DJ Shortee Interview

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DJcity Blog

Thursday, February 4, 2010

DJ Shortee Interview

Recorded live at DJcity on The MikiDz Show - Monday, Jan 25, 2010.

Rell: Tell us about your record label Heavy Artillery. Do you guys have any projects going on or coming up?
Shortee: We release two EPs every month. The label is just an avenue for us to release our own music. We've been releasing music for fifteen years on other labels. That was cool, but you don't have complete control of everything like the artwork or how the music sounds... so we started our own label. We have one hip-hop label called 5 Star Records where we do our battle tool records like Bikini Wax... the cut records. With the Heavy Artillery label we release two EPs a month with two to four songs on each EP. One EP is electro house and the other is drum & bass and dubstep. The drum & bass one that came out this month was called "Robots" and "Digitize" and the electro one was called "Here We Go Again" and "Go!". Haha, lots of "go's" in this month's house release.

Rell: Tell me about your "Girls Get Loud" CD tour.
Shortee: It's a mix CD I did to promote the electro house releases on our label, but it has tons of other people's music on it, it's not just our music. It's just a tour to get back into touring with house. When I started out, I played house, progressive house, breaks, and hip-hop all at the same time. Faust and I would do the hip-hop thing on one side and the rave house thing on the other. Over the years we got into the scratching turntablist stuff, and then hard house. The house scene kind of died along with the rave scene for a while, so we stuck to the hip-hop which got us really into playing drum & bass, which we did for only the past seven years.

Now the new kids are like "Aren't you a drum & bass DJ? Why are you playing house?", but we've always played house. Now with the electro house scene coming real strong, we're really feeling the music again. House went into this deep house phase, but we prefer the energy so we stuck with the other genres. Every scene has its ebb & flow, so that's why we do so many, cause if one tanks we have the others. So the CD was just to say "Hey we're doing this again, and this is what we sound like live".

Rell: Are you guys hitting certain cities for the tour?
Shortee: Well it's been ongoing since October before the CD came out. It started in Africa!

Rell: Really?! What part?
Shortee: Kenya & South Africa. Capetown & Johannesburg. Then it came back here to the states--east coast, west coast, Canada... The way we do tours is book them until people don't want to book them anymore. Also [I want to be clear that] the title isn't shouting for girls to get loud [for us]. It's like... WE get f*ckin loud!! Can I say "f*ckin" on this show? Sh*t. Anyway, it's an announcement that girls get loud!

Rell: So how long have you and Faust been DJing together?
Shortee: We've been married for 8 years. We've lived together for 15 years. So technically, we were a common law marriage already haha. But I've been DJing for 15 years. I started out playing drums. I was a total band geek in high school. I played piano, violin, trumpet... all that stuff. When I was in college I was in a punk rock band. I was into the rave scene and I liked hip-hop, but I never really respected the DJ as a musician. I used to be like, "wiki-wiki! That's so easy. I can do that! I play a REAL instrument". I was a total snob about it.

So my friend was like "Yo, you have to come check out my boy scratching. He's over at my house in the living room." So I went over and Faust was there and he blew my mind. I was completely blown away cause he was scratching all these rhythms that I played on my drums and things I couldn't even do on my drums. It was amazing so I was like, "I have to learn that!" He came out and saw me play in my punk rock band and he told me I could learn to scratch really easily cause it's the same rhythms, just a different instrument. I think that was his way of secretly hitting on me, cause he's like "I'll teach you... And I was like, "YESSS... you're cute too!". So he started teaching me, and then we moved in together, and now it's 15 years later. But Faust has been DJing for 22-23 years now.

Rell: So you guys have been DJing for years. What is your inspiration to continue DJing as a career?
Shortee: The shows. Definitely. It's always been about the performance. I never wanted to be a DJ cause I liked doing it in my bedroom. Some people are like that. Faust is like that. He doesn't care if he's performing or not, but I like to be in front of people and make them go crazy. That's why I love it. When I'm on stage and I see all these people enjoying the music, you're like a conductor who conducts their energy, plus I feed off of their energy. You know what to play to make em go nuts, bring em back down, and up again. It's all about the crowd.

The worst part about DJing is the travelling. I love being in new places and meeting new people, but the airports and everything... that's really what you get paid for. I think of it as doing the gigs for free, but they pay me to fly.

Rell: What are the best cities you spun in so far?
Shortee: Oh I'm so indecisive. I've been all over Europe, Asia, Russia, Africa, the Middle East, North America, South America. I haven't been to Australia. I really want to go there and New Zealand. I like them all for different reasons. For drum & bass the best place to go is UK cause it came from there. The drum & bass scene is top 40 over there. For top 40, hip-hop, and mashup... my favorite place to play is the US and Asia. Asia loves pop US culture. They just go insane. I love playing electro house in LA. I also like playing house in Europe, but in LA we're really really lucky here. I've only been living in LA for 5 years. I'm from the east coast, but the scenes are different. I actually like to go to the really small cities in the middle of nowhere, because the big cities are spoiled. The little cities are so excited to have you there. We love playing there, and we play there a lot.

MikiWAR: What are your thoughts on the new Serato Scratch Live 2.0?
Shortee: I don't use it right now. I wait until they get all the bugs out. I'm actually sponsored by Rane and Serato so we messed around with it at NAMM, but I haven't even downloaded it yet. But I've seen all the features and looking forward to all the stuff.

MikiWAR: Did you get to mess with the 68?
Shortee: That mixer is amazing, especially for dance music. For hip-hop you only need 2 channels, a good EQ, and a nice fader. Some dance music clubs especially in Europe, you end up with the Allen & Heath mixer with the fader turned to the side . It sucks to scratch on and it has really long up & down faders. It has a 4 band EQ, but I personally think one of the bands is useless. I don't know why you need a low-mid. Anyway, I really want the new Rane 68 to replace the standard Allen & Heath and Pioneer 800 mixers. Rane used to be the standard for years cause the preamp is so much better sounding.

The 68 has everything I love about the 57 and the 56 in a four channel mixer with effects. The effects are a lot easier to get to than with the 57. It's a pain in the ass to go into Group 6, so I run the effects thru the auxillary FlexFX and that's how I get it to echo. It's so confusing. You never know, you might be in one group but think you're in another, then all of a sudden polka music comes on. The two USB inputs are great for two DJs using two laptops too. They said they're going to send it to us. I'm VERY excited about that.

MikiWAR: Well let me know when it comes in. I'll come over.
Shortee: Hahaha!