Ben Folds is giving fans a look at what might have been.
Folds, bassist Robert Sledge and drummer Darren Jessee are celebrating the 30th anniversary of Ben Folds Five’s self-titled debut album with the release of Ben Folds Five (30th Anniversary), a newly remastered edition set to be released on Sept. 4.
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The project pairs the original 1995 record with an unreleased version of the album titled Shelved First Attempt. The recently unearthed project is being previewed with the fan-favorite track “Underground (Shelved First Attempt),” available to fans on Tuesday (June 7).
“Here’s my 59-year-old self’s take on the album we made when I was 28: Overall, it’s good!” Folds writes in the anniversary edition’s liner notes. “It’s NOT the kind of record you’d hear produced these days. It’s pretty rough and tumble, mostly in a good way. And it’s emphatically unique. It’s from an era when you could still identify a band by the instrumentalists, before you’d even hear the vocalist.”
The “Shelved First Attempt” comprises tracks that remained tucked away for more than 30 years before Folds decided to resurface them from his personal archives. The recordings feature earlier versions of tracks such as “Underground,” “Julianne” and “Philosophy,” as well as “Boxing” and “Evaporated,” which appeared on the band’s 1997 album Whatever and Ever Amen. Other tracks within the collection include “Emaline,” “Dick Holster” and “Eddie Walker.”
Released in 1997, Whatever and Ever Amen’s release was the commercial breakthrough for Ben Folds Five, peaking at No. 42 on the Billboard 200 chart. “Brick,” one of the songs from the album, peaked at No. 6 on the Alternative Airplay chart, No. 11 on the Mainstream Top 40 and reached No. 19 on the mainstream Hot 100 Airplay chart.
Ben Folds Five (30th Anniversary) will be released via Capitol/UMe on CD and vinyl, while the remaster of the original album as well as the Shelved First Attempt will both be available to stream and download.
As the project’s reissue becomes available, the group is set to reunite for their first live performances together in more than 13 years next year.
Preview the Ben Folds Five (30th Anniversary) CD tracklist:
DISC 1 – BEN FOLDS FIVE (REMASTERED)
1. Jackson Cannery
2. Philosophy
3. Julianne
4. Where’s Summer B.?
5. Alice Childress
6. Underground
7. Sports & Wine
8. Uncle Walter
9. Best Imitation of Myself
10. Video
11. The Last Polka
12. Boxing
DISC 2 – BEN FOLDS FIVE (SHELVED FIRST ATTEMPT)
1. Underground
2. Julianne
3. Uncle Walter
4. Alice Childress
5. Evaporated
6. Dick Holster
7. Philosophy
8. Boxing
9. Emaline
10. The Last Polka
11. Eddie Walker
One thing about Jim Jones? He’s good for a quote.
The Harlem rapper popped by the No Funny Sh– podcast recently and was asked about the Verzuz challenge he made toward his fellow Diplomat Cam’ron back in May. And while he acknowledged that the challenge was just him trolling a little bit, Jimmy also said that he feels like he has one of the better discographies in New York rap history.
“I got a better catalog than over 90 percent of the rappers out of New York City in history,” he said confidently. “Not to be like…there’s been a lot of rappers in New York, but I got real gold records, more than one of them, like albums and sh– like that. You dig? I got real platinum singles and sh– like that.”
He added: “Some of your favorite rappers don’t have nothing platinum. That doesn’t make me better than anybody and sh– like that, but statistically I got a hell of a catalog. I mean, from every album that I put out, I got a dope a– single, especially in New York. In New York, hands down, I know I got 20 records.”
Jim made headlines this time last year when he defended himself after a podcast clip of a college student saying the Dipset member was more relevant than Nas went viral. However, during an interview with the legendary Angie Martinez, Jones admitted that he didn’t realize how many fans the Queens rapper still has after his comments received massive pushback from the hip-hop community.
You can watch Jim’s full conversation with No Funny Sh– below.
Peppa Pig is in the middle of some major beef — or should we say pork? — after seemingly shading Clairo in a new Pitchfork interview, which has motivated Charli xcx and PinkPantheress to mobilize on the “Bags” singer’s behalf.
