Producing The Goods

Those Usual Suspects are one of Melbourne’s hottest house acts of the moment. Dabbling in both DJing and production, the trio (Wei-Shen, Maarcos and Atridge) are currently focusing on the latter. â€œWe’ve been pretty busy on the production front, and we’ve done a bit of touring overseas. We’ve got quite a few tracks coming out on an international label called CR2 and we’ve got a few tracks coming out on Onelove,” Wei-Shen Mak says.

Aside from Those Usual Suspects, the boys are nurturing a more indie-focused side project, Purple Voltaire. â€œAs I’m growing a bit older, my musical tastes or palette has changed a little bit. Those Usual Suspects is more for the club and Purple Voltaire is more for indie synth-pop and stuff which may not necessarily belong on a dancefloor. It’s just to ensure there’s not too much confusion with what we play and what we make.”

For Wei-Shen, both aspects of his career are important and provide different benefits. â€œThe production is probably more relaxing, it’s more of an outlet for me. Whereas DJing is a lot more fulfilling when you actually see people moving to, and enjoying, your music. And I guess you can see the impact you have on people. But they essentially come hand in hand. Because the more production you do and better production you do, and the more popular you are, the better gigs you get.”

The boys’ secret to a good DJ set lies in their strengths. â€œWhen I play with Maarcos, we both have fairly contrasting sounds, but we work well together. I’ll generally play a lot more of the upfront girly music, and then Marc will lift it up a notch and go for the hands-in-the-air moments. And it’s pretty much a similar journey throughout the night. We can’t play two hours of hands-in-the-air or you’ll have a crowd burnt out.”

As for what lies ahead for the trio, Wei-Shen is leaving it open but has a few goals he, and Those Usual Suspects, is aiming for. â€œI guess it’s more blue skies at the moment. With production the aim is to have a couple of big hits. I think radio is the key means of exposure and if that happens, I think the touring will take off and hopefully take us to more overseas gigs.”

CATCH THOSE USUAL SUSPECTS AT VANITY NIGHTCLUB, SURFERS PARADISE ON FEBRUARY 18.