From my man Judgemental, @ Vinyl Meltdown...
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JM: So how is it touring right now?
Titts: Touring has been amazing fam!! Kicked it off with a massive club opening with Herve, Duke Dumont, Foamo, A1 Bassline and more…. 2000 screaming London kids going in(flicks on the facebook). Since then I’ve had great gigs in Manchester (crazy sold out rave in this abandoned church), Bristol, Edinburgh, Warsaw and then tonight in Brighton, where apparently not even the rain, a holiday week and it being a weekday could stop us! Tomorrow I do this festival that has also booked JackBeats, Atrak and more. Truth be told, it being my first time in Geneva I am REALLY looking forward to the cheese and chocolate J Then it’s off to London again for a second time with DNB legend Shy Fx. It’s been a killer couple of weeks to say the least. I had a polish girl say the grilled out Sponge Bob on my shirt looks like a “nigger.” I started djing with earplugs for the first time. I’ve been turned onto dinosaur porn and multi-limb fantasy sex. I tweeted about my morning wood experience on the train. I did a remix in my hotel room for Steve Aoki. In short, it’s been epic, folk!
JM: I know we last met up in DC, which is both of our hometown and the show was nuts. What kind of reaction do you usually get here? Especially since your music is definitely more B-more than DC.
Titts: Fam, I don’t even know what my music is anymore. Bits of it are B-more, bits are DC, bits aren’t even American, whether UK inspired or wherever else I may visit. I get a lot of love in DC tho, which I think is important. I put my heart into my sets and try to get a good reaction wherever I go but I always want to make sure that the city that started it for POPS OFF!!! Gigs at 930 Club w/ Will Eastman have been ridiculous. Lately we’ve been experimenting a bit w/ Ibiza as well.
JM: And touring internationally, what are the crowds like in different cities, especially with such a region-specific genre?
Titts: You really have to pay close attention to how crowds react. What kind of music are they used to? What genre? What time period? How commercial/underground? How aggressive? What speed? Sometimes you start the night compromising and if all goes well, by the end you’re playing what you want to play. Sometimes you just go in full force and they love every minute of it! I learned all this from DC… whether I was playing at Wonderland or EyeBar, Buzz @ Capital Ballroom or the DC Tunnel, I would learn how to get in and out of different crowds and different genres. It helps to be versatile when you’re trying to push something sometimes unfamiliar.
JM: Ok, so lets talk about the record, Twelve Steps… First of all, it’s a great album. And its spawned a few great singles and EPs, got great reviews from lots of people, myself included, so I just wanted to first of all say congratulations for that.
Titts: Thanks fam! It’s my first attempt as a proper album, so that really means a lot for me.
JM: But how did the transition from DJing and Remixing to original production go for you? Was it natural, or different than you expected?
Titts: Honestly, it wasn’t easy. It meant taking a lot of time off and focusing in the studio and I feel that 12 Steps was my just cracking that door open. All of a sudden I couldn’t depend on samples or familiar elements to carry me. Plus to be respected as a producer, I needed to step my game up past edits and blog quality DJ tools. I am very excited to say that it’s finally starting to come together for me… or least it feels like it. I’m still jumping leaps and bounds, almost every few months it seems.
JM: Your background is Drum n Bass and Hip Hop stuff… did that help you at all going into the solo production, and working with the people you worked with?
Titts: Everything has been coming together so nicely. DNB taught me a bit about breaks and bass, hiphop about sampling. Plus the people I’ve encountered, esp in DC have had a great influence on me. DC bands, DNB producers and friends like Matt Nordstrom, Costas Nakasis and Dave Nada to name a few.
JM: How did you manage to get everyone from Pitbull and Nina Sky to Kid Sister and Pase Rock, to the Federation on the album and still keep it so cohesive?
Titts: I think that club really helped to keep it together. Everything is loosely club inspired and has a similar feel rhythmically and tempo wise. The approach of how I view and build sets also helped me out too. I tried to maintain a certain vision and goal as well I suppose.
JM: Twelve Steps sounds like a reference to some type of rehab… Is it a reference to that, or just a pun about dancing, or what?
Titts: It’s a reference to how much of a drunken mess I was when Stretch Armstrong first asked me to put together an album!! I’m not in the program or anything (90% of the steps are way too religious for me) but this album comes from a time where I am trying to leave less of my life to chance and take control of things.
JM: Over the past couple of years you’ve lost like 100 pounds, and actually I guess the album title is somewhat in reference to that… what made you decide to make that change and how has that effected you?
Titts: I had to go thru so much sh*t before I finally took action. I was getting abdominal pains from drinking, I was hospitalized for chest pains from other activities, I was getting in trouble with the law… I was just an all around mess, physically and mentally. As corny as it sounds, putting a lot of effort into music kept me out of trouble… and then seeing the progress made would help reinforce that and keep me further and further from trouble.
JM: The album artwork is dope. But I’m not sure I get it. I mean obviously the numbers, and like the highest combo with dice is 12, but what else? You’re not into numerology like the Wu or anything are you? Is there any kind of secret message in the dice?
Titts: The numbers themselves don’t mean anything. We started once to get on some nerd ish but decided just to let it represent random chance.
JM: When you come into a DJ set, do you have stuff sort of mapped out with a little bit of breathing room, is it a totally rehearsed set, or is it all of the top of the dome?
Titts: I have things I want to accomplish and a rough idea of how I want to approach things but my general strategy is just to be well organized and prepare to go wherever it needs to go.
JM: I know you try to incorporate a good amount of your own production/remixes into your DJ sets, while also not completely taking over the show… how do you find the right balance there?
Titts: One teaches you a lot about the other. Every time I get back from Europe or Australia, I’ll run home and bang out a whole bunch of new tracks. It’s a fine line because you want to travel enough to stay inspired and encounter new things musically. However you want to stay home long enough to put those ideas down and release them.
JM: So I know that you’re real close with some of the Fools Gold crew and obviously you had Kid Sister on the record, and A-trak helped you get in touch with Nina Sky… any chance you’ll be jumping on that ship? Or is Plant music a comfortable place for you at the moment?
Titts: I will do another album for Plant but in the meantime I’m doing all sorts of stuff.. just did a remix for AC Slater, another for Steve Aoki.. I’m all about keeping the options open and keeping music fun.
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