The hilarious “drama” started Tuesday (July 7), when the cartoon character participated in the music publication’s “Over/Under” video series. When asked whether she thinks Clairo is over- or underrated, Peppa threw some bombastic side-eye at the camera and said pointedly, “I don’t know her.”
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Of course, fans in the comments and online immediately clocked Peppa for the shady response, inciting Charli to join in and show her support for her fellow musician. “Let’s f— her up,” Charli wrote alongside a screenshot of Peppa’s comment in a text to Clairo, who shared the message on X.
PinkPantheress got involved after seeing that Peppa had also spoken about her in the Pitchfork video, declaring the “Stateside” artist “underrated.” “Does she like animals?” Peppa had added. “Maybe she would like me, because I’m pink too. And everyone likes me.”
But while the porcine protagonist’s comments about her were positive, Pink loyally responded on X, “ain’t sh– sweet until you put respect on clairo.”
If you’re wondering to yourself why Peppa Pig would diss Clairo, you may not have seen the singer/songwriter’s own “Over/Under” episode in 2019. At the time, Clairo was asked to rate Peppa, and she said: “Can I tell you something about Peppa Pig? She’s 7’1″ … she’s the tallest pig in the world. I’mma say underrated, just because I don’t know any taller pigs.”
“If she’s 7’1″, how tall is her mom?” Clairo had continued at the time. “How tall are all the other pigs? Who’s keeping track? What are the proportions of this whole show?”
Even though Clairo said she was underrated, it’s possible that Peppa interpreted her comment about her height as a jab and remembered it seven years later when it came time to make her own appearance on the Pitchfork series.
Or maybe Peppa was telling the truth and she actually doesn’t know Clairo — although she is a fan of a lot of other singers. “Pop stars make the best music,” Peppa added in her video. “I like Rihanna, P!nk, Kelly Clarkson, Sabrina Carpenter, Britney Spears, Olivia Rodrigo, Beyoncé, Cher, Dua Lipa — oh, and Shakira! One day, I’ll be the biggest pop star ever.”
Watch Peppa’s full episode of “Over/Under” below.
Eddie Vedder did his part. The Pearl Jam frontman was in the house at Lumen Field on Monday night (July 6) for the anticipated 2026 FIFA World Cup match between the U.S. and Belgium. The Seattle native and his daughter Olivia got a little face time when the cameras swung to them during the game, but it was a crowd-hyping move the singer pulled off during a second-half hydration break that brought a roar from the sold-out stadium as the U.S.’s chances appeared to be dwindling.
With the U.S. down 3-1, the Fox cameras swung over to Vedder, 61, who promptly chugged his entire beer, with suds dripping down his face onto his shirt, before hoisting the can onto his head in a silly gesture that hyped up the crowd. Perfectly on cue, the stadium P.A. swelled with the sounds of PJ’s 1991 debut single, “Alive,” which, unfortunately, did not adequately describe the state of the American side, which seemed overmatched for much of the game and limped out of the round of 16 following a humbling 4-1 loss.
Vedder is better-known as a baseball fanatic — specifically his beloved Chicago Cubs — but his appearance at the World Cup game helped bring some joy to an otherwise rough night for the team whose prospects were slim at best against a Belgian side that had only given up four goals to date during their run to the round of 16.
There was hope that the return to the lineup of U.S. striker Folarin Balogun after his one-game suspension due to a red card in the previous game was put on hold thanks to a controversial phone call from President Trump to his friend, FIFA president Gianni Infantino might lift the U.S. to victory. Despite the howls of protest from non-U.S. soccer fanatics about the highly unusual decision, the Belgians had the last laugh, as Balogun was not much of a factor in the game.
Belgium celebrated by posting a pointed message on X after the match: “Overturn this.” They also took a little swing at Trump on their way off the pitch, with the Belgian side gathering at one end of the field to swivel their hips and pump their arms in a mocking tribute to Trump’s signature awkward “Trump Dance.”
