Eat The Beat

Dan Prince·
DMC WorldFeatures
ANDREA GUADALUPI B2B GAV WHITEHOUSE - EAT THE BEAT - MELBOURNE

Flying the flag for visiting International House and Techno acts in Australia, Eat The Beat has fast become an underground institution and an essential night out for Melbourne. With its minimal dark theme, and distinctive Jurassic laser beam booths found at their current haven, ‘New ‘Guernica’, DMC recently took a seat at the table and grabbed a few words with head chef Matteo Belcore…

 

Hi Matteo, how are you, and what are you up to right now?
Hello nice to meet you, I’m great and working on a lot of exciting projects including upcoming events with some of my favourite artists such as Metodi Hristov, Bart Skils, Darius Syrossian and so on. As well as launching our own booking agency and all other office tasks for the business!
Please tell us about the early days for ETB, when and how did it all start?  Everything started in Melbourne when myself and a small group of friends got together unified by a great passion for Electronic Music, we found each-other on the other side of the world (we were all Italians at the time) and we were able to join the need for a community that we are now happy to call a family. Together with a passion for music,  we got a small side room of a venue in Melbourne and that is where all the magic started!

Why Eat The Beat?

Originally 2 factors played a key role in the business name choice, first of all the room where all started was designed and set up as a kitchen, but was really just a club room, with stoves, fridges, cabinets etc. The DJ would take the position of the Chef! Also at the start our first events were starting at the end of business hours offering food and music first, then transform later becoming a club night. This union of food and music gave birth to Eat The Beat!

What makes ETB unique from all the other events that happen across Australia?
First of all the music style, we were able to introduce in Australia a music style of a European imprint and that was something new here.  Also, as we mentioned before all of us found a real family in our music group and we wanted to extend this feeling of inclusion to everyone that steps into our parties!

Who have been your favourite international guests to host? 

All our special guests have been in some way ‘special’ as the name suggests, they all bring something unique to our stage and most of them left a mark in our brand history! However after celebrating 2 anniversaries with him I can say that PACO OSUNA has been someone really special, representing our brand both in music style and as a personality! I feel we have created a great connection, both business wise and on a personal level!

As well as embracing visiting artists from overseas, you have strong team of residents and support local artists too which is great to see, please tell us about your key residents?

The guys are the spine of our music structure, year after year some of them have played more or less every single weekend, giving a specific imprint to the night and also always bringing innovation with their sounds and passion for music. They are all selected for having (first of all) a unique passion for what they do with music, but also being a great person that I enjoy working with. I believe all of our residents have unique music skills!  For me it is a success to see these artists growing, starting basically from nowhere to then become iconic DJs in the city, performing alongside big international names in Australia and also from overseas!
If you had to pick 5 tracks that define ETB, what would they be?
Music Is The Answer – Kassia
Mind Dimension – Ben Sterling remix
El Sueno – Dennis Cruz
Eli Brown – Make you freak
Wildchild – Power to the people

What are your future goals and plans for the party?

For my brand and for the party I am planning to take our events to the next level with the idea of hopefully being able to present a proper Eat The Beat Festival becoming a closer dream and my focus every day! Also, we are working constantly towards taking Eat The Beat to events and showcases outside Australia and worldwide!

Can you please tell us one crazy story from history of Eat The Beat, that perhaps no-one has yet heard?

At Eat The Beat we have partied every single weekend for 6 years, so it’s safe to say we have countless crazy and epic memories. The one that stands out is when a few years ago we had the idea of playing a DJ set in a hot air balloon. We went to spend the night in a cottage In the countryside and in the early morning we took off with the balloon and before we knew it, we were partying while floating in the sky during the early sunset hours, that was magical.

Any final shouts or words?

We hope to be able to connect people with our events and music always, locally and internationally! Music is the answer!