The Italian mash up superstars
Welcome boys to DMCWORLD…
“Thanks for letting us in!”
You met working at BlissCorporation studios in Turin, Italy working on specific one shot projects, when and why did you finally decide to join forces.
“Well, that was a very creative lab. Several producers were working side by side to different projects…that was the time when dance music was a bit focused on “one shot” hits…then we realized that we had to give a face to the projects and maybe working on just one brand – but at 360 degrees, social media, videos, not only music…that was the time we started working 24/7 on the DJSFM project…”
What is the current big tunes you are spinning?
“As you know, we play only our bootlegs and edits, so probably list is not that interesting for the usual “title hunters”. Anyway, the most played in our sets are still some classics, such as Linkin Park’s “In The End”, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirits”, Snap Dogg’s “Rhythm is a Gangsta”, Oasis Vs AC/DC Vs Skrillex Vs Knife Party “Scary Internet Friends And Monsters Back in Wonderwall”…and so on….we love to see people screaming singing and dancing in the same time.”
Who’s idea was it to DJ with cardboard boxes on your heads?
“It was from one of our first videos called “Who Gives a F**k about Deejays”…. a boxhead man was the main character of the video concept…when we started doing our first gigs we tried this weird idea, and it worked immediately! Everyone wanted to take pictures with us, everyone wanted to stay in the front of the two boxhead weirdos, it was very different from usual dj sets when everyone dances like no one’s spinning….so we kept it going on.”
What artists were your inspiration in dance music?
“We have billions of influences, not only in dance music…most of all, old school hip hop was such a great innovation, Beastie Boys, De La Soul, they had a new approach to music, the concept was “recycling” instead of “creating” and their attitude was brand new anyway…the mashup culture is similar to that in a way…then we have to name Daft Punk of course, their tracks were a revolution in dance music…and the list goes on, AC/DC, Kraftwerk, Grandmaster Flash, Beethoven, Run DMC, Rage Against The Machine, Pablo Picasso, MC Escher, Quentin Tarantino…we should need 10 pages to name them all.”
What is the reaction from clubbers when you go into a club toilet for a piss?
“Just yesterday, in the first gig of our US Tour, we went to the toilet with our boxhead just couple minutes before the show…guys came at us screaming “HI FIVE!!” and stuff like that…it was hilarious, but we had to be quick for physical reasons.”
You are known around the world as the undisputed kings of the mashups. Tell us some of your favourites from over the years that have really blown the roof off…
“One of the best ever in our opinion is Numb/Encore by Jay Z and the Linkin Park…the original version is already a mashup! It’s the perfect combination of two opposite worlds, when it came out it blew our minds, it was totally unexpected at that time! It was all about “hip hoppers”, “metalheads”, “ravers”, “clubbers”…now everyone is free to listen to whatever he likes, with no barriers, and that track helped a lot! So we had to do a bootleg of that, and that’s one of our floorkillers, probably one of the ones we played the most…”
You once said that “nowadays being a DJ is way too easy with a laptop pushing buttons”. So how do you take your DJing up a level?
“With productions! We think today a DJ is what a rockstar was 10 years ago. In the 90’s you wanted to go to a concert and see Liam Gallagher singing his own “Wonderwall” live. Now you want to go to a festival and see Skrillex play “Bangarang” live…that’s the only way to build your name and your career today, it’s impossible to imagine a DJ being worldwide recognized for his “selections”, he definitely has to play his own stuff, bootlegs, edits or tracks…”
When you played with Tiesto, what was his reaction to the alien outfits?
“He was very friendly and came to us saying “hi” just before his set…for us it was unbelievable, we just started this mashup thing and in couple months we were flying to Atlantic City to play in front of a 20K audience, right before “his majesty” Tiesto…we were shocked and excited, when we started playing at the first drop we saw all those heads bouncing in the same time, probably our faces were like “OMG!!”, but sometimes wearing a box on your head can help in hiding emotions.”
Where has been your best ever DJ set?
“Probably in Korea, we played at World DJ Festival with Dada Life, Dash Berlin, ATB, Showtek and many more. We started our set and it started raining, so we had to stop immediately for a re-arrangement in the DJ booth, we were so excited and so pissed off we had to stop it that when we started again 10 minutes later our set was a mix of a thunderstorm and a death metal concert! We played very hard that night and we saw people going crazy and screaming and jumping and breaking the barriers, with the security staring at us like they wanted to kill us. It was a DJ set but we’ll remember it as a punk concert!”
Tell us about your videos, they receive millions of hits on Youtube. Who comes up with the ideas and what has been your favourite?