Despite the crushing loss, Vedder appears to be enjoying a rare summer break, as Pearl Jam are not scheduled to play any shows until a Sept. 27 appearance at the singer’s Ohana Festival in Dana Point, Calif., which will be their first gig since the departure of longtime drummer Matt Cameron last summer.
Dave Grohl has heard plenty of great albums. But when asked to name a “perfect record,” one Pixies classic immediately came to mind.
In a new interview with BBC 6 Music, the Foo Fighters frontman named Pixies’ 1988 album Surfer Rosa as one of the records he considers perfect, praising its production, songwriting and vocal chemistry.
“I love that record so much for a lot of reasons,” Grohl said. “One, that it was produced by the almighty Steve Albini. And it was maybe the first album to become popular and showcase his incredible engineering sonic technique.”
Produced by Albini and released as Pixies’ debut studio album, Surfer Rosa became a defining alternative rock release, pairing jagged guitars, sharp dynamic shifts and surreal lyrics with the vocal interplay of Black Francis and Kim Deal.
Grohl pointed to that combination as part of what made the album so enduring for him.
“[Black Francis], the singer of the Pixies, was an amazing lyricist,” Grohl said. “His lyrics were just… they kind of teetered back and forth from abstract intellectual to things that just sounded so absurd and almost like dumb in a way.”
He continued, “His voice and Kim Deal, their two voices together, it was just such a wonderful blend. And it was unusual at the time. They really did sort of coin this specific dynamic and the simplicity of it was really powerful.”
Grohl’s admiration for Surfer Rosa is hardly surprising, given the Pixies’ widely acknowledged influence on the loud-quiet-loud dynamics that helped shape alternative rock in the late ’80s and ’90s. Nirvana, in which Grohl played drums, were among the bands often associated with that lineage, while Foo Fighters have carried elements of melodic noise and hard-charging guitar rock into their own catalog.
The Foo Fighters leader ended his praise with a simple measure of the album’s staying power.
“That record I’ve probably listened to 10,000 times, and I still love it,” Grohl said. “I could still listen to it every day.”
Grohl’s comments arrive as Foo Fighters continue their latest era behind Your Favorite Toy, the band’s 12th studio album. Released in April, the album followed 2023’s But Here We Are and marked the band’s first studio album with drummer Ilan Rubin.
Duffy has taken another step back into music with a secret London concert. The Welsh singer performed an intimate show at Hoxton Hall on Sunday (July 5), marking her first full concert in roughly 15 years.
The performance followed a fan ballot announced last month, with the venue kept under wraps until the day of the show.
The “Mercy” singer, born Aimée Anne Duffy, invited fans to apply for the small-capacity event in June, telling followers that she planned to perform new music.
“I’m doing a secret intimate gig in London on the 5th July, next month, and I would love nothing more than for some of you to attend,” she wrote at the time. “It’s only small capacity so we can only select a few, but really looking forward to it. I will sing some new songs.”
While a full set list has not been made public, one fan wrote on X that they were “front row” to hear Duffy perform “Warwick Avenue” live, adding, “That voice is insane!”
The London show comes as Duffy continues a gradual return to public life after years away from the spotlight. In May, she shared a photo from a recording studio on Instagram and wrote, “If only I could find the right words to explain how much I’ve missed you all. Working on coming back to you.”
Duffy rose to global prominence in 2008 with her debut album, Rockferry, and the breakout single “Mercy.” The album won best pop vocal album at the 2009 Grammy Awards, while Duffy was also nominated for best new artist and best female pop vocal performance for “Mercy.”
Her second album, Endlessly, followed in 2010, after which she largely stepped away from the music industry. In 2020, Duffy publicly shared that she had been drugged, kidnapped and sexually assaulted, later explaining that the trauma was the reason for her long absence from music and public life.
Earlier this year, Disney+ announced an upcoming Hulu Original documentary, which will follow the singer as she shares her story in depth. The project is produced out of the U.K. and will feature access to Duffy, along with interviews with friends, family and music industry figures.
