Yacht Club DJs
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Yacht Club DJs

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“Everything we do has gotten a bit slicker and sounds better. Producing stuff the way we do generally leads to the sound quality being a bit shit and we were pretty naive of that back in the day. Apart from that, it’d just be basic music choices. Guy [Chappell-Lawrence] and I have pretty fiercely different taste in music and if anything, that has gotten worse, but we’ve learned to make it work. I think as a whole you could say we focus less on mash-ups and more on just putting on a good party, there’s a lot more to life than hearing Whitney Houston sing over Static X, right?” he muses.

While Yacht Club DJs are very much at home behind the decks, commanding the dancefloor, there is a little something brewing in terms of recorded material. “We’ve got some demos sitting around, but we aren’t sure what to do with them just yet. The main reason being we aren’t sure if they are Yacht Club songs or something for a new project. We start every demo by sitting down with a guitar and banging away and as a result the music has come out a bit psych-rock and maybe not as party as people would expect from Yacht Club. So yeah, there will be stuff from us soon we just don’t know what it’s called yet. Yacht Club will keep on partying though, we’ve nearly finished a new mixtape that we’ll drop online sometime soon too. Plus there’s always Twinsy and Rick Moranis Overdrive if you want to listen to all our other stuff,” he says, referring to the band’s side-projects.

Dealing primarily in mash-up creations, Yacht Club DJs foremost goal is to generate a party-conducive atmosphere – something they have proved mightily adept at over the years. “We aren’t for chin-strokers, that’s for sure. I’m sure there are people who probably don’t like what we do coming out and getting pretty involved with their chin down the back, but while they’re stroking away they forget or refuse to have fun. Everything we do has a sense of humour about it and quite often we are poking fun directly at the people who think it’s necessary to shit-can us. One thing I’ve never understood about our critics is they just seem to be pissed off we’re having a good time. But I don’t really give a shit either, it’s just weird,” he reasons.

With the pejorative to party, Gaz has been privy to some pretty wild moments on the road. “I’ve been pretty determined to experience all America has to offer on this tour. It’s got me in some hot water occasionally. But I always land on my feet. My favourite so far has been when I got a police badge in Guthrie, Oklahoma. I had been out partying with some friends at the festival site and Guy and Brendan [tour manager] had gone back to the hotel. Anyway, things got a bit spirited and there was moonshine getting around and next thing you know it was 7am and I had a cop pointing a gun at me because I was drunk. I tried explaining that was a massive overreaction to intoxication, but he wasn’t having it. So I had to sit in a car park with these cops threatening to arrest me if I didn’t move on whilst I waited for our tour manager to come and rescue me. So anyway I rock up at the festival the next day to play, feeling like death, and the chief of police is there rapping me over the knuckles and threatening to deport me. As you can imagine, I was pretty terrified, but after 20 minutes or so he just laughed in an Australian accent and said ‘only kidding, boys will be boys,’ And gave me a badge with the advice, ‘if you get in trouble again get this badge out and they’ll drive you home. You’re a deputy now.’ Australian chief of police in Oklahoma – Who’d have thought?” He recalls with a grin.

Back in 2008, Yacht Club DJs experienced a true baptism of fire (or more specifically, rain) when they crushed it at the wettest Meredith Music Festival to date, winning over the post-MGMT crowd. “My brain had turned right off.  I’d been standing out in the rain watching MGMT trying to work out why they were hating it so much. Then I took my boots off in the green room and nearly killed everyone with wet feet smell. Then we were on stage. I didn’t get nervous till afterwards. It’s really weird how that happens with big shows. You go into this weird flight or fight response state. Well I do, I’m a terrible introvert. Will yell at a crowd with no shirt on but won’t make eye contact with a check out person at Safeway,” Gaz self-assesses. “But yeah after that show I lost it. Then I got drunk and spent the morning throwing mud at my friends like everyone else.”

BY LACHLAN KANONIUK