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Sailing Away With Yacht Club DJs

As they come to the end of their party-filled road, we chat to gaz from ycdjs., sailing away.

By Liam Apter

Interviews are often done to mark beginnings, but this interview with Yacht Club DJs commemorates the end of one of the last acts of the Melbourne house party scene of 2006. From their birth in fire with the  that  DJ set at Meredith ‘08 after MGMT, Gaz Harrison and Guy Chappell made it clear, with their mash-ups, that they were an act to see live. And for a project that began in 2006 where they trashed up a venue it seems fitting that they’re gearing aup for an equally rowdy last hurrah. 

With their final tour days away, I caught up with Harrison and begun by looking at their not so bright beginnings in 2006. “I think I was in bed and Guy called and was like, ‘Hey I’m doing this gig, we’ll use laptops, will you do it with me?’ I was like, ‘Nah, I’m not in the mood to be a Girl Talk clone,’ and fobbed him off.” But Harrison and Chappell decided to meet up anyway. This culminated in them playing their first live set, spinning tracks ranging from Rage Against The Machine to The Jackson 5, in a support slot for Grant Smilie of Aussie electro-house lords TV Rock. It probably didn’t help that Chappell had never DJ’d before: “Every person in the club who had come to rave to TV Rock was standing in the back room trying to get away from us because we were being insane. I think we pissed a lot of people off that night…” It later went on to become a running joke with Smilie, “We were always like, ‘Remember when we rocked your show?’ Because everyone left when we played.”

Yacht Club DJs managed to get people to stay around and their Meredith ’08 set saw them become a hot product. From there they played Falls, Field Day, sold out two national tours, played at four Splendours and warmed up for Mumford & Sons in the USA. But Harrison explains that the atmosphere of that first gig was something that they always aspired to. “We tried to keep the spirit of that first night, there was something insane and anachronistic about it… There was something about it that we always wanted to re-create.” 

Harrison did embrace the insane nature of Yacht Club DJs as he recalls his encounters with police in the Bible belt, near Oklahoma earlier this year. It began with them drinking moonshine, and as day approached they drove out to a nearby town for breakfast, but “these two dudes…ran out without paying. Because we were sitting out front being real rowdy the cops turned up and thought it was us. They had their guns pointed at us and our tour manager had to drive from the campsite to rescue us…”

As he reached the campsite Harrison is told that the cops were there and that he may be going home. “…My stomach sunk as I imagined ringing my manager to tell him that I’m getting deported halfway through a tour of the US.” Speaking with the sheriff, a man Harrison described akin to Jaws – in size and stature – the unexpected happened. “He flicks into this Australian accent and says, ‘Boys will be boys, we just wanted to wind you up’. Turns out he was from Adelaide and he married the chief of police’s daughter and became the chief of police… It turned into probably the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

"We were always like, ‘Remember when we rocked your show?’ Because everyone left when we played." 

Yacht Club DJs aren’t just known for their antics but also their mash-ups. Harrison explains that his interest came from hearing The Avalanches’ debut album,  Since I Left You , as he was finishing school. From there he listened to DJ Shadow and began to move into house but shifted back to sampling in what was “one of those ‘get back to what you love’ moments, where I decided to buy a sampler and cut things up on a computer.” But Harrison explains that this interest in sampling was never really expressed in Yacht Club DJs: “I kind of wish I got to take it a bit further with Yacht Club, we had to keep it to a mixtape thing where you could recognize the songs… It was something that never really got to happen.”

Asking why, Harrison offers: “We tried to show people an absolute whirl of music that no one has heard. People were starting to ask why we hadn’t released music and we were like, ‘Fuck it, let’s do it’. And our audience was like, ‘This isn’t you guys.’ The lack of enthusiasm saw the team around Yacht Club DJs become spun out by the response and pressured the duo to change. However, they stood firm; “We are what we are, we’ve got our spot. We’ve reached the potential.”