Yungblud has received support from fellow musicians and celebrities after sharing an emotional post about online criticism, industry skepticism and accusations that he is an “industry plant.”
The British artist, born Dominic Harrison, opened up on social media after headlining Bludfest in Králové, Czechia, where he became visibly emotional onstage in front of thousands of fans. In a lengthy caption, he said he debated whether to share the clip because he did not want the moment to seem performative, but ultimately decided to post it because “this is what happened and it’s genuine.”
“To be truthful. Recently, I’ve been really struggling,” Yungblud wrote, adding that after leaving the stage feeling elated, he later had “a breakdown” alone in the shower.
He went on to describe the difficulty of processing major career moments in an era where artists are expected to move quickly from one milestone to the next. “Being an artist in this day and age is so strange because everything moves so quickly,” he wrote.
Yungblud also addressed the criticism that has followed him throughout his rise, writing that “the amount of hate and disbelief” from strangers online and “bitter musicians” had weighed on him. He said all he had tried to do over the past decade was “spread love, build something I believe in and unify people in a safe space.”
The rocker also referenced a recent Blunt Magazine article that pushed back on the “industry plant” discourse surrounding him, writing that he felt validated by the piece.
The musician ended the post by thanking his fan community and acknowledging that he needs time to process the pace of his career before moving into his next chapter.
“To all my beautiful community reading this I just want to let you know how lucky I feel to have you all,” he wrote. “What an honour it is to spend this life with you.”
The post drew supportive messages from across the rock and entertainment worlds. Slayer and Exodus guitarist Gary Holt rejected the “industry plant” label in the comments, writing that an industry plant “cannot do what you did at Back to the Beginning,” referring to Yungblud’s performance at last year’s Black Sabbath-linked event.
Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian also praised the performance, writing, “I stood side stage at BTTB and watched you breathe rarified air the way you elevated ‘Changes.’ You’ve earned it all Dom. Cheers brother.”
SZA offered a brief message of support, writing, “Rooting for you,” while actors Alyssa Milano and Charisma Carpenter were also among those responding. Milano praised Yungblud for allowing fans into his heart, while Carpenter said the post made her want to discover his music.
The moment comes on the back of a genuinely significant run for the artist born Dominic Harrison. His 2025 double album Idols debuted at No. 73 on the Billboard 200, while his collaborative EP with Aerosmith, One More Time, released in November, reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 and hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Rock & Alternative Albums chart, marking his first U.S. top 10.
Lauren Bennett has died at age 37, but her musical legacy will forever be cemented on the Billboard charts.
The singer scored hits across numerous chapters in her career, starting with her time in the Paradiso Girls. The group assembled by Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin debuted in 2009 with thesingle “Patron Tequila” featuring Eve and Lil’ Jon, which peaked at No. 3 on the Dance Club Songs chart and No. 27 on Rhythmic Airplay. The following year, “Who’s My Bitch?” would reach No. 28 on Dance Club Songs.
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After Interscope dropped the Paradiso Girls in 2010, Bennett continued finding success as a soloist. Most notably, she guested on LMFAO’s inescapable earworm “Party Rock Anthem,” which spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2011 — at that point becoming the third-longest-running hit on the chart’s summit ever — and closed out the year as No. 2 overall on the Hot 100. The track also topped Pop Airplay and reached No. 6 on Latin Airplay.
To date, “Party Rock Anthem” has 1 billion official on-demand streams and has sold 8.3 million copies in the U.S., according to Luminate. As of 2021, it was No. 7 on the Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs ranking.
Also as a soloist, Bennett scored a No. 21 entry on the now-defunct Dance Club chart in 2016 with her guest feature on Nick Martin’s “Reality.” But before that, she’d joined the group G.R.L. and appeared with her bandmates on Pitbull’s “Wild Wild Love,” which peaked at No. 15 on Pop Airplay and No. 30 on the Hot 100 in 2014. The quintet also reached No. 32 on Adult Pop Songs with “Ugly Heart.”
The musician’s death was announced by the surviving members of G.R.L. on Monday (July 6). In a post on Instagram, they wrote, “It is with great sadness that we share the passing of our beloved Lauren.”
