Image via Duncographic
Michael McKinney understands the cultural importance of Kreayshawn’s “Gucci Gucci.”
Over the past decade-plus, Doris Woo built up a singular reputation as DJ Bus Replacement Service. Behind the decks, she practiced a highly specific form of alchemy: magic tricks and stand-up bits aimed straight at the Dr. Demento crowd, finding time for gut-twisting hardcore, why-not novelty records, and all manner of truly disorienting blends, all the while rocking a Kim Jong Un mask. Her strongest material is, not coincidentally, her most out-there: her February 2018 DJ mix ripped live from the decks in Sheffield is just as blood-boiling as it was seven years ago, a car-crash of Eurodance and Mortal Kombat and meringue and donk and deranged voicemails and so much more. Plenty of DJs make hay with million-genre mixing, but Woo does it with an obvious glee, each blend landing like a dare or an inside joke.
All that said, after spending years performing gut-busting dancefloor routines, Woo has reconsidered her relationship with DJing. When we spoke—in November of 2023—she was calling live from the U.S. pickleball nationals in Dallas, a setting that was characteristically chaotic and awfully apt. After a decade-plus behind the decks, she’s hanging up the mask—at least for a bit. She’s since grabbed a paddle (and gone on to win plenty of tournaments), and the DJ-turned-pickleballer-turned-DJ-plus-pickleballer couldn’t be happier about it. (Since this conversation, she’s returned to DJing here and there.) Over the roar of the crowd, we caught up with DJ Bus Replacement Service as she moved between careers and worlds, digging into her relationship to hardcore dance music, Monty Python and The Annoying Music Show, the importance of opting out, and so much more.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Are you out on the court right now?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I’m at the U.S. pickleball nationals in Dallas, and I have ended up on a show court today, because it’s rained out outside. I’ve watched some really good matches. The men’s defending singles champion [Ben Johns] was upset in a stunning match a few minutes back.
How’s Dallas treating you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t think I’ve been to Dallas before; it’s really good. Of course, I’m here for the pickleball [US] nationals. [There’s a] really good vibe; I’m meeting lots of really friendly folks. I’m not here to compete in a tournament—I’m just here to do a reconnaissance mission for next year, hopefully.
First of all: Congrats on your [English Nationals] bronze last month, is that right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And silver!
And silver! I missed that one.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Three medals in two tournaments so far. It’s part of the reason why I’m hanging up the headphones.
You want to focus?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I think so. One of the notes I wrote to prepare for this interview was: I think I’m done with that part of my life where I can try to be a jack-of-all-trades, and pickleball has given me a lot in life in a very short space of time. I know how much dedication and discipline it requires to perform at a very high level, and I don’t think I can do that unless I start putting in the hours to do the same myself.
I’ve come to the realization that I no longer want to fulfill whatever the societal expectation is of what I have done academically and professionally. It came about when I read this book at the start of this year called [Celeste Headlee’s] Do Nothing.
In a way, that book kind of gave me the permission to say, “Fuck the hustle culture.” And DJing, where I was—hustle culture is involved. Maybe not as direct a way as hustling in the startup businesses, but you definitely have to put your face out there, be present on social media, [and] do that stuff that I find deeply uncomfortable. I’m happy to say that on record. I feel like I’m going into pickleball on my own terms. Maybe, for some people, it’s not cool or fashionable, but it absolutely puts me in my happy place.
Great. That’s the most important bit.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My husband started playing pretty recently.
What’s some art that connected with you early on, whether that’s music or not?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Well, it was definitely the music, because that’s what I tr[ied] to use to distinguish myself from just playing techno records.
That musical reference draws from stuff that I’ve stored in my head since I was very young. I’ve talked about P.D.Q. Bach; I’ve talked about Dr. Demento. Those things I absorbed from when I was, say, starting from fourth grade, fifth grade, middle school. I found out about Monty Python around that time. I was absorbing all these comedy things like a sponge. So, in a way, music and comedy have always been the same thing. I’ve been comfortable with that relationship. I think it’s been great that I’ve been able to present that in a scene that doesn’t have a lot of humor in it sometimes. I think since I’ve come on, maybe, in some ways, people are being a bit more free, a little bit more oddball about different blends.
How did you find your way towards this lane as a kid?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: MTV has a lot to answer for, but back when they had very good programming—I saw Monty Python on MTV. I know that it was on PBS, but that was before my time. And I think they also showed The Young Ones, I think. But I was too young to kind of get that anarchic Abe Edmondson male humor until I moved over to the UK. That surreal gonzo-comedy is something that really spoke to me as a kid. I think I was gonzo-anarchic in my own way.
