Destination: Planet Earth
You may only recognise them as the box-headed DJs that soundtrack your weekends, but DJs From Mars are now one of the biggest names in the mash-up scene and their goal is nothing less than to conquer the world.
With New Year’s Eve around the corner, Brisbane better get ready for some alien domination as the duo prepare to bring in 2012 with Western Australia’s Bombs Away. “We are damn excited, of course. We have been working hard every week in between gigs to be sure we have the freshest sound so expect some brand new bombs! Last year when we played there for the first time we didn’t know what to expect, but now we are prepared so you better be ready for a party hard night! Bring your own boxes!†the excited Turin duo said via an email interview.
The coming weeks will see DJs From Mars performing in France, their home country of Italy, and Austria before reaching Australia, their final destination for 2011, where the music is not all they’re excited about. “Not just because we are talking to you, but we honestly can’t wait to come to Australia again. Last year’s Aussie gigs were amazing. We met and worked with amazing people, the food was great, everything was perfect and last but not least, all of our friends will be freezing while we’ll be hanging around in t-shirts and short pants!â€
DJs From Mars officially formed back in 2004 and have made quite a name for themselves since. With music playing such a big role in their lives, it’s hard to imagine what life would be like if they weren’t DJing. “We would be preparing fries for a fat guy waiting and screaming at us behind a fast food cashier! No seriously, we’ve been DJs long before the DJSFM project, and we were involved in several other projects at the label we worked for so our job has always been music and we feel so lucky about that, especially today as it’s getting pretty hard to make it as a kid.â€
Part of what makes DJs From Mars stand out from other globetrotting DJs is their unique image combined with a sound that is, as their name suggests, a bit out of this world. “It was all made very randomly. We chose the ‘DJs From Mars’ name because we wanted to express a ‘different’ feeling and we both love sci-fi movies. The boxhead image came when shooting one of our first videos for a track called ‘Who Gives a F**k About Deejays’. Our label’s manager came up with this idea for the video, and we tried to keep it going during the gigs. It was a lucky choice because it became our trademark.â€
Constantly performing with a box over their heads has meant their identities are always concealed from the public, with this disguise now an important part of who DJs From Mars are.
“We try not to reveal our real identities. We love the fact that people don’t know who we really are. After the show the best part is to hang at the bar sipping on a drink with all the guys around saying ‘Hey those DJs were great’ without knowing we are there. The bad part is when they say ‘so glad those mother f***ers finished their set it was soooo boring!’. Fortunately, most of the time they like it.â€
They’ve more than created a stir with numerous international tours, YouTube videos with hits in the tens of millions, support from leading DJs like David Guetta and Bob Sinclar, remixing tracks for Ciara, Cascada and Fragma, and a burgeoning loyal following. It’s understandable why picking the best thing about being a DJ would be so difficult.
“Free drinks! Ok, no, the best thing is going to sleep after a great show in a foreign place miles away from home and thinking that someone called you to rock the party. It’s definitely great! On a larger scale, every day you wake up and realise you are paying for your food with money that you earned doing something you love. That’s absolutely perfect.â€
When you have the enthralling ability to captivate an entire dancefloor for hours without ever showing your face, memorable moments are bound to be plentiful and 2011 has provided the biggest so far. “We opened for Tiesto in Atlantic City in March this year and it was amazing of course. Under our boxes we were thinking ‘Is this really happening or did someone put some pills in our drinks?’ Then we came back to Italy and we saw the videos only to realise it was really happening! That was one of the best gigs of our lives so far, and we hope to have a lot of other magic moments like that.â€
There is one dream, however, that is yet to be fulfilled. “Our dream will be always a dream. We would love to work on a track with Jimi Hendrix and see him making music with computers. We still cannot believe what he did to contemporary music with the help of barely anything.â€
Considering the ever-changing face of popular dance music, keeping up with the kids can be hard. Dubstep may be taking over at the moment, but DJs From Mars are determined to resist conformity while still keeping it fresh and embracing new sounds. “We love dubstep and we tried to insert some of that in some of our tracks but we’ll never go dubstep just because it’s the trend of the moment. Otherwise next year when it goes out, we’ll have to change again.
“We think that everyone has to keep their own style. Look at Daft Punk and how great they are without following any trends. We try to build our own style, every day incorporating everything we love, including dubstep, heavy metal, hip hop, soundtracks, classical music and so on. We feed ourselves with music not with trends!â€
Last year techno was all the rage, pumping throughout nightclubs around the globe, last week it was electro, today it’s dubstep and tomorrow who knows. So what happens when dance music dies? “Music will change radically, but dance music will never die. For us, house music is just the third millennium version of disco music, which is the twentieth century version of African tribal dance. It’s just a kind of music you can dance to, and if you talk to a 14-year-old kid today about house music he’ll probably think of Deadmau5, not David Morales. Styles are changing, but people will always dance.