Touching on a recent concert in which they played alongside Miami Horror, who they also DJ’d with when they started out, Harrison states, “It was one of those really cool back in time moments where we got to go back six or seven years and party like we did back then. But then there are so many bands and DJs that are all gone. They’ve either moved overseas or they have different careers and we’re still plugging along like it’s 2006.”

Harrison also tells that after eight years the scene he knew has disappeared. “We always thought those guys would be around forever and they’re not… It was a different scene back then and it’s hard to think about it and not get nostalgic. There was a big house party vibe back then that doesn’t exist anymore.”

A few years ago Yacht Club DJs took an extended break, asking why they couldn’t keep doing the same thing, Harrison offers, “We both have things we want to do. We could, but we’ve done what we want to achieve with the project. Far exceeded what we wanted to achieve. 

“We just wanted to have fun. That’s all we wanted to do. We wanted to smash things together and release these ridiculous mixtapes and we spent eight years doing that… Guy is burnt out and wants to do Twinsy… It’s expensive to live out the back of car…and I’m sort of getting to the age where I don’t want to do that anymore. You either make millions of dollars or you grow out of it.” 

Perhaps it’s the perfect time to settle down? “No, exactly the opposite. I just want to do nothing. I’ve got an EU passport and I just want to travel around. I’ve never been able to do that… I want to take some time off.”

And as for what happens next, “I don’t know, that’s half the excitement of it I guess…”

Follow Yacht Club DJs:  FACEBOOK  /  SOUNDCLOUD

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Yacht club djs.

“Everything we do has gotten a bit slicker and sounds better. Producing stuff the way we do generally leads to the sound quality being a bit shit and we were pretty naive of that back in the day. Apart from that, it’d just be basic music choices. Guy [Chappell-Lawrence] and I have pretty fiercely different taste in music and if anything, that has gotten worse, but we’ve learned to make it work. I think as a whole you could say we focus less on mash-ups and more on just putting on a good party, there’s a lot more to life than hearing Whitney Houston sing over Static X, right?” he muses.

While Yacht Club DJs are very much at home behind the decks, commanding the dancefloor, there is a little something brewing in terms of recorded material. “We’ve got some demos sitting around, but we aren’t sure what to do with them just yet. The main reason being we aren’t sure if they are Yacht Club songs or something for a new project. We start every demo by sitting down with a guitar and banging away and as a result the music has come out a bit psych-rock and maybe not as party as people would expect from Yacht Club. So yeah, there will be stuff from us soon we just don’t know what it’s called yet. Yacht Club will keep on partying though, we’ve nearly finished a new mixtape that we’ll drop online sometime soon too. Plus there’s always Twinsy and Rick Moranis Overdrive if you want to listen to all our other stuff,” he says, referring to the band’s side-projects.

Dealing primarily in mash-up creations, Yacht Club DJs foremost goal is to generate a party-conducive atmosphere – something they have proved mightily adept at over the years. “We aren’t for chin-strokers, that’s for sure. I’m sure there are people who probably don’t like what we do coming out and getting pretty involved with their chin down the back, but while they’re stroking away they forget or refuse to have fun. Everything we do has a sense of humour about it and quite often we are poking fun directly at the people who think it’s necessary to shit-can us. One thing I’ve never understood about our critics is they just seem to be pissed off we’re having a good time. But I don’t really give a shit either, it’s just weird,” he reasons.

With the pejorative to party, Gaz has been privy to some pretty wild moments on the road. “I’ve been pretty determined to experience all America has to offer on this tour. It’s got me in some hot water occasionally. But I always land on my feet. My favourite so far has been when I got a police badge in Guthrie, Oklahoma. I had been out partying with some friends at the festival site and Guy and Brendan [tour manager] had gone back to the hotel. Anyway, things got a bit spirited and there was moonshine getting around and next thing you know it was 7am and I had a cop pointing a gun at me because I was drunk. I tried explaining that was a massive overreaction to intoxication, but he wasn’t having it. So I had to sit in a car park with these cops threatening to arrest me if I didn’t move on whilst I waited for our tour manager to come and rescue me. So anyway I rock up at the festival the next day to play, feeling like death, and the chief of police is there rapping me over the knuckles and threatening to deport me. As you can imagine, I was pretty terrified, but after 20 minutes or so he just laughed in an Australian accent and said ‘only kidding, boys will be boys,’ And gave me a badge with the advice, ‘if you get in trouble again get this badge out and they’ll drive you home. You’re a deputy now.’ Australian chief of police in Oklahoma – Who’d have thought?” He recalls with a grin.

