Public Works believe in miracles and boy are we amped for the upcoming live set from Portland-based The Miracles Club this weekend. We had a chance to chat with Honey and Rafael to get a little inside scoop on what makes them so special; take a look…

Q: When did you all start working together?

Honey & I started working together in 2008. Ryan (our dancer) came on in 2009. Since then we have worked with a revolving cast of musicians and dancers. We have always wanted to have a family style band like The Grateful Dead or The Boredoms but House. Something more then like a “band” something that people can feel a part of.

Q: How did you come up with the name, the Miracles Club?

The Miracles Club is a recovery outreach center here in Portland, Oregon. I don’t use drugs or alcohol anymore and oddly for me dancing, producing & DJing have been a way out of that lifestyle. So we were driving around one day talking about the kind of music we wanted to make, the vibe, the name. We passed by The Miracles Club and that was it.

Q: What is the dance music scene like in Portland at the moment?

It’s small .There are a couple of small clubs with small nights but it’s growing if not in size then in energy and passion. I think people here are becoming more open to it. It’s just a rock town so the dance scene is really underground by comparison. We do a blog/label/party called Ecstasy. A lot of the people we work with are from here or friends we met touring. In the last couple years there have been more and more people doing live House and Techno here as well as DJing. It’s not uncommon to go to a night here that has a live act or two, or three. There is an older scene too. We get a fair amount of DJs from Chicago, Detroit, NYC from that scene. We also bring in people in for our party as well. Our last one featured MikeQ and next months party is with Berlin’s Hunee.

Q: What inspires you to make dance music?

Listening to music, traveling, getting exposed to new scenes and styles… Naturally classic House records were a huge inspiration for us there is something really raw about the old stuff a kinda punk quality. There was nothing going on like that here or anywhere I knew about at the time so I would just listen to records religiously and try and figure out how it worked. We wanted to use the pallet of Chicago/NY House, Detroit Techno to make new music, pop music but with a improvised and psychedelic quality as those were both worlds that we loved. We get a lot of inspiration from our friends and the community of musicians, dancers & artists here and everywhere we go.

Q: What type of projects are you currently working on?

We have a new 12″ coming out on Cutters with remixes from Ultimate Man, Niles Delta, & Discodromo. Recently did a remix for our friends label HNYTRX of a song by Stereogamous featuring beautiful vocals from Shaun J. Wright. Just finishing up another one for Italy’s Hard Ton. I also do a deep/garage house project with Avalon Kalin called Emotion II Emotion. Our first record should be out any day now on the french label Skylax. We have a 12″ with SF’s C.L.A.W.S on the way for our label and also an LP from Alexis Blair Penney in the works. Slowly putting together a Miracles Club full length for next year. We are trying to get more psychedelic with the new stuff integrate more guitar & latin percussion. But also more experimental, harder & faster taking elements of Vogue House, 2-Step & Techno.

Q:Where would you like to play if you could play anywhere?

Ibiza. Also anywhere we haven’t been and all the place we have again, but mainly just excited to play at the Public Works this Saturday.

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Get tickets to Miracles Club at Public Works Saturday Here