I understand it was your birthday yesterday!
Indeed, yes!
So how hungover are you?
Pretty hungover! *laughs*
I read on your Twitter account that you had about 20 interviews to do in Australia today! That’s one kind of birthday present I suppose…
It’s always nice to have so much love coming from Australia.
At least you can lie in bed with an ice pack on your head.
If I did that man I mightn’t talk! *laughs*
Are we talking to you in Berlin?
Yeah, I’m at home for a change.
How often do you get to go home these days?
Generally over the Summer I get one day a week at home, if I’m lucky – so this is my one day at home this week. I feel pretty lucky!
Yeah looking at your tour dates, it seems like it’s pretty non stop…
Especially this time of year, it’s Summer festival season, and also Ibiza is prime time at the moment. So it’s pretty much a lot more gigs that happen on Wednesdays and Thursdays and Tuesdays … and that’s slightly different to the Winter when you’re playing Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
Are you ever envyous of bands, because you almost don’t have an excuse not to perform every night of the week!
To be honest, I love DJing, so the more gigs the merrier. I suppose the one difference to being a DJ and being in a band, is that bands generally go off into a studio for six months, record a new album and then tour it for a year. Where as we go and do our album at the same time as touring.
As an artist who lives in Berlin, could you let us in on what makes it such a fantastic place for emerging creative times to live?
I suppose anywhere that’s cheap to live is going to attract young artists, and people to the city. And because of that, it creates this atmosphere that people are bringing something new to the table I suppose.
You’ve been living there for five years now – is it definitely home?
Hmmm… well, I’m one of those people that loves travelling around, so I wouldn’t say that I’m defintiely going to settle here for a long time, but it’s definitely been a great five years.
And speaking about travelling, we’re about to get you back down to Australia in September for the Parklife Festival, a tour you’ve done before. Are you looking forward to getting back down here and doing it again?
Totally. For me, that tour is up there with playing the European festivals – I think somebody takes the time out to do something which is very underground and not so over the top commercial, so it’s a joy to be on that tour. Last time I did it it was so much fun.
I would imagine, too, that being a part of a touring festival is quite handy, compared to the standalone European festivals – you have the same team helping you out along the way…
Yeah, it definitely makes your life easier. The only thing is that in Australia you probably think that flying from Sydney to Perth and from Perth to Brisbane over a couple of days is a normal thing – but for me that’s like flying from Berlin to New York, over to Spain and then to Turkey… It definitely wears you out by the end, but it’s great.
I wouldn’t worry, most people in Australia don’t travel between the coasts too often – that’s one of the few privledges we leave for the artists who pop down for a visit!
*laughs* For sure.
So you have your own music label, Front Room Recordings, and you co-own Loungin’ Recordings…
Oh, I don’t own that anymore! Five years ago I stopped that one. I’ve got three labels now – one is Made to Play, which is five years old, and in October we’re going to have a five year Made to Play compliation, and then I got Front Room which is now ten years old, and then I’ve got a brand new label which is called Play It Down, which is just starting this year.
In this “digital age” I’m often surprised when I see new music labels popping up, in spite of industry downturn – but your experiences must be positive if you’re starting new ones yourself!
To be honest with you, this year has been the best we’ve ever had, in terms of sales and money coming through the label. So I definitely ain’t complaining. I think that, like everything, you just have to move with the times. You have to change the way that you work, when times are changing. If I had just stuck to only releasing records, then yeah I’d be in a problem right now, but we switched the whole way we work, and we’re definitely doing more internet based campaigning for what we do.
You’re about to release the first EP for your new label, Sleep Less (Night One + Night Two), what can we expect there?
Yeah, that’s like a new series that I’m doing, for tracks where I’m just making tracks that I want to play in the clubs. I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, so I’m not giving each EP a different name, it will all come under that umbrella – people who buy it will know what they’re going to get!
I’d like to go back fifteen years now – back to when your FIRST first EP was released – how has making music changed for you since then?
It changed for me about ten years ago, from being analogue, and having to use analogue mixing desks, and ACAI samplers – to now being able to pretty much make everything off a laptop and two high quality monitor speakers. So it’s changed, but I think it’s changed for the better.
It has made it easier though for anyone to produce music. Does more competition make it harder to get your stuff heard?
Harder is good. People should always be trying to make better records. Maybe it’s harder now, because when you go out to a record shop, and you spend 7 or 10 pounds on a record, you’ve got to really love that record. But when you buy a record for 79p, then you don’t have to love it as much. You can take more chances on it. But it also creates more chances for people to have a record label and create something from their bedrooms – people can start a career out of nowhere. Before, you had to rely on a good label to take your music, and they’d have to promote your music. But now you can basically do it yourself. So I think it opens the doors for everyone to get involved.
And as DJ that must be great too, because there are so many more avenues to get people familiar with your music.
Yeah, exactly. That’s one of the total benefits. I can come to Australia, and people in Australia know the music that I’m playing. There’s no excuse for Australia to say, “oh, but there was a delay!” – we all get it at the same time now.
We don’t have to wait for the ship to arrive!
*laughs* Exactly!
So when you’re not entertaining crowds on stage, where are we going to find Jesse Rose at a festival like Parklife?
Normally you’ll find me stealing a golf cart, and driving it to my hotel room for a little nap.
Yeah I remember hearing about this from last time you were here! What’s the story behind that one?
Basically, anytime you put me and Diplo together there’s trouble. And we ended up stealing a golf cart and driving it to our hotel, and getting a police escort back to the festival. I don’t know what happened to the golf cart. Allegedly, Diplo put it into a pond. Allegedly.
It sounds like a good music video right there.
Definitely would have been more interesting than my latest music video!
So how far back do your hijinks with Diplo go back?
Not that far, maybe 2 or 3 years? He works with Switch, who’s one of my best friends and a guy I’ve worked with for many years. So we’ve all got a close relationship.
I ask because I’ve been told via a press release that he knows you as the “House Music Hobbit” – what’s that all about?
I haven’t got a clue! That sounds like someone trying to create some hype there. I couldn’t say, I’ve never heard that before.
We’re not going to find you playing house music in Middle Earth then?
*laughs* Nope, but I reckon whoever wrote that has got a good sense of humour.
Don’t miss Jesse Rose when he plays the national Parklife Festival tour in September/October! For more details on the tour, visit
http://www.parklife.com.au
– and for more on the latest tunes from Jesse, check out:
http://www.myspace.com/jesseroseandcontent