Back in 2008, Yacht Club DJs experienced a true baptism of fire (or more specifically, rain) when they crushed it at the wettest Meredith Music Festival to date, winning over the post-MGMT crowd. “My brain had turned right off.  I’d been standing out in the rain watching MGMT trying to work out why they were hating it so much. Then I took my boots off in the green room and nearly killed everyone with wet feet smell. Then we were on stage. I didn’t get nervous till afterwards. It’s really weird how that happens with big shows. You go into this weird flight or fight response state. Well I do, I’m a terrible introvert. Will yell at a crowd with no shirt on but won’t make eye contact with a check out person at Safeway,” Gaz self-assesses. “But yeah after that show I lost it. Then I got drunk and spent the morning throwing mud at my friends like everyone else.”

BY LACHLAN KANONIUK

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Yacht club djs.

Forte’s favourite mad men of mixtapes have done it again! Their fifth instalment of mash-up madness, Oddity Number 5, is out now for your listening pleasure. Like the others, it’s available for free online – and has already been touted as their best yet. So to celebrate Gaz and Guy have enlisted the help of a few rising stars to launch Oddity Number 5 to infinity and beyond. “We think it’s great music – and we’re our own worse critics, so hopefully people dig it!” Gaz confessed. “These shows we’re planning will be a lot of fun.” Warming up the crowd on Yacht Club’s home turf, Ballarat’s Karova Lounge, will be Melbourne duo GodWolf – a band that I believe, after this kind of exposure, will be noticed for all the right reasons. “I’ve not seen them live yet but from what I’ve heard they’re unreal! We’ve been very lucky in the past when it comes to picking the right support acts. The guys from I OH YOU [independent Aussie record label] called us the best PR firm in the country because every band we take on tour blows up!” he laughed. “The first band we ever took on tour was DZ Deathrays – they’re ARIA winners these days! Then we took Bleeding Knees Club, and they got massive too! “Also, at the Sydney and Melbourne shows, we’re doing stuff with hip hop artist Remi. We’re really excited about that – I want to write music with him so bad. He’s been on my radar for a long time, so hopefully we get along. Maybe we’ll have a few brewskies … but not too many,” Gaz promised. Speaking of writing new music, the guys also revealed that they’ve been busy working away on Yacht Club’s greatest challenge yet – an EP of entirely original music. “It’s been the most fun and yet the most shocking experience of my life. I’ve never worked so hard on anything! We’ve always wanted to play our own music but the timing never felt right. “Guy and I have been writing music for a lot longer than we’ve been in Yacht Club DJs and we’ve both been in different bands for what feels like forever. So it’s a relief to be finally doing original stuff as part of Yacht Club.” Guy is one half of Twinsy, the “electronic lovechild” he shares with Hunting Grounds’ frontman Michael Belsar, while Gaz is a proud member of the indie punk act Rick Moranis Overdrive and the blues-inspired band Them 9’s. It seems like the former goldfields of Victoria have become a hot bed of band swapping. “I’ve been a part of half a dozen bands in the last six years and I think that’s helped us come up with a really eclectic collection of music.” As with the mixtapes we’ve come to know and love, expect the unexpected. “It’s all over the place,” Gaz said enthusiastically. “From German techno to Aussie hip hop, no genre is off-limits. The first single is an indie dance tune called ‘Undertow’. We plan on releasing a series of EPs, hopefully leading up to an album. We’ve just decided to go for it. Lots of the new stuff will be included in these run of shows.” Bring it on! When&Where: The Karova, Ballarat – April 17. Written by Natalie Rogers

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Five Star DJs for Private Charters + Cruise Ships

World Class DJs on the Waves!!!

