DJ Feadz is bringing about the revival of Baltimore’s black underground sounds and the gogo beats from the ’80s, all filtered through the technology and communications driven global sampling of the ’00s. This pastiche pop infusion is endearing him to the global scene, so much so that he is one of the many stellar acts lining up for Global Gathering on November 23rd. Feadz told OUTinPerth’s Zoe Carter his thoughts….

On music scenes… I think it’s only like big musicians who carry a whole scene by themselves because when they are good they bring a lot of influence and motivation to their partners, so I don’t think it’s about the countries. There are some good scenes like in England with some people who are so talented that they bring out a whole new scene. In France, it is the same of course – we have a lot of great artists like Justice and SebastiAn…. they all bring something smart and original that’s the key.
But it’s just artists and not any country things, and I think there is a lot of shit too of course – like in the rest of world. So that’s it for me – it’s more about the artists than the country though.

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On his musical influences… I am influenced by the feeling glad as a child when I was discovering music. It comes a lot from cutting existing music ’cause my stuff is mostly about that and I really like that. And I’m also very influenced by Kraftwerk and people like this who bring out a cold futuristic sound in the music ’cause of the use of the synth and of those machines that are very unhuman but can become something very human when you use them with intelligence.
I’m very into the Baltimore scene with people like King Dirt, so this is for me the most important scene at the moment. The English scene is doing some great stuff and Italy too, but everybody is playing this kind of sound. So me, I like to be original and I’m putting everything my own; the sound of my friends Justice, SebastiAn; the sound from the Baltimore; my influence that people may not know and stuff like this.

On digital vs. analog… It’s a bit too easy now days, there is so much access to making music and staff who are doing music for you that it’s important to keep an aspect of analog, ’cause analog was random stuff – also you have to work for a long time before you get your own sound … I think people shouldn’t forget that and they forget it a bit too much – like when they use the synth you can see that’s it’s straight up the presets.
I think you have to work with the digital too they are giving you now days. You have to work with the digital tools, but you have to do your own research on it and personalise them otherwise it’s going to sound like the rest of the planet or something like this

On DJing at festivals… Some great artists are booked in big festivals even if they don’t really DJ they just burn a few CDs before they go and mix. I take DJing very seriously – I was a DJ way before I was a producer, so I really always look for them to show the real importance of being DJ. Audiences are seeing artists most of the time who are just there to present their own sound and it’s working, people are yelling and stuff, but they’re not really surprised. For me, I like to bring out some surprise and show off my sounds that I’ve collected from everywhere in the world that I’ve really troubled to find and I think are very original.

On his upcoming appearance at Global Gathering… I’m looking forward to it because I think it’s going to be great .I think it’s going to be outside in the day and this is such a great place to celebrate music with good weather and stuff so I’m looking forward it. Of course it’s great to be part of a good festival like this ’cause before you play and after you play you can check out some artists. It is very great to be on tour being free to walk around and have choices of seeing this person, this artist and that artist. It’s very great to not be stuck in one club for five hours with the small backstage and the sweaty people.

OUTinPerth has two tickets to Global Gathering to give away. See www.www.outinperth.com for your chance to win. For further details about Global Gathering see www.global-gathering.com.