Thursday night y’all event info here! The man who brings you your Thursday night (12-2) BBC radio show is coming to Australia. Yep, that probably doesn’t mean much to many Australians, but there is this thing called the internets and you can stream his show there. Basically it’s a mix of what’s hot in ‘electro,’ and it’s a pretty lose definition as we’ve discussed before. His own production is very cool, and much more rock based, but still very easy to dance too. With regards to his Dj sets, Kissy says he likes to mix quickly and make a pretty pumping party set. To find out more about Kissy read the full interview after the jump…
Kissy began with a standard everyday question, ‘How’s the weather over there,’ but the cynical voice in which he asked it made me reply with a smarmy tone, ‘Oh it’s 25 degrees, sunny and going to be a great day!’ Right onto the interview.
You get here next week so you’ll be able to enjoy that weather.
Yeah I can’t wait, I love coming to Australia.
Wait, you’ve been before (once again I completely miss people coming to Australia)
Yeah, this will be my fourth tour.
Have you ever done Perth before?!
Yes, I did a club there, can’t remember the name and I’ve done a festival. It was one of the Field Days things, whatever that is in Perth
Ah yeah that’s summer days. I don’t know how I miss this, every time I go away I seem to miss every British/European artist (Bart B More/Does It Offend You, Yeah?/etc…)
Did you have a big crowd each time?
Yeah, the second one, the club one for the Ministry of Sound album I mixed, was really cool. In terms of the tours Perth is the place where I’ve done the least amount of gigs.
With the radio show, does it ever confine you with what you can listen to?
That is a very good question! No one ever asks me that but I think about it a lot. It depends actually, I have to be quite careful because I sent so much dance music, and I insist on listening to all the demos, I have to kick myself every week to try and listen to a couple of new albums that are alternative. I find genius on itunes is really good, just to remind me what I’ve got! I think it helps that the music I’m most interested in is the unsigned music, hence the demos.
On the show itself has there been a big shift in the music played? It’s been going for a while now hasn’t it?
Nah the weekly shows only been going for about a year and a few months. We had a first birthday in October. I did have a monthly show before that but I was on very late.
In general have you started to play different stuff anyway?
Nah not really, I’ve got the same philosophy, my shows always been pretty wild! We even say, this is the most experimental dance music show on the planet, I can’t see how any could be more experimental really! I suppose the scene changes, like electro has changed over the years, but it’s still just as wild!
You don’t seem to be effected by the changes in scenes? Since it’s marketed as experimental electro is that the way it stays?
Well what I like about the word electro it doesn’t really mean anything! Electro to me is a way round saying it’s kind of dance music because of the tempo, but it’s not house music and it’s not trance or prog. That’s what I like about electro because it doesn’t really define anything.
On that note what do you think of genres in general? Are they very useful.
Yeah, I think it’s quite fun when people come up with new names for stuff. I mean it’s such a little thing, it doesn’t even get put on a record cover. They’re not really that relevant. The only time it comes into my life, is when people at radio 1 want my show to be listed. So I come up with some crazy title to please everyone else!
What about when you’re out, do you play the stuff that’s on the radio show?
I actually treat my dj sets very differently to the radio show. My dj sets are a battering of showmanship and quick mixing, the music is much heavier in my dj sets. You can be more experimental with the radio show because you don’t have an audience in front of you, who you have to keep the dancefloor filled. Where as in my dj sets, I mix really quickly, I mix like an old school drum n bass dj. I think it was a pretty new idea over here, and I’m one of the only people who does it, so it sets me apart from the other electro djs. The tempo is a lot faster, and each track only lasts for 40 seconds. The radio show is way more out-there, the dj sets are more of show. Right to answer your question! I play a bit of my music on the radio show, and I play a bit of it in the dj sets, but it isn’t always appropriate for the dj sets.
Do you change what you do whether you’re in Australia/US/UK and do you find there’s a difference in crowd reactions?
I do find there’s a difference in crowd reactions, but my objective is to dj in a style and play that kind of music that is acceptable for most people as possible. Even if my music isn’t up your stream I hope my dj skills keep people entertained. The thing I find is the tempo difference, it’s about 135, but in German clubs for instance that’s way to fast so I slow it down.
They’d freak out with that speed, there’d be no way they could go at 135 bpm all night!
Yeah it’s like come-on guys!
In the UK then, I’m presuming that people are more receptive to you playing a variety of music? Well that’s the impression I have anyway.
Nah I don’t think so. I think with the current climate, the british scene has really taken over. It was much more about the French and German sound 3 years ago, that’s now come and gone, everyone’s familiar with it, all the people who were going to make money out of it have! The British scene has really taken over, so when you come here you’re going to hear those tunes up front I guess with more variety, but it’s because most music is coming from the UK that’s all. What I find is when I come to Australia, even if your perception is that people don’t accept lots of genres, I still get a good reaction from the crowd, despite being from somewhere else, if you do it well enough then people will enjoy any music.
I’m finding in Perth that everyone is running from ‘electro’ and we’re having a real push for disco. There isn’t that love of music in general it feels like we focus on one thing
Perth is quite separated though, I think it it’s okay if there isn’t the mix of music. I still like playing there! The great thing about Australia is that there’s a large proportion of electro/dance music in the charts over there, much more so than it does over here. I think it’s one of the reasons my sets go down so well over there, because people are familiar with the type of sounds. I was amazed at how accepted I was over there immediately, where as at the time in the UK it definitely wasn’t as easy as that. I still think of Australia as the second great scene in the world, I freakin’ love playing there!
Well I’ve finished all my questions so I should let you go!
Really, they were all Dj questions, I don’t usually get dj questions!
I like having opinion about electronic music, and I know that you’ll be asked about your album by lots of other people. Now that I think of it, one more question is in order, is there another album on the way?
Well what I’m doing at the moment, well I’ve had my own record label brand, but it’s always been under bigger labels, I’ve never had independent distribution etc… and I’ve always wanted to do something with San City High. Recently we’ve got global distribution and we’ve started signing new artists from the radio show. That’s basically what I’m doing for the first half of this year really. I wasn’t really intending to do that, but it’s taking up so much of my time I find that now I’ve signed artists I feel so responsible for them I want to really look after them and make them feel that someone is looking out for them. I do have some other stuff coming! Youth was a concept album about my childhood, I’m not going to do another Youth.
So you got it out of your system?
Yeah it was a massive learning curve. It was very reflective. On the one hand it was about my childhood and on the other it was reflecting on what was happening to my life at the time. The very fact that talking about my childhood was releasing something that was going on in me at the time. That age of being 23/24 and being officially an adult, saying goodbye to your childhood years! I’m starting to produce some artists though, and I do have a new single out over here with a singer song writer, the track is called “Come on Over.” What I’m trying to say is any solo stuff I do know will be instrumental, I’ve moved on now. I know what vibe I’m going for now but it’s too soon to say. It’s nice you’re asking though!
I’ve cut the end of this interview because we get really off topic. Kissy does say that he likes to do instrumental stuff because he believes he best at expressing what he wants through melodies, other than that we seem to be just talking about random stuff!
