John Goodridge chats to Netsky, aka Boris Danean about his upcoming tour to Australia with Future Music Festival in March.
Hi Boris how’s it going?
Good, John. How are you?
Great thanks. I was just looking at the video from your New Zealand tour last year. What are your highlights from that tour?
Yeah, man. We toured New Zealand about March last year and we shot the video in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin. Yeah, the whole tour was amazing man, we’ve got a great fan base in New Zealand and we played some amazing shows. We played a massive arena in one city for like 4000 people and the rest of the shows were like 1000, 1500 and was a really great tour and we’ve got a lot of fans in New Zealand.
So what’s the feeling like when you walk out on stage?
Well it’s the question everybody asks and it’s kinda yeah – I feel great – it’s like it’s my passion. I love being onstage and I love showcasing music that I made but as a producer, I love being at home just making music also. The combination of worlds, that’s magic for me. Just the feeling of making a track, or writing a song and being able to play it live in front of people for me that’s amazing.
Yeah I was gonna ask that actually, whether you prefer the live sets or recording?
Yeah, like as I said, I couldn’t choose one or two; I think it’s the combination that makes it perfect for me. I couldn’t be a DJ if I wasn’t taking time off to write music. I couldn’t DJ year after year after year, like some people do. I just love making music too much for that. But for me, the combination is the thing.
And I noticed that your stage show has a live drummer, keyboard player and singer, which is different to a lot of EDM artists. Is that a conscious decision?
Yeah. I grew up with live music, my dad used to be a musician. I kinda grew up on funk and soul and I always enjoyed the idea of having musicians on stage, and I think from a young age when I was starting to make music, I was always imagining music I was making to be played live by people onstage. So for me, it was a normal step to take and I think it was something I always wanted to do if I had the chance and the money to invest in it. Obviously, it’s not an easy job to do. When you’re travelling alone as a DJ, it’s much easier. I really wanted to play music live.
It looks like the stage production is massive. It must be difficult to tour with that amount of stuff behind you.
Well, we’ve got a really good relationship with our instrument dealer, Roland, and they kinda support us worldwide. So we just gotta make sure all the musicians get there on time, drunk or sober, so it’s kinda easy in that way. We’re really lucky with Roland. But next year, we want to start travelling with more production – maybe some extra lights.
On Spotify, you’ve got your playlist of songs that you listen to while you relax and it’s quite diverse with Sade, Massive Attack, Gotye and Michael Jackson So you obviously have a whole range of influences.
Yeah totally and especially with the album I’m writing right now, I think the biggest influence is from Southern Ireland. I kinda enjoy the live breaks and live drums and the “big room” feeling with a lot of orchestra sounds in there. I love strings and that cinematic feel, so I’m definitely gonna try and incorporate that into the live show somehow.
Will you be dropping any new songs from the album into the live show?
Yeah, actually we’re thinking about trying out one or two new tracks when we’re over in Australia for Future Music. I haven’t quite figured out what tracks yet. I really want to try some new material and see what the crowd reaction is like.
Are there any other acts you’re looking forward to seeing at Future Music?
It’s a massive line-up. I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun. The stage we’re playing at, all the people who are playing there are friends of ours and we haven’t been on tour for a while, so it will be great to see them again.
So Deadmau5 and Macklemore are headlining.
Oh Macklemore, great. I’ve only see him live once, but I wanna see them again. And Deadmau5, yeah. I saw him a couple of times in Europe, but I’m definitely looking forward to those two, yeah.
You’ve toured with some great artists – Chase and Status last year.
Yeah that just happened in November, just a couple of months ago. It was really good fun and the whole team took really good care of us and it was a really relaxed support; it was the first time we’ve supported a band with our live band as well and it was incredible. I really enjoyed it.
When I look on-line it looks like you spend a lot of time touring. How do you relax and get some down time?
Yeah it’s funny – our band’s been home for about three months working on the new album and it’s the first time in about three years that I’m not touring for one or two weeks and it’s quite funny, because I was looking forward to making music but now after a couple of months, literally my hands start shaking. I can’t wait to start touring again. I really miss it. I’ve got amazing friends here in my village in Belgium, so it’s always good to be back home and when I’m back, they look after me and we go out a lot. I have a lot of fun with them, so relaxing and partying a bit more.
How much control do you have over the releases and marketing of your records? Do you have a lot of control or do you leave it up to the record company?
There’s a lot of important decisions that I want my say on. For me, I really trust the team I’m working with right now but it’s always important to be there for the final decision, I think. I’m not like a control freak, but I like to be there when everything’s happening. I always want things to happen as I’m doing it; I wouldn’t want anybody speaking on behalf of me, so it’s very important to trust my team and know how they work, so I’m in a good situation like that.
Do you think that being relatively young you have a different outlook on the music industry than someone who’s been around longer?