“Our videos are made by a French guy called Luc Trombini, he has his own brand “Inkaptable”. He’s really talented and we love his style. We try to bring him with us at gigs whenever possible, otherwise we give him our tracks and he works on his own, then he sends stuff asking “what do you think?” and we are always shocked and impressed by his work. We consider him a third DJ From Mars in a way, since videos are nowadays almost important as music…”
What countries around the world really go off when you play in their clubs?
“It’s always unexpected but we received unbelievable reactions in places we didn’t even imagine they had a club scene. The most unexpected reactions were in China, Korea, Bosnia, Brazil, Poland, Norway…then of course the US are always great when it comes to music and live shows….and Australia was a great discovery, you can discuss with average people in the streets about the latest electro releases and they know basically everything….there’s a big music culture over there. Germany and Austria are also very important for us, that’s where the most of our fans live and we’ll be thankful forever to those two countries, where it all started for us…”
Have you a favourite club around the world?
“Hmm…it’s not easy…one of the best was East88 in the Gold Coast (AUS), but we should need more space to name them all…”
What is the next studio release from you?
“We are working on that right now, it’s going to be released in September/October, but we still can’t say anything about that…it’s going to be a surprise so stay tuned!!!”
What producers from around the world are you respecting right now?
“There are a lot of names at the moment…of course the usual Alesso, Hardwell, Zedd, Skrillex and so on. We personally love AllDegrees – a dubstep act from Turin. Also Nari & Milani from the same booking agent of us in Italy (Alberto Gobbi), are sounding great at the moment and they are about to breakthrough worldwide in our opinion!! Another name we would like to put in the list is Benny Benassi, he’s always updating his style and in the same time he’s able to keep the main attitude he started with…it’s the most difficult thing in a producer’s career, but he’s definitely able to do that!”
What do you love and hate about living in Turin?
“We love it cause it’s a city outside of the main club circuit in Italy…so life can be very easy and relaxed and you can focus on your projects without any external interferences…that’s the reason we have a lot of artists coming out of Turin, not only in the dance scene. At the same time we hate the fact that most of the people living here feels like “I have to show the world that I’m rich and successful even if I’m not living in Paris or New York”…the result of course is an army of douchebags rolling in the streets with rented cars and second hand clothes, fake VIPs, the worst race ever…our suggestion is “get a real life”.”
What are the big events we will find you at this summer?
“Well of course the US tour we’re currently on (we’re answering this interview from a hotel in New Haven)…we’ll be in DC, SF, Dallas, and so on in the next days so we’re freakin excited!. Then 1 day at home, and we’ll leave again for an Australian tour with Ministry Of Sound, its’ going to be massive. August we’ll have some gigs around the Mediterranan area, Amnesia in France will be great for sure, and then in September we’ll play the Brazil and China tours. Looks like we’ll have to be very quick in new productions cause we’ll not be that often in studio.”
You have worked with some major artists on various production – which has been your finest?
“Probably the one we loved the most and in the same time the least successful, in the same way parents love the shy son – a remix we made for a track by Coolio and Ennio Morricone. It was great cause it combined in four minutes the coolness of hip hop, the epicness of classical music, and the power of electro. Being part of that triangle was a joy for us.”
How regularly do you have to put new boxes on your heads?
“In the first gigs we were changing boxes and outfits every 5-6 months and it was OK. Now since we multiplied the number of monthly gigs, playing also in the midweek, we have to change them every month at least…sometimes we see on Facebook pictures from last night and we see scars and stains and we immediately realise it’s time for a new change.”
What do you think about these other producers such as deadmau5 now wearing disguises?
“It’s cool cause it’s a way to improve the show! In the same way as rock bands added fireworks, strange clothes, big puppets on stage, we think that a DJ has to “perform” instead of “play”…it should not be looking like a guy working on an Excel sheet, but it’s all about the show! We love the fact that a kind of “rock” attitude is entering the club scene….looks like we’re going to be facing exciting times in the next years.”
DJs From Mars Remix of See You Later (feat. Ida Corr) by Bimbo Jones is out now on Ego
http://itunes.apple.com/it/album/see-you-later-feat.-ida-corr/id515900546
http://www.djsfrommars.com
http://www.facebook.com/djsfrommars
http://www.myspace.com/djsfrommars
http://www.youtube.com/djsfrommars
http://www.twitter.com/djsfrommars
http://www.soundcloud.com/djsfrommars
Follow DMCWORLD Magazine on twitter and receive exclusive weekly dance music news – @dmcworldmag
Join our fan page on facebook – https://www.facebook.com/dmcworldmagazine
http://www.egomusic.net
http://www.youtube.com/egoitaly
http://www.facebook.com/ego
http://twitter.com/EGO_Italy