“Our hearts are broken, and we cannot begin to express how much she meant to us,” they continued, refraining from sharing Bennett’s cause of death. “We will forever cherish the love, laughter, and countless memories she gave us. Her beautiful spirit touched so many lives, and she will be deeply missed and forever loved.”
G.R.L. previously lost a member when Simone Battle died by suicide in 2014, shortly after which the group disbanded. Bennett is survived by her 6-year-old daughter, whom she shared with Kenny Wormald.
Madonna wants everyone to get up and dance, and that includes some of Hollywood’s biggest celebs.
In a new clip posted Monday (July 6), the pop icon took fans behind the scenes of her Confessions II short film, showing off how she got stars like Gwendoline Christie, Odessa A’zion and more to bust a groove on set to her new song “Danceteria.”
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“This is a trip down memory lane,” Madge says at the beginning of the video before it cuts to a series of historic photos of Danceteria, the long-closed New York City nightclub after which she named one of the songs on her new album, Confessions II. The venue hosted countless wild nights in the early and mid-80s, which the hitmaker paid homage to in the “Danceteria” sequence of her film that dropped in June.
In the new clip, Madonna and her crew re-create the club’s vibes with a busy bathroom scene, in which she bumps into the Marty Supreme actress, who spills her drink, and gets caught hooking up with a guy in a stall by the Game of Thrones alum. “I’ve waited my whole life to do this,” Christie tells the BTS camera excitedly.
“I enjoyed your dancing, you were fabulous,” Christie tells Benedict Cumberbatch, who also appears in the Confessions II extended visual.
Before filming his flirtatious dance-floor rendezvous with the Queen of Pop, she hypes him up. “Are you ready to dance?” she asks, to which the British actor says, “Oh, yeah.”
Other big names in the sequence include Kate Moss, Honey Dijon and Shygirl, while Sabrina Carpenter, Julia Garner and more appear in other scenes of the Confessions II film. The long-awaited follow-up to 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor dropped Friday, marking Madonna’s first LP since 2019’s Billboard 200 topper Madame X.
Watch Madonna shoot the “Danceteria” portion as well as the full album film below.
You can’t talk about West Coast dance music history without talking about Doc Martin.
Born Martin Mendoza in San Francisco, the artist started his career spinning on vinyl, helping define the early ’90s rave scene in Los Angeles when he relocated to the city. Here, he was not only a scene stalwart alongside SoCal comrades like DJ Dan and Marques Wyatt, but a sort of archivist, putting the house, acid house, techno and other underground sounds he was hearing and playing onto wax, cassette and later CD and digital with the launch of his label, Sublevel.
30 years later, the imprint is still running strong, as is Martin himself. Talking to Billboard over Zoom from his place in Oceanside, Calif., Martin is on the verge of a summer run that included the Om Records Retreat, a campout celebrating three decades of the San Francisco label, this past weekend. He’ll play an all-vinyl set at Flash in Washington D.C. on July 11, dip back to SoCal for the Love Long Beach Festival 2026 the following weekend, then head north for British Columbia’s beloved Shambhala before crossing the Atlantic for the U.K.’s Houghton Festival.
He says promised himself long ago that if he ever lost his enthusiasm for this peripatetic lifestyle and the music he shares with it, he’d quit. Speaking to him now, there’s certainly no indication his enthusiasm is waning. Here, he talks about raving in the ’90s, opening for Deee-lite and his recently deceased friend, DJ Dan.
1. Where are you in the world right now, and what is the setting like?
I’m in Oceanside, California, and it’s 70 degrees year round, and by the beach — less than two miles away from the water.
2. What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?
Oh boy, that’s a tough one. It’d probably be a 7″ record. It would have been in the ’70s, so I would say maybe “Boogie Oogie Oogie” by A Taste Of Honey.
3. Where did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what do, or did, they think of what you do for a living now?
