dj ADDY

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Posted on August 11th 2009 by Owen Thomas

Who: dj ADDY
What: artist interview (Q&A)
Where: Zubar, 4170 South Service Rd. - Burlington, ON
When: Sunday August 9th

You've been apart of the Toronto music scene for over 15 years. What hve been some of the most rewarding moments?
The best moment, to this day, is when you see people smiling on the dance floor. That's probably the best moment that I can think of. Nothing is more rewarding then going home after you rocked a dance floor. It's a great big rush.

You worked on a remix of Better Days by Paul Harris and Dirty South, 2 massive producers. How did that opportunity come around?
In the end, it was all Adam. He got a request to remix Paul Harris and Dirty South track while we were in the studio and he's like "Hey man! Lets work on this together." We did a more techier version of it. We were like "Lets just stop here and send them the samples and see if they are going to take it". They denied it really quick. The reason was at that time we were going through that whole electro to techno transition and all the labels weren't taking chances running the techno bit at that point.

You recently released a track called "popcorn" that's based on the melody from the Hot Butter song in the early 70s. What was the creative process for this song?
We wanted to do a follow up for "Subculture", and if you listen to the track it has the same sound that "Subculture" has. It's got the same bottom end and the drums are so much similar. Anyways, so we were bopping through one of my plug-ins and we happen to run into a sound called "popcorn". We made some jokes about it and then it just ended up happening. It took us almost a year to put that out. It was going back and forth to some of the people who were willing to put it out and they weren't able to get the certain clearing (for the remake). Anyways, long story short, Adam decided to put it on his own label, Hotbox Digital.

What are your thoughts on the current trend of remixing old classic songs? Do you think it prevents electronic music from moving forward at all?
I think that it will help it. I mean 16 years ago when the electronic music was at its peak I'd have a different view, but unfortunately our numbers are not there for anything that has to do with electronic music. Hip hop and mash up etc have dominated the market. So I think these classic remixes is what's needed to get the attention back to the electronic scene. That's my opinion and that's my point of view. I'm sure there is going to be other dj's that are going to think differently.

How does it feel to have one of your tracks on Mark Knights "Toolroom Records" compilations?
That felt great. For me it was the insurance and the boost that I needed to know that I was somewhat on the right track. For someone that I hasn't done anything with any major label and for them to actually like something that Adam and I had done, it was like a milestone saying Addy your on the right track. Keep doing what you're doing.  That's what came out of that for sure.

A few years ago, you stepped out of the scene for a little while. How do you feel since your resurgence?
It was personally the best thing I did. Sometimes you have to step out of the picture to look at the situation from the outside just to see what's going on. I was at my peak, where I was and all I was really doing was spinning my wheels in one place.  The whole decision was made when I played at the Exit festival. I played at two o'clock in the afternoon and there was like ten thousand people in front of me. Once that happened, I asked myself "Do I really want to go back and do the same thing over and over and do what I was doing before or do I want to the next level?"

Recently, you've made the switch to Ableton. As someone who's been hailed king of mixing with three turntables, how has the response been to the new outfit? What lead to the decision to make the switch?
Well as you know, I'm a three deck dj. There are techno djs that play three decks, which is way more easier to play techno. There are no breaks and the timing really doesn't matter.

When you play three decks in house, timing is everything, and I found myself struggling at some points. If you listen to the set there are two records playing at all times. I was always mixing.

To really pull off three decks you have to have your equipment in tip-top shape. You can't have any issues. When playing at certain venues, you walk in and monitor is blown, cd player is skipping and wasn't working.

The last reason is distraction when I'm playing. I've got a guy asking for a light in the middle of a mix. You end up train recking and you know people on the dance floor don't see what's going on. With Ableton, I don't have to worry about beatmatching.

Quite frankly, I don't really care what people say. Now it's not about mixing, it's all about remixing on the fly. You're going to end up seeing it within the next five to seven years a lot of live p.a's instead of dj's. They are all going to become performers, which is a great thing because for me it was starting to get boring. When you actually start creating on the fly and you have all these options. I mean I have an option to pull up all my plug ins and integrate it with my sets. When was the last time I could have done that?

I'm so excited about djing now, now that I switched over to Abelton. Oh yeah totally.

Production wise, what can we hear from you over the next few months?
I'm fully in the studio now. I have tracks that aren't finished but I by the time they are, I'm going to have a lot of come out. Timing has been everything for me. A lot of my productions are a little bit more housey. You'll definitely hear a lot of my production coming out and most likely on Adam's label (Hotbox Digital).

What are your current goals within the industry? Where do you see yourself in a couple years? In 5 years?
Right now I am all about production. I am going to start hopefully pumping all kinds of production in the next little while. One of the other reasons I pulled back was when I went to school my goal was to get into production for video games. That whole thing for pulled aside when I went into djing and I've decided now that I'm going to lay the foundation to get into video games. When I took the break, within two to three months I ended up getting recruited into a production team that was doing music for a Nintendo ds games. That's definitely what I see myself doing in five years, it is been my passion. As I said I wanted to do it before I even went to school so now I have time to do it.

What's underneath you hat?
There is a funny story behind it. I am not sure if you know but I am a realtor by trade. I'd say this was about five or six years ago I was working on a commercial deal with a gentleman that just came in from Middle East. He wanted to purchase a couple of donut shops. So now I have this guy and I am driving him around, almost closing the deal. We were looking at the last option on Queen Street. I park my car and walking into the donut shop and I see this girl jump out of the car and go "Oh my god, Addy I love you!". She starts freaking in front if this guy. She's got a pacifier in her mouth and wearing all these rave clothes like she just came back from a party. So right there the gentleman looked at me and looked at her. I was like "ehhh", and tried to make the best of the situation but I ended up losing the whole deal.  So that's where I said I need to do something here, to separate these two worlds.  That's when I decided you know I'm going to wear a toque when I play. It has just become my thing. Don't worry there is hair under there.

Dj ADDY
www.djaddy.com
Sunday August 9th

1pm to 7pm on the patio
Zu Bar
4170 South Service Rd. Burlington

 

 

 

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