreciating the irony. But, then, the name also says much about the fluid, unflustered way in which he and Paschali work together. “We both bring something different to the table” he says. “Sure, there are the odd scrapes but then I think that’s healthy for a studio relationship. I’m the real house-head, and I’ll be looking at beats, rhythms and grooves. Alex, on the other hand, is a guitarist and musician. He’ll look to add musical scale over my raw production. It’s a great tag-team.”

The Layabouts were actually a trio up until 2009 when third member Ben Logan decided to leave the music biz altogether. The development didn’t impede the outfit’s momentum but certainly Darlow and Paschali are set on a change of direction.

“For the first couple of years we were happy to get ourselves on line-ups for club nights and to take on the un-credited production work being thrown our way” Darlow confesses, “but then we realised we wanted to do things for ourselves. That gave us a much bigger challenge because we knew we had to give 120% if we were to standout from all the other heads making house tracks.”

Right now, we’re making another shift. The Beatport and Traxsource generation is thriving on a deeper, driving house sound and we want to carefully weave that sound into our existing soulful blueprint. We want to engage the widest possible range of people.”

Barnet-based Darlow and Paschali met in 2001 when working on various individual studio projects; Darlow was, at the time, an engineer. Fairly soon the pair were working together, providing clients (Ministry Of Sound, for one) with dance music backing tracks. The regular commissions prompted them to strike out with impressive debut material on their own imprints, Soulworks and Healthy Records.

Early cuts such as Feelin’ Right and The Way I Feel attracted the revelatory attention of Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez’ Ill Friction stable. The resultant business deal had its difficulties but come 2008, The Layabouts were able to release Stand Up, backed by major remixes from the ‘Dope’ man himself.

Stand Up delivered gospel-driven deliciousness and rocketed up the download charts and dominated radio and DJ playlists.

Since then, the boys have enjoyed weighty remix outings with the likes Roland Clarke & Classic 7 (The Deejay’s An Alien) Stephanie Mills (Free) Michael Watford & Danism (Change) DJ Spen & Robert Owens (A Greater Love 2010) and ‘Jellybean’ Benitez’ 3 Amigos (You Bring Me Joy)

Their own studio output has also increased, highlights including Choices (with Kathy Brown) and Thank You (with Pete Simpson) Frequency has most definitely been matched by quality and complimented by a growing studio maturity.

In terms of tomorrow, it’s all about new production. “It’s all about our music now” Darlow stresses, “which means no remixes for a while, fewer gigs and no running our own labels. It all takes up time and right now, we want to focus fully on taking our sound to the next level.”

That masterplan has already seen Papa and Reel People Music boss Oli Lazarus step on board as Layabouts manager. “We hooked up with Oli and Papa a couple of years ago, remixing label releases from DJ Spinna and Da Lata” Darlow explains. “It’s a really fruitful relationship because we’re being given the time and space to fully craft our music.”

There have, admittedly, followed a further set of remixes for fellow Papa and Reel People signings such as Renn, The Realm and Choklate, but The Layabouts’ own-brand goods are taking fantastic shape.

The outfit’s one existing Papa production – last year’s tech-soul bullet Give Me Your Trust – is set finally to give way to a brand new compilation, The Layabouts – Deep In En5. Gathering together their best remix salvos to date, alongside original songs featuring Imaani and Shea Soul, the new material effectively reflects both The Layabouts’ and Papa’s new deep stylistic tack.

Expect The Layabouts to remain untrue to their name then – we wouldn’t have it any other way….