Geddes

Geddes

An anchor of the London scene both for his own production and his underground party outfit Mulletover, Music-News caught up with heavyweight DJ Geddes before he performed last week at Hideout Festival.

How are you finding Hideout?

Hot. Amazing! Kinda perfect actually. There’s a beach, there’s these venues, they’ve mixed it all together so its a good combination.

It’s an interesting, club based festival...

This place is definitely built for it. There’s a huge contrast in playing a club versus a festival. I haven't really thought what causes that, but yeah, there is a big contrast! I guess at festivals people are here for a general good time. I mean they want to have a good time in a club but here, you know, they wanna go for it.

Are the crowd more or less demanding at festivals?

Probably more demanding in a way because they wanna lose it, they wanna have fun. In a club, people are, well not quite going through the motions but that’s them isnt it, that’s their friday night out, or saturday night there. Here, they’ve made a bit more of an effort, they’ve come all the way here to listen to their specific DJs, so they’re more likely to really expect a good time .

How does playing abroad compare to playing out at home?

Well - that’s where you really learn how to be a good DJ I think because once you start travelling, once you start going across Europe you realise that it’s a whole different ball game. Being back home you get used to playing a particular style, or a particular genre, but when you travel you can’t do that - you try out different stuff because gotta entertain different people.

Going forward - where do you plan play for the rest of the summer?

I’m doing Exit in Serbia, Eastern Electrics, Watergate - The Festival Circuit is really the priority for the rest of the summer.

With music-tourism opening up and festivals growing year on year, there’s talk of places previously less represented, India, China, becoming hotspots both for hosting events and for native producers - are you seeing that?

Yeah - they’re developing countries - and as they develop, they don’t just develop financially but also in terms of culture and reach, and as populations experience this kind of music they’re going to want to take it back with them. I haven’t played India or China but I’ve heard that it’s beginning to really kick off down there. I’ve played Russia a few times - Moscow, what a crazy place. Russia’s a funny one. To be honest my favourite place in terms of recent tours is still Hideout.

What are the artists that influence you?

Really it’s actually my friends that inspire me, I’ve got a close group of friends and I guess they all influence me, we all talk and swap music - I know Ricardo (Villalobos) is playing later on and in terms of a DJ he’s massively inspired me over the years just watching him and hearing him. I’m also really into everything Joy Orbison’s doing at the moment, as well as Michael Meyer. There’s some really top new acts coming through Hot Flush recordings at the moment.

There is a lot more cross genre stuff happening now.

At the moment there’s just so much good new music coming through. The bar in terms of producing seems to have gone up a level. Over the last few years there was this whole explosion with Ableton and it was so easy for people to make music, almost too easy. People were using the same samples, loop CDs, and an awful lot of stuff got released like that and I kind of lost interest in what I was doing for a while. Then recently, you hear some of the stuff the likes of Maceo Plex is producing - it really is up there, it’s amazing. It really inspires me to go out there and get some new stuff made. Genre wise, yeah, it was apart, and it is kind of centralising.


Do you think the genre-mashing thing has come about because of the ease of digital downloads / digital DJing?

Yes - but at the same time Vinyl’s still important. I’m actually now moving back to Vinyl. Using software has kind of taken something away from my DJing. I noticed the difference and I want to go back and recapture that original feel. When I was a kid growing up and getting into DJing it was really important to me, going to a record shop and going through the records. I want to get that experience back.

What advice would you give to aspiring artists?

Just keep going, just keep at it. I’ve been DJing for exactly ten years now - you’ve just got to immerse yourself into it and make DJing your life. Its not an easy game. But then, (gestures across dancefloor) it’s amazing! Just enjoy the music and concentrating on doing your thing. If you’re talented that will come through.