A Crew Love Tea Party with
Soul Clap, Wolf + Lamb
The four recently hit the shores of Australia for their Crew Love 2014 nation wide tour. Along the way, DJ Mag Australia managed to sit
down with the USA party crew. Whilst chatting over chai tea and chocolate biscuits, we found ourselves in the backyard of a secret
location in iconic Bondi, Sydney.
DJ Mag Australia:
How has the entire Australian trip and tour been
so far?
Soul Clap...
Elyte: I think it’s on its way to being an institution, if I’m
not mistaken. This is like round two for us, and it’s
starting to get really comfortable here.
Charles: You know, it’s a really nice place to come and
a change of pace, from the typical thing in Europe or
the UK. Especially to get out this way and then go to
Asia, it’s very exciting! The weather is fantastic!
Elyte: We also get to escape wintertime in New York and
Boston.
Charles: For us it’s a little bit more difficult then other
acts, I think – we’re more what other people would
listen to after they have already been introduced to
electronic music, and had time to figure out what they
like, more sophisticated songs or more classic stuff.
Some of the crowds that we are running into are very
young – its great we’re educating, but I think as we
continue to come back, its only going to get better and
better. With that being said, gigs like Let Them Eat Cake
Festival in Melbourne, was such an amazing vibe and
so fresh! I got a lot of inspiration from that particular gig.
Elyte: The festivals are one thing, and I guess this is
really the first time I’ve done festivals over here. But it’s
the sideshows and the club shows we really love manly playing to really rich people.
Wolf + Lamb…
Gadi: We have the same experience in America too. It’s
not really geared towards our music; it’s more towards
Skrillex kind of thing. We’re more the underground
stage, which’s very hard to find.
Soul Clap...
Elyte: But it’s also that we play long sets. When we play
in clubs, we usually play 4-5 hours especially when it’s
all of us. It’s a lot harder to translate, as we go all over,
playing so many different genres of music - starting
slow, speeding it up and then going weird again. But
in a festival you have to translate that into an hour and
a half.
Wolf + Lamb…
Zev: But also the festival energy is so high, that kids
have a few hours to see all this sit, and your energy
needs to match what’s around you and surpass it, or
you cannot maintain a crowd in these festivals. Which
is the reality of festivals – it’s not specific
to Australia or anything.
Soul Clap...
Elyte: The biggest difference is the
set times, meaning the amount
of time that we get. That’s a
huge thing, it may mean we
can’t play as wide a range of stuff, as we like to go in
and feel out a crowd out. Find out the type of audience
it is and take it from there and push it in different
directions…
Wolf + Lamb…
Zev: Call it going fishing!
Soul Clap...
Charles: You can’t feel up a crowd!
Elyte: You can’t feel up a crowd at a festival because
sometimes there’s a big fence in between you and the
crowd!
Charles: And they’re underage…
DJ Mag Australia
What’s your take on EDM at moment and where
do you feel it’s going?
Soul Clap...
Elyte: Dance music is definitely the most popular it’s
ever been globally, and I think it’s hard to debate that.
I think that’s amazing, as we have a lot of exposure and
money in the game, but it’s also bad (ironically) for the
same reasons. I think music often takes a back seat to
profile, especially with the Internet being such a
guiding force at this point.
Music taking a back seat to profile, fame and fortune
– it’s like a double edge sword.
It’s great to be able to reach all of these people! But
when their getting fed a lot of bullshit all of the time,
and they’re not open to something different - then it
doesn’t actually help that more people are listening to
the music.
Wolf + Lamb…
Zev: This whole era of it being so popular,
ultimately as the things shakes out, didn’t
really affected us that much. When it started
getting popular, which was like 3 years ago
– it didn’t affect us - as it’s really removed from
us. I think the pay off is going to be in the
next few years. Especially as these kids
who joined it for the Deadmau5,
advance past Deadmau5
and end up in the
underground - then
we have a whole new supply for years to come: of kids
who are introduced, the same way we were.
I was listening to fucking Gatecrasher (laughs), Ministry
Of Sound, and Trance shit – you know, whatever they
were playing at Twilo. That’s what was cool and we went
there. Richie was playing at Twilo back then too but that
was too weird for me. That’s the point, which was my
journey over many years, which end me up in this thing. I
think the pay off will be or years to come, we have a whole
new generation of kids who are not right now, into our shit.
They don’t know what the stuff is; they don’t care about it
and can’t get into the groove. But as they take less drugs
get a little older, start drinking more, and the pace slows
down - then they will fall into this vibe.
DJ Mag Australia
How do you find your respective sounds fit within
the Australian audience here, compared to the
crowds back home in the US?
W