Father’s Day Chat: Canis x Sirius

Canis x Sirius – Father-Son production duo from the midlands – show us the reward you get when you make music for all the right reasons.

Sirius, known by friends as Andy, started his musical journey as a drum and bass MC in the early 2000s, performing at major UK events like Raveology, Helter Skelter, and Music Hertz. As his career took off, he found himself being booked every weekend, which put a huge strain on his relationship with his son, Brad, now known as Canis.

Andy could see his career was taking a toll on his family and his relationship with his son, so he made the difficult decision to step away and focus on fatherhood.

A few years later, Brad developed a strong interest in music production. Sirius supported him, providing a studio setup and guiding him through the fundamentals. By 16, Canis was creating high-energy tracks, however, struggled with finalising them. A pivotal moment for the pair.

During this time, Canis had his debut release on Chilli Tribe Records, a record label owned by Venjent. During a turbulent period of breakups and relocation, Sirius found solace in music again, this time producing alongside his son. Canis x Sirius was born. Over four years later, they honed their signature sound, blending intricate sound design, powerful drum patterns, melodic depth, and seamless track structures.

Suitably calling themselves Canis x Sirius because of Sirius A – the brightest star in the night sky, located within the constellation Canis Major – the pair show us what can happen when the driving force is the fun, family and friendship.

With it being Fathers Day, and the fact that the pair have another EP en route, we jumped in conversation with Canis x Sirius to find out more.

Canis x Sirius! Talk to us about how you came together as a duo.

Canis: Whilst my dad was MCing, he had a PC and was producing music at the same time. I used to sneak on there and make my own music. It was shocking. I begged him for a laptop and he got me one. I was trying to convince him that we should be a duo for a long time. About 5 years ago, he finally said yeah, so that’s when we started making music together. 

Sirius: It all started because we were just really weird at making music. He likes doing the first part: putting beats together, continuously making sounds, listening to the same thing for 15 hours at a time. But then he’ll make a 16 bar drop that is epic and get rid of it. He’d never make an intro and he’d never make a drop. He’d never finish tunes, so I initially just started off by finishing his tracks. Things took off from there. It was funny at the start, because of how good at sound design Brad is, it kind of felt like cheating for me. I was never good at that stuff, but I was a good constructor of music. It was like opening Chase & Status’ laptop and using their sounds!

Canis has been hugely influenced by you though, so he might not have ever made those sounds in the first place had it not been for your love for music!

Canis: Exactly that. He’s influenced me in such a huge way. 

Do you DJ together as a duo too? 

Canis: We have done a few gigs here and that but we didn’t really look at it like that to be honest. We just want to keep it as a production thing for now and see how it rolls. 

Sirius: We’ve got very busy lifestyles. It would need to be really worth it to be giving up our weekends. We’ve had a couple of enquiries abroad so we toy with the idea. Also, I put a lot of time and effort into it once upon a time and didn’t get much reward from it, so it would need to be really worth doing it to do it again.

What are some of the positive things about producing together as a Father-Son duo and also some of the negative things?

Canis: The positives are that we can bond as father and son. We’ve got really close making music together. We don’t look at it like we’re the same blood, we look at each other like we’re best mates. I’d say the negatives are stuff like if I make a drop that I love it and I’ve spent hours and hours on it, and then he says it’s rubbish, I won’t look at it ever again. But then I’ll send it to someone else and they’ll say it’s the best drop they’ve heard in their life. We’ve got slightly different tastes in what we like. He likes more of the gritty stuff whereas I love anything with mad creative design is what I like.

Sirius: He loves listening to IMANU, Mefjus, Camo & Krooked, producers like that. I’ve been through every era of D&B. Jump up, the dark techy stuff, now it’s more varied. You’ll know my input in a tune when there’s singers on it. We’ve got a few tunes incoming with vocalists on them which we really like. In general, I’d say working together as a duo is just massively positive. We’ve not had one argument in the 5 years we’ve been doing this.

Canis: We’ve always had a really strong bond anyway, but music has definitely helped us bond more as father and son.

You have just released Last Days Of Disco Part 1, Part 2 is due to drop soon. What can people expect?

Sirius: It’s a 3 track EP. ‘Fight Me’, ‘Insomniac’ and ’Nitty’. ‘Insomniac’ was released last year on a compilation album called Vice City Volume 3. That was our first feature with Dirtbox Recordings. Lee from Dirtbox thought it would be great to add it to our second release so we’ve signed a three EP deal with them with more incoming in the future. Part 2 lands July 4th!

Any advice or recommendations for any family members wanting to work together in a similar way?

Sirius: Drop the ego and let things happen. If the person you’re working with is better at something, let them do their thing.

Canis: We always try to one up each other too, in a friendly way. It’s healthy competition. Making music is just a way for us to get time together and for us to bond. It works really well. I’d recommend it to anyone.

Sirius: Getting good whilst we’re doing it is just an added bonus. Anything that happens after that is great, but we’d be doing it anyway, just for the laugh.