Good one. My mom was a hairdresser for Vidal Sassoon and Paul Mitchell, she taught at his school and also sang backups for a couple of local bands like Paul Revere & The Raiders in San Francisco. My dad was an upholsterer, unfortunately he’s passed, but my mom, up until five years ago, was still in that mode of “When are you going to get a real job?” Now she kind of sees the light, finally, after 35 years.
4. What is the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?
Probably a car. It was when the Lexus first came out, and I got a GS 300. Then after that I just went to Toyotas. I realized it wasn’t worth spending a lot of money on.
5. If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into electronic music, what album would you give them?
I would say the first Future Sound Of London record, [1992’s Accelerator.]
6. What’s the last song you listened to?
I think the last album was The English Beat’s Live at US Festival ’82 & ’83. I listen to tons of promos every day, but my friend Harry Romero did a remix of “House of God” by DHS, and that was probably the last thing I really got into. People like Harry Romero and Maceo Plex, they make these bootlegs, and they’re just for us to play. There’s like three or four people that have them, which kind of sucks for everybody else, but great for us.
7. What gigs on your summer schedule are you most looking forward to?
I’m going to England for all of August, and the Houghton Festival is one for sure that I’m looking forward to. It’s my fourth time, and always extremely great, and going to Berlin again for Heideglühen, which is a great club, and also doing Notting Hill Carnival in London and doing Shambhala in Canada. There’s been a lot of good things this year. I can’t really complain. San Francisco is always a treat as well.
8. There’s so much lore about the Los Angeles dance scene in the ’90s. What was it really like?
The underground was really renegade in a lot of ways. There were a lot of warehouse parties because of the vast warehouse district at that time, and I think a lot of warehouse owners really need to make some extra money, so there was a huge underground as far as locally grown spaces. A lot of acts from England would come. In early ’86 I was still in San Francisco and booking people like Inner City, Liz Torres, D Mob, and it was just a crazy time.
The clubs in L.A. were great as well, because you had what was known as the Brat Pack, and all these celebrities mixing with people. The first gig I ever did in Los Angeles, I turned around [and] Nicholas Cage, Charlie Sheen and James Spader were in the booth with me. And there were a vast majority of different people and styles, and that’s kind of what made L.A. really pop in the ’90s. You would have gothic people, people dressed like rockabilly next to punks, normal college kids. That made things really interesting.
9. Was it as fun and epic as everyone paints it out to be?
It was in a lot of ways, because it was done by people like us, using our own money. It wasn’t done by any corporate entities at all. When people would do theme parties, they would actually make the props themselves. There was a lot of love and effort put into it, and that made things really special. You would go out and it would be opening and closing night at the time time, so you didn’t want to miss anything.
10. When did you feel things start to change?
I would say in the mid-to-late ’90s. 1990 to ’94 was a really good run. I think people saw there was money to be made off this, and investors started coming in. We were doing shows at places like The Palladium, which is a big club [in Los Angeles] that holds like 2,500 people — which wasn’t a bad thing, but there were corporate entities getting involved. We did a party for 10,000 people in downtown L.A. for a movie called Strange Days, and Deee-Lite performed live, Aphex Twin DJ’d, I DJ’d, which was great, because I became Deee-Lite’s tour DJ after that show.
11. What was it like being Deee-Lite’s tour DJ?
It was amazing for me, because we got along extremely well and were on the same wavelength. I also got to see the whole United States from a tour bus, which was never going to happen any other way. It was just a really good growing experience for me as a DJ, coming out of the L.A. scene and being able to see the entire country and also Canada… That gig was kind of like a baptism by fire, because I was with a lot of heavyweights of that time and just got thrown into the middle of it, and in the middle of the lineup as well. I didn’t open, so it was just kind of like, “Okay, here we are.”
12. What did you learn from the experience?
What a great sound system can do for a crowd. I think that was the first time I played on a sound system with that level of prestige, and I was just a little kid in a candy store. I was so excited and happy. I wouldn’t have cared if there was two people dancing or the 1,500 that were there. It was incredible for me.
