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DJ Phetsta - Australia take Note...

Hailing form Perth. DJ Phetsta is a bit of a dark horse. He doesn't big note himself yet he's signed exclusively to Simon Bassline Smith's label Technique, his tunes are cained on JJJ and found is the boxes of Drum ‘n' Bass' biggest DJ's. We catch up with DJ Phetsta for a little chat.

 

 

 

So man. How are ya? What's been goin on?

Sweating my ass off in the Perth heat has been a major part of my life recently. Aside from that I've just been playing shows and writing tunes. I've got a very busy March /April with mine and ShockOne's new live AV set so that is taking a lot of my time.

Being signed exclusively to Technique is a big look man. Why are you living in Australia still? Shouldn't you be in the UK?

When it comes down to it I'm from Australia. UK is cool but at this stage it's so over saturated with artists that it's tough to get a break. The sound we push is very different from what they're into, but the plus side is that it's so close to Europe. When the time is right I'll make the move. I've been over a couple of times for two to three months at a time and the response has been really good, I'll see how the next batch of releases go.

I've been overseas a few times now. It blew me away because in Australia I guess people don't treat you as a novelty because you're "just a local DJ". I've hit Europe once by myself for about 3 months and then another time with ShockOne. My first overseas shows I played about four years ago with Rregula as Bad Robot and some solo shows. I've also been to NZ a few times. The European crowds go all out and the places you get to see touring are amazing.

You can check out some video's I cut together on my youtube: youtube.com/phetsta

We hear you got an EP forthcoming on Technique. Tell us about that...

Yeah that's right I've been working on my second EP for Technique. So far I've finished off two tracks "Disco Dog" and "Dance All Night". You can check them both out on YouTube. They're both pretty different for me and "Dance All Night" will be my first dubstep release. I'm working on another two tracks, one will be the title track and the other is a collaboration with ShockOne. I won't let the cat out of the bag too much as it's still in production but stay tuned later in the year for sure.

In the meantime my remix of Camo & Krookeds "Vampires" is about to drop on Mainframe, followed by Bassline Smith's "Clap Ya Hands" for Technique, then my dubstep remix of my collaboration with ShockOne and Metrik "True Believer" for Viper.

Any other news you'd care to share with us?

Aside from the EP and remixes as a lot of people may know I sometimes work closely with fellow beard enthusiast ShockOne. We were booked for a one off 3 hour set in Perth so we decided to mix things up a bit and get some VJ stuff going. It was a lot of hard work but it totally worked out. We edited up animation, logo's and video footage that we can trigger live on an akai midi pad. At the same time we're mixing across four decks through two mixers. We're taking the show on the road over easter with Matrix & Futurebound in NZ, and then in June in Queensland.

You and Shockone's tune ‘Cyclones' gained day time rotation on Triple J, including a top three placing on ‘Super Request'. And your next single ‘The Sun 2009' also received significant airplay as well as television support on ‘Rage'. That's nearly unheard of for an Aussie DnB artist. How was that?

To be honest a lot of that came from ShockOne's "Polygon" hitting the bigtime on Triple J. That really opened the flood gates for the both of us. With "Cyclones" there was a focused push on publicity which seemed to work. That went really well and we knew that "The Sun 2009" would be a big one for us. We had a video clip produced for it and were very clear on what we wanted to achieve with it, and it worked out just great. It's definitely a first for Australian D&B and I'm really proud to have been a part of it.

You're not one to plaster your name and achievements all over the place like many other artists. Even tho you may have clocked up more accolades than anyone else in Australia bar Pendulum. How come you're so humble in your approach?

I honestly don't know the answer to that. I guess if I had the funding to plaster my name everywhere I would. But in all seriousness, I am really looking into the branding of it all both solo and with Shock. In the same way that we sold the video clip and radio spots we could probably do that a lot better with our live show now.

Pendulum, Shockone, yourself are from Perth. How come all of Australia's biggest DnB Producers come from Perth?

We've been lucky over in Perth when it comes to DnB. We've always had someone pushing it, Greg Packer played DnB before anyone in this country knew what it was. After that we had Drum Club and Loaded Dice bringing through international acts. We all got into it around the same time going to raves and using fake ID's to get into the clubs. Perth just loves it's beats. From the moment I went to my first all ages rave I didn't walk away wanting to be a DJ, I wanted to be a producer. I guess we all had the same idea after being exposed to it for so long.

Are you a DnB purist? Do you listen to other types of music?

These days I'm about as far from a DnB purist as possible, I listen to a very broad range of music. I think it's important to step outside of your favourite genre when producing and borrowing from a range of influences, it will widen your scope and give your sound more versatility. Outside of Drum & Bass at the moment I rate Alex Metric, Miike Snow, M83, Emalkay, Joker, Breakage, Wolfgang Gartner.

Any web links people should head to for the latest Phetsta news?

Facebook: facebook.com/phetsta
Myspace: myspace.com/phetstamusic
Twitter: twitter.com/phetsta
Youtube: youtube.com/phetsta