At JW we understand that luxury and five star is the name of the game whenever the word ‘holiday’ is mentioned, and our talented team of DJs are guaranteed to ‘rock the boat’!

Our world class Open Format DJs can cater to the tastes of the most discerning guests and ensure that everyone on board is having the time of their lives immersed in the best music around. What’s more, as a five-star agency with some top end clients, we can guarantee that discretion is the word.

We know that on a super yacht, mega yacht or smaller private charter, clients expect the highest quality, and we always go above and beyond to tailor our music to fix the exacting standards of the guests on board. You the client will orchestrate what you want musically, and we will deliver on point from beautiful ambient deep house music to the latest hits in the charts, we have you covered. What’s more, we love to create memorable experiences and performances that live on beyond the party so that our clients continue to talk about them for years after. Out team are more than willing to travel to world with you and journey wherever and whenever the music takes us (and you!).

Most private charters will have an excellent sound system on board for times just like these, but should your boat be lacking in this department, we are also able to provide a full audio setup to ensure the bass is pumping and you are the envy of all other parties on the ocean.

If a mega yacht is too small for you, we also cater to provide DJs for luxury cruise liners. We have an abundance of experience providing entertainment for small intimate cocktail parties to large scale events of up to 2,000 people or more, and with that comes the knowledge of how to read a dance floor. When you must cater for much larger numbers of guests you need to be able to seamlessly shift from one genre to another and ensure that the musical tastes of everyone are catered to, whilst keeping the dancefloor full. All our DJs are particularly adept at doing this, which is why we are rightly proud of our excellent five-star reputation.

For more information as to how we can make waves on your luxury yacht or cruise liner, please reach out to us at [email protected] , and let us make beautiful music together.

We are proud to have a dynamic team of 50 DJS from various back grounds and heritages that are able to provide a variety of danceable sets to fill your bar, club or event with high energy, feel good vibes, and a truly electric atmosphere. Delivering electric sets of RnB, Hip Hop, Top 40 Chart, House, Reggaeton/Latin, Party Anthems, Dance Hall, Afro Beats, Bashment, Chillout and House genres.

Kate Hudson Took Over Montauk’s Surf Lodge This Weekend, Followed by a DJ Set From Anderson .Paak

Summer is in full swing—and that means New Yorkers are fleeing the city whenever they have a chance. Where do they go? Out East, of course! And so far East that they find themselves at the Surf Lodge in Montauk, which is hosting a collection of musical acts every weekend. This past Saturday, Kate Hudson rocked the stage at sunset, overlooking Fort Pond, followed by a DJ set from Anderson .Paak, also known as DJ Pee .Wee.

Before the day even started, the Surf Lodge was bumping with guests enjoying brunch and pre-event festivities; they’re not lying when they say the party starts early and lasts all day! And following a particularly rainy afternoon, the weather held up as Hudson prepared to take the stage—dressed in her boho chic best. The outside deck quickly filled with a top-tier lineup of actors, artists, and influencers–some of which included Gwyneth Paltrow and Cynthia Rowley.

Hudson’s debut album, Glorious , dropped on May 17–which set the tone for her musical endeavors for the season. During her set, she performed some original songs and covered some crowd-favorite tunes, and guests could be caught gleefully singing along.

As the good vibes–and drinks–were flowing, Anderson .Paak (DJ Pee .Wee) settled in for the night. Accompanied by a live trumpeter, .Paak spun all the classics–from ’80s dance music favorites to early 2000s hits.

Those who craved some food after the fun–but still wanted to keep the party going–could be sat the Surf Lodge’s restaurant, Casa Sereña. With front-row views to the action outside, guests indulged a variety of Mediterranean-inspired shareable plates, fresh fish, vegetables, and, of course, Hampton Water and Saint James Tea.

Who will take the Surf Lodge stage next?

Kate Hudson

Gwyneth Paltrow

Anderson .Paak

Jayma Cardoso

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