With the blends that I do, in the past three or four years—I feel like, this year—I don’t want to say I’ve run out of material, but the way that I used to play out—that spontaneity wasn’t there anymore. I felt some sort of internal obligation; I play a lot of promos that I get, and because of that, I don’t have as much time to listen to music. I’m not blaming anyone else but myself. I think, with this break, I can go back to just listening to music for its own sake and enjoying it, and then restockpiling my library, in a way, and see what happens from that.
I don’t blame anybody but myself for how my mindset has become. Especially doing the radio show, there is an obligation to listen to promos, because I wanted to showcase new tracks and artists. Because Marital Aid was as freeform as I wanted it to be, there’s nothing stopping me from playing old, weird stuff, but I think the focus, for me, shifted to, “I’ve got all these new tracks to play.” I felt like if I didn’t, I would be letting down new artists who deserve that exposure.
Right. You have a platform, so there’s a certain implied obligation to use it a certain way.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. It’s about responsible use of your position and the platform that you’re on, I think. Maybe I can’t do stuff as freely as I’d like, I guess. But again, that’s a self-imposed guilt.
When did you notice this starting to work into how you played? Is this a relatively new development, or is this a slow build?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Probably more of a slow build. Then it came to a point where it became less fun than it used to be. Everything became a squeeze on my schedule. It’s definitely an escape, but at the same time, you know, why spend the limited time we have on this planet just doing stuff because you feel like you have to to fulfill some external obligation, instead of doing things because it makes you happy?
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
How’s Dallas treating you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t think I’ve been to Dallas before; it’s really good. Of course, I’m here for the pickleball [US] nationals. [There’s a] really good vibe; I’m meeting lots of really friendly folks. I’m not here to compete in a tournament—I’m just here to do a reconnaissance mission for next year, hopefully.
First of all: Congrats on your [English Nationals] bronze last month, is that right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And silver!
And silver! I missed that one.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Three medals in two tournaments so far. It’s part of the reason why I’m hanging up the headphones.
You want to focus?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I think so. One of the notes I wrote to prepare for this interview was: I think I’m done with that part of my life where I can try to be a jack-of-all-trades, and pickleball has given me a lot in life in a very short space of time. I know how much dedication and discipline it requires to perform at a very high level, and I don’t think I can do that unless I start putting in the hours to do the same myself.
I’ve come to the realization that I no longer want to fulfill whatever the societal expectation is of what I have done academically and professionally. It came about when I read this book at the start of this year called [Celeste Headlee’s] Do Nothing.
In a way, that book kind of gave me the permission to say, “Fuck the hustle culture.” And DJing, where I was—hustle culture is involved. Maybe not as direct a way as hustling in the startup businesses, but you definitely have to put your face out there, be present on social media, [and] do that stuff that I find deeply uncomfortable. I’m happy to say that on record. I feel like I’m going into pickleball on my own terms. Maybe, for some people, it’s not cool or fashionable, but it absolutely puts me in my happy place.
Great. That’s the most important bit.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My husband started playing pretty recently.
What’s some art that connected with you early on, whether that’s music or not?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Well, it was definitely the music, because that’s what I tr[ied] to use to distinguish myself from just playing techno records.
That musical reference draws from stuff that I’ve stored in my head since I was very young. I’ve talked about P.D.Q. Bach; I’ve talked about Dr. Demento. Those things I absorbed from when I was, say, starting from fourth grade, fifth grade, middle school. I found out about Monty Python around that time. I was absorbing all these comedy things like a sponge. So, in a way, music and comedy have always been the same thing. I’ve been comfortable with that relationship. I think it’s been great that I’ve been able to present that in a scene that doesn’t have a lot of humor in it sometimes. I think since I’ve come on, maybe, in some ways, people are being a bit more free, a little bit more oddball about different blends.
How did you find your way towards this lane as a kid?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: MTV has a lot to answer for, but back when they had very good programming—I saw Monty Python on MTV. I know that it was on PBS, but that was before my time. And I think they also showed The Young Ones, I think. But I was too young to kind of get that anarchic Abe Edmondson male humor until I moved over to the UK. That surreal gonzo-comedy is something that really spoke to me as a kid. I think I was gonzo-anarchic in my own way.
With the blends that I do, in the past three or four years—I feel like, this year—I don’t want to say I’ve run out of material, but the way that I used to play out—that spontaneity wasn’t there anymore. I felt some sort of internal obligation; I play a lot of promos that I get, and because of that, I don’t have as much time to listen to music. I’m not blaming anyone else but myself. I think, with this break, I can go back to just listening to music for its own sake and enjoying it, and then restockpiling my library, in a way, and see what happens from that.
