His increasing popularity means he’s kept incredibly busy. “My life is pretty full on. I had only one month off last year. I don’t get a lot of downtime to kick around ideas. I have to find time to let myself breathe and recuperate. You have to learn your boundaries and that only comes with experience. Both performing and producing are really important.”
Stickybuds reckons he comes from a unique musical scene, one which he’s been influential in creating. “I’m bringing out some west coast Canadian vibes. A lot of my friends and I have helped to sculpt a multi-genre sound which sets it apart. The difference is in how we deal with those genres. We make strong interesting hybrids. For example I mix acapellas with funk songs, with other drums and bass, stuff like that.” Despite his moniker Stickybuds does a lot more than reggae, although reggae features along with Junglist tunes in with the glitch hop tracks next to heavy bass and funk, drum and bass and breaks. “It’s a good groove,” he says. “Ghetto funk. I do mid-tempo funk music with horn lines, tons of horns.”
Stickybuds talks us through his career. He’s been at it for 11 years. “I’m 30 now. I started playing when I was 20. I’d been going to raves since I was 14. Then I bought a record, thinking ‘I’ll play this at a rave one day’. I made a mix tape, listened to people doing new school breaks. Then I went to audio school and learnt how to become a producer and make music. I made melodies. As a producer you’re the whole band – drummer, baseline, leads, and keyboard player. My goal is to make original content that you can put out there. I’ve just recorded a new song, Easy, with vocals by Greg Blackman. One of my funky mid-tempo songs. Over the last six or seven years I’ve been involved with 25 independent labels, small rad labels, some are bigger than others. They’re all cool underground music labels. I taught myself. It’s been getting bigger and going uphill. It’s a crazy natural progression, a nice steady uphill progression.” That crazy progression led to a residency at Canada’s Shambhala music festival (2005 – 2013). He was nominated for best new DJ at the International BreaksPoll 2012 awards and he’s performed at Glastonbury, New Zealand’s Splore Festival, Burning Man as well as Ibiza’s iconic Space Club, to name just a few.
Beat’s been listening to Amerigo Gazaway, who fuses various rap and hip hop artists with James Brown, among others. “We’ve all sampled James Brown!” says Stickybuds. How much preparation goes into a show set for a tour? “There’s a complete set of stuff I like to put together. I prepare, sequence everything. Mix things harmonically. Create transitions. The vocals are one segment. Mix them into the next song. Keep layering about the set, figuring out transitions, all the different options. This tour will be my first time with this set of music so I’m not sure what to expect. I’m a vinyl DJ. 12 inch records. I used two turntables for the first five years but it’s all on Serato now– it’s not really practical to travel with three or four crates of records! I like to edit, sample, change things – you can’t really edit a vinyl record.” Does he play or sing on his recordings? “I don’t sing – I don’t play any instruments but I understand music theory. I know how to write music. Leant the trombone in grade six but gave it up cos I thought the music sucked. “
DJs can ascend to rock god status with massive international careers. What are Stickybuds’s thoughts on the phenomenon? “The media is so heavily involved in electronic music. So DJs are exposed to a lot more people. There’s Skrillex winning Grammy awards…there’s a whole bunch of new people and the thing gets sculpted into pop. It can be a total cash cow and that’s where you get the cookie cutter festivals that become public companies, with investors who are only in it for the money. They couldn’t give a shit about music; they just want their 25,000 festival goers to book tickets so they get a return.” What does he think keeps him nice? “Canadians are pretty nice generally. And I’ve got great parents,” he says. “They’re very supportive.”
Where does Stickybuds think his music sits in the scene? “There’s always an anti-hero to the mega mainstream festival,” he answers. “What I’m part of is the underground scene that doesn’t much care about trends or who’s the biggest or the best. We’re all just working hard and supporting each other. It’s not like I’m super-famous, not like I’m number one or anything. I just keep pushing things. There’s trap, a weird future-based music but we didn’t all jump ship and move to that. Dubstep, electro house, breaks…fine. Everyone can do what they want.”
What’s the best thing about what he does? “I’ve got really good friends in all continents. At the moment I’m totally happy with what I’m doing. It’s hands on, it’s challenging. How I like things to be – there’s nothing missing DJ wise at the moment.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
