Partiboi69

Thanks! I never thought in my wildest or wettest dreams that I’d be releasing an EP with Running Back so it's a nice surprise for me as much as anything. Big shout out to Gerd for welcoming me into the family! It was a really refreshing process moving away from my usual high tempo, hard hitting tongue in cheek style to produce something a little slower and more intimate and groovy. That said, it's nothing new to me. The title track Call Of The Void was written about 8 years ago. I produced and DJed house and disco for years before Partiboi69 took over my world. And believe me you, the old Partiboi69 is not going anywhere I’m sorry to say, he’s merely evolving and constantly reinventing. There’s plenty more high octane in-ya-face debauchery just around the corner. I like this term “aesthetically refined 69er”, do you mind if I borrow this?  [of course!]

Creating art for my own pleasure first and foremost has always been a priority for Partiboi69. I spent years in bands in Australia when I was younger trying to make music that would get signed by labels or played by certain radio stations rather than creating music that I liked and found interesting. I think it's getting even harder now for up and coming artists to have the confidence to think like this when creating art because there’s so much constant pressure from the Internet to want to fit into whatever scene is hot at any given time. Everything I’ve done up until now, whether it's the music I've made or the videos and streams I've created, has either been for my own artistic fulfilment or because I've wanted to make my mates laugh. Everything else has been a bonus, and yes, there’s been some bloody great bonuses. Call Of The Void gave me an opportunity to show the scope of my abilities as a producer and songwriter. It was a welcome opportunity to work on different musical styles and to look in different places, or dig back through my past for inspiration. I’ve grown up as a trained musician from a young age, heavily influenced by my father who was an amazing musician and composer. This record is definitely more musically intricate in its style and arrangement than most of my past compositions I think. Humour is and will always be a big part of Partiboi69’s identity and character. I just wanted to show all the other softboi emotional DJs that I can also be a softboi, emotionally in touch, positive energy forever DJ.

All the vocals on this EP are my own except for Playin’ which includes an excerpt from an interview that Howlin Wolf did some years ago that I sampled. These days I mostly try and write and use my own vocals on tracks. I think this comes from the influence that artists like DJ Deeon, DJ Assault and numerous other ghetto house/tech legends had on me. They all use their own voice most of the time. It's also a lot of fun writing my own humorous, often dumb but also highly intellectual lyrics. Take “Ket on my Dick and Clit” for example. Some of the most intellectually stimulating song writing of the modern era. Naturally I was having a right ol fuckin laff when writing that and now it will haunt me for the rest of my life. I have books full of equally outstanding lyrics just waiting to see the light of day…

It's not necessarily a challenge, I’m influenced by many different genres of music and I think each track highlights inspiration from different styles. I have always jumped between genres with my productions and songwriting so it's not really challenging. I think it's more challenging to just make one style of music constantly. Challenging to keep it interesting for yourself if anything. It's nice to be able to jump around depending on what you’re into at any given time.

DJs use their performances to recognise the work of artists and cultures. We have the unique ability to select what music people hear on any given night. We host radio shows and mix series to showcase the artists we love and the musical cultures they come from.
You’re opening a can of worms with this sampling question, but I’ll bite and give you my two cents. There aren’t any limits to sampling other tracks. You can sample whatever you want. Sample til your heart's content! Sampling is and will continue to be a huge part of dance music. It’s what you decide to do with the final product that has restrictions.  Every kid in their bedroom producing music right now is sampling all their fave hip hop vocals and turning them into club tools. It's how some of the biggest dance records are being signed atm. Random kid produces techno banger with ASAP Rocky vocal. Puts it on TikTok. TikTok blows up. Major label sees it. Major label gives kid a fat stack and takes the track and clears the sample and releases it. ASAP gets his cut. Kid gets his cut. Label take most of the cut. Everybody wins. I don’t sample a whole lot anymore; I prefer to write and record my own vocals. However, when I do, if I want to release it, my manager goes out and clears the sample for me.
In terms of recognition, it depends on the use of the final product. The legal fine print tells you that you can’t do anything unless the original creator clears the sample and gets their credit. But our industry is based on breaking rules. Illegal raves. Illicit drugs. Club edits using uncleared, illegal samples. Gender neutral bathrooms. Extreme hedonism. Fucking in public places. The list goes on and I ain’t about to try and change any of it.

Fashionista. No. I don’t watch runway shows or go to fashion parties or anything like that. But I think I do have a somewhat unique style I guess.  I’ve always liked dressing up in funny outfits. I used to always do it when I went to festivals with my friends back in the day. I think my sense of style and my music both share inspiration from humour and ridiculousness. Sometimes I just don a g string when I start a show cos I think that is pretty fkn ridiculous. And I guess this somewhat matches the energy of the show that follows.

Hard work pays off. Never not grinding. That's the moto. I work hard, I play hard. This was a fun shoot. I worked with my good friend, longtime collaborator and amazing photographer Diego Campomar. We generally try to come up with fun and ridiculous concepts for our shoots. This one started off as a full-blown farming shoot with me on horseback mustering cattle, shearing sheep, driving heavy rigs etc. All things from my past growing up in the High Country. But due to time constraints we had to tone it down a tad. So we went with the gritty job site high fashion crossover. It was not my intention no, but I think the manager of this job site definitely found it challenging seeing my peachy ass strutting around his place of work in a g string all day.

I think people like something different every once in a while, (they also absolutely hate it, but hey great art divides people right?). I’m a performer. I’ve come from a performance background. DJing limits your ability to perform because of the nature of it. You're generally not front and center and because you’re just playing prerecorded tracks you don’t have much opportunity to perform live musically. I wanted to change that. I think people respond to it because it's something different from most other DJs they see. This mixed in with live instruments during my sets gives people something that they won’t forget in a hurry.

Again, I throw ideas and concepts around with my mates to see which ones stick. And even if they seem far too big and complicated to implement, we always pull them off.
There’s really no great secret other than backing yourself all the way and being happy to often spend your whole fee on producing these ridiculous ideas. At the end of the day, you can always make more money. But doing something truly unique and giving your fans a completely unique experience is not something that comes around all that often.

I’ve always themed my shows. Back in the day I did a Schapelle Corby welcome home party. I had a game called pin the bag of weed on the boogie board and I chose someone from the crowd to come up and be blindfolded and try and pin the bag of weed on the boogie board. My debut London show at Electric Brixton was Area69 themed. I had a UFO crash site set built that took up the whole stage with the DJ booth in the UFO. I was lowered down from the roof onto a hospital bed and had people in Hazmat suits resuscitate me. My Printworks show Partiboi69 Presents The Church Of 69 Live at Printworks was Church of 69 themed. Again, I had a massive custom church altar built on the stage and was dressed like some sort of drugged up televangelist priest. I’m the king of themed, narrative driven shows. I love creating them and have plenty more to come. I generally create custom musical compositions for all these shows as well. Intro songs that are in the theme of the show.
I generally make live versions of the tracks to include guitar or keyboard to be played live so it will be a completely different experience seeing the tracks from the EP performed live.

Unfortunately for my haters, never.