13. You’ve been doing this for a long time. To what do you attribute your longevity?
I told myself that if I ever lost the vigor or got complacent, I would just give up, because it really isn’t fair to the crowd that pays to see you. I’m still a music fanatic. I listen to music three hours every day. I’m surrounded by it, immersed in it. People are like, “What are your hobbies?” I’m like, “Well, this is it.”
14. What does music do for you, that you’ve devoted your life to it?
I just love the way it makes other people feel when you’re playing certain songs you believe in and are championing, and there’s that connection between you and the crowd. It’s like the most addictive drug.
15. What do you think the biggest problem currently facing dance music is?
There’s a lot of saturation right now, and a lot of people going the social media route, as opposed to maybe spending more time in the studio. Maybe not every record you make needs to come out in the current state it’s in. I will put stuff away for six months and come back to it and finish it. I just did a remix that took me almost a year and a half.
We’re on a very quick timeline. Things are in for one minute, out for the next. People are constantly looking for the next big thing. There’s very little cultivation of music or artist development at the labels. It’s really hard. A label will sign someone with a million followers instead of the person who’s super talented with a thousands followers. With our label, I tend to go the other way — because in the end it’s going to be about music that sticks, and the person with a million followers, in most cases their records probably won’t stick.
16. If you weren’t a DJ and producer, what would you do for work?
Before music I was training to be a chef and working in some very high-volume restaurants. I found it very stressful, to be honest. Especially the higher-end restaurants, four and five stars. Everything has to be perfect, and everyone has a complaint about every dish, and it was a lot of being yelled at by the head chef constantly and doing 200 dishes a shift. It was insane to me. When this [music career] happened, having always been obsessed with music — not so much DJing, but having record collections and buying everything from reggae to underground new wave to early hip-hop — it was just a natural fit. Thank God it worked out.
17. What’s the best business decision you’ve made in your career?
I have a label, Sublevel, and I have a night, and we have a clothing line as well. The best decision was probably to start doing my monthly parties in L.A., and at different venues every month, bringing in unsung heroes. We’ve had Craig Richards, we’ve had Josh Wink, we brought the Secretsundaze guys from England… I kind of took myself out of the international DJ circuit [for awhile] by doing that, but I helped cultivate a different kind of scene here in Los Angeles, which was great. I’d just moved back from England where I’d been a resident at Fabric, and the music I heard there wasn’t getting played over here, and I really thought that was a shame. There was so much great music coming out of Berlin, London, Japan, and it just wasn’t getting played.
I was like, “Let me do an experiment and try to put a night on that focuses on all this stuff, along with American music that wasn’t getting played in America.” It really caught on. I think when you go somewhere and you’re welcomed and they have food, candy, free water and coffee and people are like “Don’t drive home like that” — putting that kind of caring into events makes a difference in people feeling like they’re a part of something.
18. The West Coast scene lost a legend this year when DJ Dan died this past March. Did you know him?
I did, actually. The last year and a half we were really close in a lot of ways. We’d talk for hours on the phone, and as I was getting my stuff more in order with my label — my press and things like that — I was trying to help him as well, because I felt like he was in a spot where he didn’t want to be anymore. He wanted to elevate. I was like, “You have the reputation, and you have the following, you just need a few tweaks here and there.” We would talk for hours about this and exchange ideas. I’d go to his house and hang out. We were confidantes.
19. I’m very sorry that your friend died. Do you want to tell a great Dan story?
The last festival we did together was in Alaska, in the middle of nowhere, and we shared a house. It was probably one of the more fun weekends we’d both had in a very long time. We just sat on the couch most days and talked for hours and exchanged stories and memories of each other… It was a very special time for us, and that bonding needed to happen, because for years we didn’t see each other. We were on different tour schedules while I was really focused on Europe and New York and other places.
It was good to get back into each other’s, I would say, good graces, because we hadn’t seen each other. We hadn’t talked, we hadn’t been there. It was a good time to come together again, especially at that point in our careers.
20. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to your younger self?
Try to block out the noise a lot more, and just stay focused. Advice I give to other DJs is to always have your personality shine through your music. Don’t hide who you are for anybody.