I don’t blame anybody but myself for how my mindset has become. Especially doing the radio show, there is an obligation to listen to promos, because I wanted to showcase new tracks and artists. Because Marital Aid was as freeform as I wanted it to be, there’s nothing stopping me from playing old, weird stuff, but I think the focus, for me, shifted to, “I’ve got all these new tracks to play.” I felt like if I didn’t, I would be letting down new artists who deserve that exposure.
Right. You have a platform, so there’s a certain implied obligation to use it a certain way.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. It’s about responsible use of your position and the platform that you’re on, I think. Maybe I can’t do stuff as freely as I’d like, I guess. But again, that’s a self-imposed guilt.
When did you notice this starting to work into how you played? Is this a relatively new development, or is this a slow build?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Probably more of a slow build. Then it came to a point where it became less fun than it used to be. Everything became a squeeze on my schedule. It’s definitely an escape, but at the same time, you know, why spend the limited time we have on this planet just doing stuff because you feel like you have to to fulfill some external obligation, instead of doing things because it makes you happy?
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
First of all: Congrats on your [English Nationals] bronze last month, is that right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And silver!
And silver! I missed that one.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Three medals in two tournaments so far. It’s part of the reason why I’m hanging up the headphones.
You want to focus?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I think so. One of the notes I wrote to prepare for this interview was: I think I’m done with that part of my life where I can try to be a jack-of-all-trades, and pickleball has given me a lot in life in a very short space of time. I know how much dedication and discipline it requires to perform at a very high level, and I don’t think I can do that unless I start putting in the hours to do the same myself.
I’ve come to the realization that I no longer want to fulfill whatever the societal expectation is of what I have done academically and professionally. It came about when I read this book at the start of this year called [Celeste Headlee’s] Do Nothing.
In a way, that book kind of gave me the permission to say, “Fuck the hustle culture.” And DJing, where I was—hustle culture is involved. Maybe not as direct a way as hustling in the startup businesses, but you definitely have to put your face out there, be present on social media, [and] do that stuff that I find deeply uncomfortable. I’m happy to say that on record. I feel like I’m going into pickleball on my own terms. Maybe, for some people, it’s not cool or fashionable, but it absolutely puts me in my happy place.
Great. That’s the most important bit.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My husband started playing pretty recently.
What’s some art that connected with you early on, whether that’s music or not?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Well, it was definitely the music, because that’s what I tr[ied] to use to distinguish myself from just playing techno records.
That musical reference draws from stuff that I’ve stored in my head since I was very young. I’ve talked about P.D.Q. Bach; I’ve talked about Dr. Demento. Those things I absorbed from when I was, say, starting from fourth grade, fifth grade, middle school. I found out about Monty Python around that time. I was absorbing all these comedy things like a sponge. So, in a way, music and comedy have always been the same thing. I’ve been comfortable with that relationship. I think it’s been great that I’ve been able to present that in a scene that doesn’t have a lot of humor in it sometimes. I think since I’ve come on, maybe, in some ways, people are being a bit more free, a little bit more oddball about different blends.
How did you find your way towards this lane as a kid?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: MTV has a lot to answer for, but back when they had very good programming—I saw Monty Python on MTV. I know that it was on PBS, but that was before my time. And I think they also showed The Young Ones, I think. But I was too young to kind of get that anarchic Abe Edmondson male humor until I moved over to the UK. That surreal gonzo-comedy is something that really spoke to me as a kid. I think I was gonzo-anarchic in my own way.
With the blends that I do, in the past three or four years—I feel like, this year—I don’t want to say I’ve run out of material, but the way that I used to play out—that spontaneity wasn’t there anymore. I felt some sort of internal obligation; I play a lot of promos that I get, and because of that, I don’t have as much time to listen to music. I’m not blaming anyone else but myself. I think, with this break, I can go back to just listening to music for its own sake and enjoying it, and then restockpiling my library, in a way, and see what happens from that.
I don’t blame anybody but myself for how my mindset has become. Especially doing the radio show, there is an obligation to listen to promos, because I wanted to showcase new tracks and artists. Because Marital Aid was as freeform as I wanted it to be, there’s nothing stopping me from playing old, weird stuff, but I think the focus, for me, shifted to, “I’ve got all these new tracks to play.” I felt like if I didn’t, I would be letting down new artists who deserve that exposure.
Right. You have a platform, so there’s a certain implied obligation to use it a certain way.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. It’s about responsible use of your position and the platform that you’re on, I think. Maybe I can’t do stuff as freely as I’d like, I guess. But again, that’s a self-imposed guilt.
When did you notice this starting to work into how you played? Is this a relatively new development, or is this a slow build?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Probably more of a slow build. Then it came to a point where it became less fun than it used to be. Everything became a squeeze on my schedule. It’s definitely an escape, but at the same time, you know, why spend the limited time we have on this planet just doing stuff because you feel like you have to to fulfill some external obligation, instead of doing things because it makes you happy?
