A few weeks back we spoke to Joe Ford about five key inspirational moments in his life so far where he cited Datsik as THE man who switched him to the world of electronic music he currently rules. We’ve since learnt from Datsik himself that there is much much more to this story…
“Joe Ford is the future!” states Datsik emphatically. “He’s young, he’s insanely talented, he reminds me of Noisia a little bit but with his own distinctive approach and ideas. This whole electronic music thing needs men like Joe Ford to take it next level. He’s one of my favourite producers. He sent me a bunch of tunes and I sat down, had a smoke and listened to them back to front. My mind was blown. I told my manager that I HAD to get him on this release!”
The release in question is the recent Hold It Down remix package…
We secured the ludicrously heavy Doctor P remix (which came about through Datsik’s refusal to be paid for remixing Doctor P, Adam F & Method Man’s The Pit) while our friends at Inspected grabbed the Joe Ford version.
This full circle of Ford’s inspiration is just the beginning, however. As Datsik exclusively reveals…
“Be on the look-out for a collab between us,” says the Firepower bossman. “It’s still at the fundamental stages, we’ve agreed on how it will work and now he’s waiting on me basically.”
And if that’s not enough to get excited about, we can also confirm that Datsik has heaps more collaborative armoury in his cannon. And, having taken a break from a pretty-much non-stop two year tour (in which he’s performed over a staggering 400 shows), he’s hungry for studio knowledge and really eager to get back to his creative roots.
“I’ve been touring for so long I just want to hit the studio and learn!” he explains. “I’ve started using Bitwig a bit. And from that I’ve also been using Ableton. So I’m switching between these sequencers and Logic which makes your production technique completely change and inspire new ideas. So I’m learning loads, I’m taking influence from my peers and I really hope people are excited to hear it all.”
Fruits from this newfound creative fusion include the return to a number of his old unfinished projects, an intriguing 160 track called The Wickedest Wobble AND collaborations with Barely Alive and Protohype!
It seems Datsik has heaps to surprise us with over the coming months. And our conversation to led many other revelations on his label Firepower and how his free album Let It Burn ended up becoming a rather sweet FU to the trolls…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFpLlklee24
Datsik on… Firepower
To be brutally honest, I make more money from one show that I would in a couple of months for the label.
“The difference between Firepower and other labels is that I’m not interested in making a profit from it. To be brutally honest, I make more money from one show that I would in a couple of months for the label. So that’s not the motivation for the label. For me it’s all about having a sick family of creative people who are behind each other and supportive. I take pride in all those guys and I make sure they all get a pay cheque… I’ve heard horror stories about artists owing labels money because of the promotional costs the label has paid for them. That’s not cool!
“Doing things the way we have has driven so many more contributions and interactions. We’ve done all of this in one year! I’m so proud of that and we’re constantly adapting and developing. Right now we’re taking a step back with the release schedule, cutting it by half but doubling the amount of money we put into each release. This makes things even bigger and even more exciting. All of our releases are quality, but I want to step back and put more focus on bigger releases. In the very near future we’ve got an album coming from Truth and a massive EP with Barely Alive. Stay tuned for loads more!”
Datsik on… Giving music away for free
It’s a massive f**k you!
“I love getting music out for free! It hits more people and gets you out there so much more. And because we were so honest about getting this out for free, people respected that and wanted to pay for the tracks to support me. Let It Burn was a full album and to give it away for nothing was a massive risk. But the response made it worthwhile. I just asked people to pay with a tweet. We knocked out 10,000 downloads in the first week so that was 10,000 tweets. My twitter blew up! Most people are happy to pay with social media. And if they weren’t happy then they could torrent it… I don’t really care as long as you’re listening and enjoying it!
“One really cool bonus side effect of this that I totally didn’t expect was silencing the trolls. There are so many trolls on Facebook and YouTube, but they find it very hard to complain when you give them an entire album for absolutely nothing. It’s a massive fuck you!”
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