I’m sure I do, yeah. I grew up in a time where bands and musicians had to tour to make money, whereas some bands twenty years ago had to make an album to make money, so now it’s the other way around. It’s a funny way of working and it’s totally different to the way it used to be, but I grew up with it. It’s nice to be young and to work with other young people in the music industry. Everyone’s really fresh about working and we like that.
In my mind, there is so much file sharing on the internet and you just have to work with that rather than fight against it.
Yeah totally agree and I even think we’ve even fought that war. That was something that happened five or ten years ago where piracy was a massive thing, but I think the whole music industry and especially labels adapted to that. Just look at Spotify; people don’t even have to pirate music anymore, they can stream it for free and I think that’s the future – I think it should be available to download to anybody, but I think it should be done fairly. I think artists are really happy with that service and I think people are really happy .
Yeah, I use Spotify myself and I can always find new music – I don’t have to worry about piracy, I just pay my subscription and away I go.
Yeah it’s great.
And Netsky – that’s the name of a computer virus?
Yeah that’s kinda where it originated from.
You’re not worried that you’re tempting fate using a virus name?
Well it was a Windows virus and I’ve kinda moved onto Apple. The idea behind it was a kind of protest; like if I call my band a computer virus, people might type in piracy software like Limewire or Kazaa and end up with a virus instead of my music, so it was kind of a middle finger to piracy but it never actually worked, I think.
Actually when you type Netsky into Google, you get the virus as first and you come second.
Really? Okay that’s interesting. I didn’t know that.
So for Future Music, what can Australian audiences expect to see on stage?
Everyone I talk to about Australian festivals says that they’re really pumped. It’s gonna be my first festival tour in Australia, so we’re still virgins. I’m looking forward to seeing what the crowds are going to be like, because everybody’s totally big about it.
It’s a massive festival – as far as EDM festivals in Australia go, it’s probably the biggest.
Sounds great. I’m expecting a lot of warm weather as well.
Well we’ve got a heatwave at the moment, but hopefully it’s just plain warm by the time you get here.
I’m looking forward to some heat. I could do with some other weather apart from snow.
So when will your album be out? Are you expecting to release that before the tour?
No, we’re not gonna be releasing the full album before the tour. I’m hoping to finish it before the tour and there might be a single out before the tour or maybe straight after. I might have something to show on YouTube or something like that. But I’m thinking of releasing the album in July, August or maybe even September.
When you release an album you’re quite prolific. You don’t just release five or six tracks. Is that a personal choice?
Yeah, I see what you mean. There are a lot of people especially in drum and bass and even in EDM who work single orientated, right? Yeah, I really like working like that. When people hear a Netsky song, there must be forty versions of that song that I worked around before releasing the final one and for me, it’s fun to show all the mixes of the tune and it’s something I want to keep doing.
I see you include a couple of live tracks. Do you normally record your sessions when you play live?
We try and record all the big shows we do. We record all shows just for listening purposes for us, but yeah, I like the idea of a live track on the album when a lot of people come to the show. I like the idea of people being able to re-listen to the show.
I mean, you do so many shows it would almost be impossible to listen to all of them and mix them and so on.
Yeah, we definitely don’t mix our shows, but I think it’s important when we’re on tour to listen to how bad we sometimes sound and how we can improve stuff and that’s the only way to do it. I try to listen to recordings every time. But it’s a very boring job.
Your website’s quite good. There’s a real feeling that you’re behind it. Do you have a lot of input into the website?
Yeah. I used to study multimedia and web design and everything and I’m really interested in marketing and social media, so I’m behind all my social media and website. The website is quite old – it needs an update, but I like it, it’s quite simple.
I like it. There’s a real feeling like I said of “you” behind it, not just some faceless marketing company.
Oh sure yes, there’s nothing worse than that man. I hate seeing management tweets and Facebook updates on websites. They’re horrible.
So is there anything that you want to say to the Australian audiences before we go?
Yeah, I’m just really looking forward to the tour man, and I’m looking forward to playing some new tunes. Australia is a good country to try out some new tunes so I’m excited about that and I can’t wait to see if people are right about Australians going crazy.
I’m looking forward to catching you when you’re down here. It looks like a great show. Hopefully you’ve got some things lined up in between shows.
We’re gonna go sky-diving with the band.
Wow. That will be cool.
Yeah I’m looking forward to that. Australia is the only place I would do that because I’m scared to death of heights.
I went skydiving once and it’s awesome, it’s an amazing feeling. It’s like diving into a pool but without the splash.
That sounds like a really good explanation of it, actually. I can’t wait.
Thanks for the chat today and good luck with the Future Music tour and we’ll see you in Australia soon.
Thanks a lot man.
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FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL DATES
Saturday, 1st March
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Sunday, 2nd March
Arena Joondalup, Perth
Saturday, 8th March
Royal Randwick Racecourse, Sydney
Sunday, 9th March
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Monday, 10th March
Adelaide Showgrounds, Adelaide