“Working in this business for such a long time has taught us that music always has its ups and downs. The ones who make it are the ones who can manage the downs.â€
In 2012 DJs From Mars will continue their plan to take over the world, time permitting that is.
“We have 100,000 ideas and such a short time to work on all of them. If only we had 48 hours in a day.â€
DJS FROM MARS PLAY ELECTRIC PLAYGROUND SATURDAY DEC 31 and east fri dec 30.
With The Best Intentions
Whether he’s guiding a Sydney Harbour Bridge climb or on stage as the other half of hip hop duo Spit Syndicate, Nick Lupi talks shit for a living and manages to keep his audiences entertained doing it.
“At the moment we’re just trying to juggle doing Spit Syndicate stuff with the real life stuff we have to do in order to pay bills and things like that,†Nick says. “I’m a tour guide on the Sydney Harbour Bridge; I take people up and talk shit to them about Sydney. It’s not that different to what I do in music, it’s just a different way of talking shit to people and trying to keep them vaguely entertained.â€
Alongside fellow emcee Jimmy Nice, Lupi and Spit Syndicate are back with the first part of their new mixtape, ‘Best Intentions: Part One’, which features a range of guests from Pharaohe Monch to The XX. “It was just something that happened really quickly and really naturally and I think that’s why people dug it; because it didn’t sound forced. Some of the songs on the mixtape are other people’s beats. They’re just beats that we really vibe on, things that makes you go ‘Shit I wish I had that beat for myself’.
“The finished product isn’t 100 percent yours. It’s not your original piece of art but the lyrics are yours. The mixtape was free, it didn’t cost us anything to make and it doesn’t cost anything for people to hear it. It’s just art for art’s sake, if you will.†But that’s not all the duo has been up to in between touring. ‘Best Intentions’ is a two part mixtape, with ‘Part Two’ set to come out by the end of summer with an album in the making too.
“‘Part Two’ will be out in the first quarter of next year but we’ve actually got a third album due and that’s probably a higher priority than ‘Part Two’ of the mixtape so we’re working on them both. The album will hopefully come out in the second or third quarter of next year. For us it’s just about being as productive as we possibly can over the summer.â€
The new album will pick up where the last one left off, conveying Spit Syndicate’s thoughts, feelings and experiences they’ve had over the past two years. “We’re not particularly old yet but we’re getting older and it’s just where we’re at in our heads. We like to make songs that make people think but not intellectual rap. We try to make stuff that has a good groove to it, that people can dance to, and that people can enjoy live but we’re also firm believers in lyricism. That’s the sort of hip hop that we like, people that take time to write something that means something.â€
Spit Syndicate will be playing at this year’s Blah Blah Blah festival where they will be ready to test their new material. “We did a tour with Illy about a month ago supporting him on a few gigs around the country and doing those shows and Blah Blah Blah festival is about road testing your songs, trying them out live. We’re still at the stage where we don’t know which of these songs will make the album and which will be cut. We will see which ones people respond to, which ones get a good reaction and which ones perhaps don’t get the reaction we were after.â€
While the twosome wouldn’t say they’re living the good life just yet, getting the Spit Syndicate name out there has provided a few glimpses of fame, with one that stands out from the rest for Nick. “It’s not an entirely glamorous life trying to get your music off the ground but I found out the other day that the actress (Lara Cox) that used to play Anita on ‘Heartbreak High’ is a Spit Syndicate fan and I’m a huge ‘Heartbreak High’ fan. Anita was always a fairly sexy character so I’m pretty chuffed about that.â€
SPIT SYNDICATE PLAY BLAH BLAH BLAH AT SOUTH BANK CULTURAL FORECORT WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 28. ADICTS.COM.AU
Rattling Heads
He may be a warehouse manager by day, but come nightfall you can catch Caughtz ripping up south east Queensland with his crew, Triple3.
Captivating audiences with Triple3 for almost four years, emcee Caughtz is ready to take the stage alone, dropping his first solo EP, ‘The Lost Soul’, next month.
Brought together by a mutual bond of music, Triple3 members Caughtz, XXI, 7ravesty and DJ Immaculate are locals in the Brisbane and Gold Coast hip hop scenes, each with more than a decade of experience under their belts.
“I’ve been involved with emceeing, writing rhymes, breakdancing, graffiti and the culture in Melbourne and Sydney for ten plus years and Trav has as well, while XXI has been in the scene for 1,000 years,†Caughtz says.
