FRESH WES

What did you do before you started DJing?

Lots of stuff, rode bikes around my neighbourhood, the last job I had was teaching kids and also social work. Those are the most immediate jobs that I quit before DJing. I al

so worked at the zoo for a while and sold shoes. So how did the whole Hollertronix party and Philly scene start?

For me it was just a party I started because no one was putting our parties on and I couldn’t get a gig anywhere. There was a rock DJ thing happening at the time and there were black clubs in Philly and I was between them and there weren’t really hipsters yet, you know?

So there was something happening there. My girlfriend at the time was doing Eighties parties and she couldn’t mix, and I was like, “Yo, I love these kinds of records.” I was into Arthur Baker, kind of Eighties vibes Electro stuff and then I just started doing parties on my own. We rented this club out near my house and didn’t make any money for about a year and then we started making some money and touring. It went to New York and it was crazy the kind of reception we had there and that was it. That was like five years ago.

What about putting out the records?

We first put the mixtape out and we sold like shitloads of the mixtape.

We sold them at local shops and we sold them at Turntable Lab. Turntable Lab pressed like 5,000 and they sold them really quick and we put a bootleg out to launch the Turntable Lab release and that sold out too. That was even before mashups were coming out, and that was on vinyl too. You couldn’t download the shit.

So when did you flip to doing parties and putting these records out full time? What was the breaking point?

I think I just hated my job. I just quit. I was sleeping less. DJing at night and waking up at eight in the morning to go to work. Eventually I was just like fuck it, nobody appreciated me at my job so I just quit my job and was like, it’s time I commit to something.

I assume you were a DJ before you started making music?

No, I was actually both. This is actually when I started making money, making a living at it. We’re talking like 2005, but before that I was DJing by myself from like 16 years old. Like doing Miami Bass—DJ Laz and Magic Mike were my two biggest inspirations when I lived in Florida. So I was DJing that kind of stuff, collecting old records, but playing some Electro and Dancehall stuff out in Florida, never doing any gigs, maybe a friend’s party or something. Then I moved to Philly and started thinking how can I do this seriously? But no one was listening to any of the music I liked. Electro and Miami Bass? The East Coast thought it was fucking whack music. Southern Hip Hop was just like ghetto shit. Nobody in New York liked that at all so it just took me a while, and then parties just started moving. I think people just liked the idea that our parties had no presumption at all. It was really working class like black kids and white kids. The black kids started listening to stuff like Tainted Love, which was a big record, and that old school shit. We started playing a lot of the Houston records up in Philly before they were big, like Lil’ Flip and Still Tippin’—those were really big for the rock kids. It was really weird. Now it seems like you can’t go to a club nowadays and not hear Rap and Lady GaGa over Electro hits, it’s just the same thing. Back then it was really weird for people to hear us mix a Rock record and then drop an acapella and do it live. Now it seems a little cheesy, but back then it was actually different. That was the heart and soul of the party because it brought people together. Back then they were all sneaking in. Amanda Blank was just under 21 and she would sneak into our parties and it kind of culminated into a scene now. You see, in retrospect, even Santigold was crew with those people and MIA, her first show in America was at a Hollertronix, so you could see the vibe was just happening there.

What was the most memorable party you played?

The Mad Decent block party is always really crazy, that’s kind of where Hollertronix left off, we do that party on the street, and we have 3,000 kids come up and the city blocks off the

whole street for 10 dollars… that’s all it costs to get a block party permit in Philly. We’re just on the rooftop with the speaker system and everyone is going crazy. It’s really Hollertronix. We have a real mix of people. It’s cool to say fuck you back to Philly, because they never supported our shit anyway. So that party’s good. The carnival party we have in England… during Notting Hill Carnival, we have this crazy party… we’ve only had two of them but it’s been insane. At the last one we had Thom Yorke there and he was moshing, and he met me backstage and he did a remix for Major Lazer. So, London’s Carnival Party is sick. It’s everything I love about the Caribbean, you know, Dancehall music and the Caribbean diaspora because there are all these little sound systems. There’s a Dub sound system, an Old School Disco sound system, a Hip Hop one, proper Reggae, UK Funky; every other corner there’s something going on that represents the London underground culture… I’ve always had more support from Canada. I’d do a show in San Francisco, a show in New York and then five shows in Canada. If I went to any other random city in America they would be like “I don’t get it,” because Canada has always had a more open acceptance for music. The cultures are mixed here a lot more than in America. Underground music is bigger in Canada than popular music. In America, I feel like it’s 90 percent pop and 10 percent underground. It seems like Canada is half and half.

When you started Mad Decent, what was the mantra behind the label?

I think that the main focus was just to give releases to stuff that we were doing bootlegs of anyway. I wanted to develop artists and scenes that didn’t have proper representation. Back then you didn’t have any Baile Funk stuff, or any Baltimore Club stuff being released on real record labels. That was the first goal. The label was just me. It only started four years ago, so for a year and a half it was just me answering e-mails and designing the covers. Then a year and a half after that, I hired a label manager and it’s been about two years as a proper label. I feel like we’re trying to do more bands we believe in. Rusko is our first major artist and I think he represents a big culture shift for us to do a record that can go far, like further than underground music. Even though it is underground music we feel like we can break through with artists like that, and we’re doing Rock bands now.

What are you stoked on for 2010?

I hope we can keep doing fresh shit and keep being ahead of the curve. That’s the hardest part for us; to always stay ahead of people. Because the minute we do something cutting edge it seems like people bite into it and make generic versions of whatever we do that’s cool. So it’s always a struggle. Like why do I work so hard to make cool shit if people just rip it off? But I think we might hopefully break through with some of our stuff. To be honest, we never expected to have hits when we did MIA’s record, I never expected my girlfriend to have a top five single or whatever, but that just happened, so if we can do more shit like that it would be cool. We don’t really try to be successful, we just try to do what we believe in 100%. Like if we think that something’s amazing we are going to put our strength behind it. But there are a lot of roadblocks and stuff. I hope that kids keep supporting underground music too and new shit. I don’t want to name names and stuff, but whenever something does pop off in the underground, somebody does do it and they have their own record on a major label. And you can’t really sit back and hate on those people… it doesn’t do any good for you. The record books are going to name those guys and they’re going to be known as the ones who broke that music, no matter how hard you try and no matter how many people think you’re responsible for shit you can’t really complain, you just got to keep a positive attitude. I’ve just been so lucky to have success as a DJ and to have success producing. The one thing that holds true is I can probably lose all this and go back to working at my dad’s bait shop catching fish, and I’d be cool with it. I’ll start something else. I think I’m a creative person so I think I could do something else. And I think that’s a good strength because I’m not really afraid to keep fucking up.