France’s Dirtyphonics are one of the most exciting acts to emerge from the drum and bass and dubstep scene. Their top notch productions and remixes have already made them a Beatport favorite, but their live show is a whole different monster, where each of the four musicians man a set of turntables and create a completely unique live production on stage. These guys are no joke – and after scoring huge hits with remixes of everyone from Skrillex to Marilyn Manson, they’re back with a new album on Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak Records, entitled Irreverence. We got the chance to sit down with the guys backstage at the Dim Mak Pool Party during Miami Music Week, where we talked about the guys’ upcoming tour, past collaborations, and much more.
On how their music has evolved since the band’s inception:
“Since the beginning, we’ve been making electronic music, obviously, with a lot of bass in it. Because, you know, where we’re from, there’s always been the same energy with the drums, where people kind of party and bang there heads. Now, recently, we’ve been doing a lot more collaborations, including vocals, and that’s something that’s kind of new for us, very exciting. On the album, we had a track with Aoki, with Foreign Beggars, Leila Moss, Modestep, and all those guys brought vocals – and it kind of takes our music to a new dimension. But now, having said that, it’s still the same energy – bass driven, kind of, rip your face off kind of thing.
Most of the time, we’re gonna write a piece of music, send it over to the right person, and then when we get the vocals back, then, we tend to re-write some of the music that’s in the background, to even take it to a higher level.”
“Most of the collaborations we’ve had, like Skrillex, Nero, Marilyn Manson, all of those guys are people we’ve met on the road, and then we started hanging out together, and then we’re just friends making music together. So they hit us up, and they’re like ‘hey, we have this track and we really want you guys to remix it – and you guys have like 48 hours’. Sonny [Skrillex] contacted us recently and said ‘hey, I have something new for you guys, can you make it happen?’, and we had to be like ‘yeah, but, no 48 hours’.
As far as new things, we’ve just finished a remix for Linkin Park, and that’s gonna be out sometime within the next month, we’re not quite sure when. And we have a lot of exciting stuff that we can’t quite talk about yet.”
On how the French music scene influenced their sound:
“Our style kind of came together naturally. We come from a metal background – we used to all play in metal bands when we were kids, and then when we discovered electronic music, obviously, being French, we were super influenced by the whole French house scene – Daft Punk and all those guys. And, without really being conscious of making it happen, I’m sure it influenced our sound. And when we started making drum and bass a couple of years later, we did it our own way. With all those tempo switches, bringing that signature sound, I guess, inside our stuff. It’s like a very big mix of everything we listened to when we were teenagers, and, what we love – being four guys in the band, we can bring all of these influences under one roof, and bring it to what it is.
Also, ten years ago, drum and bass was only like, all about the UK. A little bit in the US, but we were like – the challenge was, we can from France, and we had to represent the French sound, because the French sound is represented by house music a lot, and in electro, and never really like drum and bass and dubstep. But this is what we’re doing, and we’re very proud of it.”
On the technical aspects of their four-man live show:
“Well, during the live show, there are four of us on stage, and two of us pitch in, and there is myself, Charlie, we’re on four turntables, two mixers, and what kind of do is four decks, and mash up a DJ set. And, when we play our own songs, we only have the beat sections in the CDs, and the other guys, with the music we make, we chop up the basses, leads, and all the effects, we chop them up – the voices, whatever you want – and we assign them to the machines, controlled by Julian and Thomas, and they’re gonna replay all those parts. And then, when we play other songs, those guys are going to add in teases from other songs, like say, the Beastie Boys, Metallica, all the little things we grew up with that we wanted to put in there. So, basically, there’s always something happening, and there’s always four dudes doing something.”
On releasing music through Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak Records:
“It’s been awesome – last year we toured with Steve Aoki and Datsik, and it’s all of us, in the bus, being a little drunk after the show, and we started making music, and then we started speaking with Steve and he was like, ‘yo guys, I really like what you’ve been doing, I’d love to put up some music with you.’ We already had a single we had released, and we told him we were going to be making an album, and he was like, ‘I want it.’ So, that’s how it happened.
Even before, when we did the remix for Blood Beetroots, this is how we were really getting in touch with Dim Mak. This was like, three years ago, and we wanted to make something, big into dubstep, to make it happen. And we didn’t ask for anything to do the remix, we just did it. We wanted to play it live. And we were like, there’s so many remixes of this song already, but whatever, let’s do it, and we sent it.
Well, actually, right after finishing the track, the guy who owned the studio who’s a good friend of ours, is Vicarious Bliss from Ed Banger Records, and we were like ‘hey, come over and listen to this remix we just finished’. And he heard it and was like, ‘what the fuck guys?’. So, he’s very good friends with Bob from the Bloody Beetroots, so he grabbed the track right away, sent it to Bob, and a half an hour later, Bob’s on the phone.”
On the launch of their new fashion line:
“Dude, we’re French. Of course! We’ve always liked fashion, call it something French or not, and then, you know, like being at shows, everyone’s like, ‘hey, I want a Dirtyphonics t-shirt’, but we wanted to take it to the next level than just making t-shirts and stickers. So, we just recently started it, we opened the store only a week or two ago, so, so far we only have a couple of items, but it’s just the beginning.”
On their new tour and stage production:
“Come to our tour – big ass North American tour to debut the album. Three months, forty gigs, going everywhere in the US, Canada, fucking Hawaii, and then we jump straight to the festival scene over the summer. And then, towards the end of the year, there was talks of an Australian tour. So, we’re going to be bringing the record all over the world, a little big of Asia, Russia. Worldwide Dirtyphonics, motherfuckers! And, we’re bringing a whole new concept the stage show this time, – The Crown, we’re super excited, brand new production. We just debuted it in LA a few weeks back and it’s insane. We’ve been designing it, drawing it, doing a couple of 3D’s and we were like, that’s awesome, but then we worked with PK Sound, who put it into actual material stuff. And we showed up at a rehearsal space, and we know what it would look like, but when you’re actually there and you see it, you’re like ‘what the fuck?’. “
Dirtyphonics is currently on tour, including a stop at New York City’s Best Buy Theater on May 10th. Their latest album, Irreverence, is available now.
(L4LM and Dirtyphonics via @liveforlivemusic instagram)