The best part about seeing your favourite DJ live is hearing for yourself their take on mixes and their interpretation of songs and beats - there's nothing like live exposure to these audio magicians who bless our ears with their skills and talent. But why should the entertainment stop at one sense?
Ego takes this challenge head on, creating visual - audio treats for music and pop-culture lovers alike. Having worked and performed as one half of the duo ' Nice and Ego, ' Ego is now working on his craft solo. With a video mixtape scheduled to drop very soon, EGO talks influences, methods and the crazy amount of time that goes into preparing for a live show.
RTM: What is the first thing you want people to know about DJ Ego?
E: That I'm not just a DJ, I perform with video too, some people call it AV DJing, some call it video DJing. But i basically play videos and music at the same time.
RTM: What can people expect at one of your live shows?
E: A good time. Plus something really different to anything they've seen before, I splice movie samples, film clips, youtube memes and other visuals together with party tunes - it's
RTM: You've just wrapped up doing live shows as one half of Nice and Ego -including a visual audio spot at Splendour in a the Grass in July - how
has it been? Are you exhausted?*
E: Yeah touring was rad, every show was a blast but yeah Splendour was off the map, that's the first time I've played a stage like that, it was a total trip and the response was awesome. But yeah I've been knackered, though I've just taken a month off performing and been in the studio putting together a video mixtape and some fresh content for the solo shows so feeling refreshed and ready to hit it again.
RTM: How did you first get into doing Visual Audio projects?
E: Mr Nice introduced me to it, I've been DJing for years but I'm also a video producer so it was a perfect fit. We ran a couple of AV nights here in Melbourne for a while which were consistently awesome parties so we decided to take the show on the road.
RTM: Audio Visual DJing seems very much like the "chicken and the egg"
conundrum; i.e. which comes first - ideas for the videos or ideas for the
music?
E: Yeah totally, basically I get my ideas any way they come - if its a song that conjures up a solid visual then I go hunting for that visual sample, or if its a movie or other that I want to sample then I try and find a song that fits with the sample. But its most often music first, video second. Sometimes the connections are quite literal, sometimes they're contextual, sometimes it's just the vibe. But I make an effort now of sitting on an idea for a bit before barrelling into it, often a lot of good ideas don't really work on the dancefloor, so I stand back and assess how it might work into my whole DJ set.
RTM: How long does it take to prepare for a live show?
E: Forever. Seriously. Every song needs to have a visual treatment, sometimes that can take a few hours to whip up but more often it takes me weeks of digging for the right sample and playing around with ideas before then editing it together. There are bits of my set which are only say 2 minutes long but it took me seriously two to three weeks of work to put together. It's kind of dumb.
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| EGO's video mix tape is just around the corner |
RTM: When mixing, is there a certain method or formula you follow?
E: I have a lot of favourite mixes, tracks which just sit really well together so I always have them up my sleeve but just try and bounce to whatever the crowd are vibing, though like I say, when every track takes forever to make visuals for it's harder to be impromptu doing an AV show than it is doing just an audio set.
RTM: Dance, Electric, D&B and Dubsteb have been very popular in mainstream
markets recently - which DJs stand out to you?
E: There is so much awesome music being made, it's almost impossible to keep up with who is doing what anymore, there are rad producers popping up from everywhere. I guess for me guys like Diplo and A-trak who have stood the test of time and continued to be at the cutting edge of music and continually redefine dance music easily top my list. I love DJs who add their own spin to things, it's one thing to play all those popular bass genres and play them well but its another thing to sound original.
RTM: What genres and/or artists do you draw inspiration from?
E: I get a lot of my inspiration from local, Australian, guys who are pushing the envelope, guys like Cutloose, Sampology and the Surecut Kids. I try and listen to everything though, be on top of all genres and styles, I listen to a lot of podcasts to find out what's getting played in clubs overseas, as well as local radio to stay up with what's getting played here.
RTM: This year Nice and Ego mixed up Triple J's Hottest 100 which the people
loved and ended up being aired on Triple J - do you have any picks for who
might make the Hottest 100 in 2013?
E: It's often tough to pick, a lot of the songs I'd like to make it don't and songs which are huge at the start of the year lose popularity by the time the poll comes around. I imagine Flume will be well placed, he's just blown up which is awesome. Major Lazer's Get Free has been a huge anthem too. Grimes,
Alt-J, Frank Ocean hopefully, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, The Presets are home town heroes. It's funny, before doing that mashup we kind of mapped out what we thought would be in it to be ready to get busy on it once it got announced, and we were pretty far off with some of our predictions!
RTM: When can we catch next catch Ego?
E: Hopefully I'll be hitting the road again soon. Once I release my video mixtape I'll no doubt be ready to get the hell away from my studio and back out performing.
www.watchyourego.com