It was only a matter of time before they decided to combine their talents and become an official crew, leaving the naming of the group up to chance. “We decided to make a goal of this or we’d just end up plotting away in a dead-end job. I’m just a warehouse manager so my nine to five life is nothing special at all. We don’t have a back-up plan if this fails but hopefully we’ll do alright, we’ve just got to think positive. “Two of the crew members, XXI and 7ravesty, used to live in a little unit block in Stones Corner where we used to record all our demos and the number of it happened to be 333. So that’s how we came up with the name.â€
‘The Lost Soul’ has been in the pipelines for more than a year, with Caughtz furiously recording and getting it together over the past six months. He’s super enthusiastic about preparing for its release at the Real Talk Battle League later this month. “Once we finally committed to getting it down and the record label gave us the okay and the funding to do it we were really excited. I’ve got some really good collaborations and all the production and recording was done at Capthat Records with Paul Patterson, who’s just an absolutely brilliant music engineer. It’s been a long hard road so it’s definitely all paying off and worth it, I can’t wait to get it out.â€
Inspired by the ‘80s and ‘90s east coast American scene (the Wu-Tang Clan, M.O.P.), Caughtz describes his solo sound as a little bit different to the norm. “I’m from the era when hip hop wasn’t cool. Now every man and his dog is an emcee and every man and his dog wants to be part of the culture. We were a minority back in the day. I come from that true four-element hip hop representation.
“My EP is not generic run-of-the-mill Australian hip hop, it’s different. I tell it like it is and I call it how I see it. My rhymes are brutally honest. I haven’t had a terrible upbringing but I haven’t had the world’s most fantastic upbringing and my lyrics are real. It’s going to rattle some heads, definitely, because it’s not the norm that the Brisbane hip hop scene is used to.â€
His music is not the only thing that’s different. According to Caughtz, gone are the days when hip hop battling was all about freestyling. “Personally I’ve never been a battle rapper but I think my solo music seems to cater for that battle league sort of crowd. We’re all very capable of freestyling, but even the battle scene these days is all pre-written. Battlers basically find out who they’re battling a month before and they start writing from there. “All Triple3 live sets are very well planned, there’s nothing sporadic or off the top. We’re very much a uniformed outfit.â€
Caughtz says 2011 has had a number of pinch-yourself moments with the highlight getting his EP out. Following its release will be the unveiling of Tricksta’s EP, ‘The Wars Awaiting’, with a Triple3 EP in the mix as well. “After my album drops and Tricksta’s album drops in a month or two we will go straight into the studio to record Triple3’s first solo EP and then we’ll start touring. Trav is also working on a free mixtape/ EP so once we get all that out of the way I’m sure there might be room for another project. 2012 is definitely going to be a big year for us.â€
TRIPLE3 PLAY ‘JUICY’, A NEW HIP HOP NIGHT AT THE MUSTANG BAR THIS THURSDAY DECEMBER 1. CAUGHTZ LAUNCHES ‘THE LOST SOUL’ AT REAL TALK BATTLE LEAGUE, AT THE JUBILEE, ON SATURDAY DECEMBER 10.
GETTING FESTIVE
After solidifying himself as one of the nation’s most prominent hip hop artists, emcee Illy is ready to ditch the temperamental bitch Melbourne calls weather for some sunshine at this year’s Sprung Festival and 600 Sounds.
“I’m really looking forward to both days,†Illy says. “Bliss N Eso and Drapht are both mates playing at 600 Sounds and Sprung’s line-up is crazy! I guess just getting up to Queensland, being among a bunch of cool crew and enjoying the nice weather and some good music should be really fun.â€
First realising his dream at just 13, the now 26-year-old Melburnian has toured the country extensively, performing sold-out shows with M-Phazes after the release of his sophomore album, ‘The Chase’, late last year. “Having ‘Pictures’ come #66 in Triple J’s Hottest 100 last year and then ‘It Can Wait’ reach #29 this year was awesome, not to mention playing Pyramid (Rock Festival) last New Year’s as well as Splendour, the Melbourne shows, and selling out an entire tour. There’s been a lot of pinch-yourself moments lately and hopefully there’s still a lot more yet to come.â€
While ‘The Chase’ has received rave reviews all around, producing the album was nothing less than an all-consuming effort in between touring and completing a law degree at Monash University. There were points when the workload just seemed overwhelming. “It was pretty hectic making ‘The Chase’. I was still a full-time student and I was touring flat out so there were times when it got pretty ridiculous. The whole concept behind ‘The Chase’ was that at the time I was making it I was pursuing three different things: touring, making the album and finishing uni. I was chasing these three different goals but not actually realising any of them.â€
Now less than two weeks away from graduating, Illy has his head on his shoulders and a strong plan for the future. “I’ve always said I wanted to push this as far as I could before I turn to a career, I just wanted to have the degree behind me. After graduation I’ll hopefully have a couple of years of just being able to focus on the music and see what happens there before I chuck on a suit and tie.â€
ILLY PLAYS SPRUNG FESTIVAL AT THE BRISBANE RIVERSTAGE THIS SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15 AND 600 SOUNDS - ON THE GOLD COAST - FRIDAY OCTOBER 21.