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
And silver! I missed that one.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Three medals in two tournaments so far. It’s part of the reason why I’m hanging up the headphones.
You want to focus?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I think so. One of the notes I wrote to prepare for this interview was: I think I’m done with that part of my life where I can try to be a jack-of-all-trades, and pickleball has given me a lot in life in a very short space of time. I know how much dedication and discipline it requires to perform at a very high level, and I don’t think I can do that unless I start putting in the hours to do the same myself.
I’ve come to the realization that I no longer want to fulfill whatever the societal expectation is of what I have done academically and professionally. It came about when I read this book at the start of this year called [Celeste Headlee’s] Do Nothing.
In a way, that book kind of gave me the permission to say, “Fuck the hustle culture.” And DJing, where I was—hustle culture is involved. Maybe not as direct a way as hustling in the startup businesses, but you definitely have to put your face out there, be present on social media, [and] do that stuff that I find deeply uncomfortable. I’m happy to say that on record. I feel like I’m going into pickleball on my own terms. Maybe, for some people, it’s not cool or fashionable, but it absolutely puts me in my happy place.
Great. That’s the most important bit.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My husband started playing pretty recently.
What’s some art that connected with you early on, whether that’s music or not?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Well, it was definitely the music, because that’s what I tr[ied] to use to distinguish myself from just playing techno records.
That musical reference draws from stuff that I’ve stored in my head since I was very young. I’ve talked about P.D.Q. Bach; I’ve talked about Dr. Demento. Those things I absorbed from when I was, say, starting from fourth grade, fifth grade, middle school. I found out about Monty Python around that time. I was absorbing all these comedy things like a sponge. So, in a way, music and comedy have always been the same thing. I’ve been comfortable with that relationship. I think it’s been great that I’ve been able to present that in a scene that doesn’t have a lot of humor in it sometimes. I think since I’ve come on, maybe, in some ways, people are being a bit more free, a little bit more oddball about different blends.
How did you find your way towards this lane as a kid?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: MTV has a lot to answer for, but back when they had very good programming—I saw Monty Python on MTV. I know that it was on PBS, but that was before my time. And I think they also showed The Young Ones, I think. But I was too young to kind of get that anarchic Abe Edmondson male humor until I moved over to the UK. That surreal gonzo-comedy is something that really spoke to me as a kid. I think I was gonzo-anarchic in my own way.
With the blends that I do, in the past three or four years—I feel like, this year—I don’t want to say I’ve run out of material, but the way that I used to play out—that spontaneity wasn’t there anymore. I felt some sort of internal obligation; I play a lot of promos that I get, and because of that, I don’t have as much time to listen to music. I’m not blaming anyone else but myself. I think, with this break, I can go back to just listening to music for its own sake and enjoying it, and then restockpiling my library, in a way, and see what happens from that.
I don’t blame anybody but myself for how my mindset has become. Especially doing the radio show, there is an obligation to listen to promos, because I wanted to showcase new tracks and artists. Because Marital Aid was as freeform as I wanted it to be, there’s nothing stopping me from playing old, weird stuff, but I think the focus, for me, shifted to, “I’ve got all these new tracks to play.” I felt like if I didn’t, I would be letting down new artists who deserve that exposure.
Right. You have a platform, so there’s a certain implied obligation to use it a certain way.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. It’s about responsible use of your position and the platform that you’re on, I think. Maybe I can’t do stuff as freely as I’d like, I guess. But again, that’s a self-imposed guilt.
When did you notice this starting to work into how you played? Is this a relatively new development, or is this a slow build?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Probably more of a slow build. Then it came to a point where it became less fun than it used to be. Everything became a squeeze on my schedule. It’s definitely an escape, but at the same time, you know, why spend the limited time we have on this planet just doing stuff because you feel like you have to to fulfill some external obligation, instead of doing things because it makes you happy?
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
You want to focus?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I think so. One of the notes I wrote to prepare for this interview was: I think I’m done with that part of my life where I can try to be a jack-of-all-trades, and pickleball has given me a lot in life in a very short space of time. I know how much dedication and discipline it requires to perform at a very high level, and I don’t think I can do that unless I start putting in the hours to do the same myself.
I’ve come to the realization that I no longer want to fulfill whatever the societal expectation is of what I have done academically and professionally. It came about when I read this book at the start of this year called [Celeste Headlee’s] Do Nothing.
In a way, that book kind of gave me the permission to say, “Fuck the hustle culture.” And DJing, where I was—hustle culture is involved. Maybe not as direct a way as hustling in the startup businesses, but you definitely have to put your face out there, be present on social media, [and] do that stuff that I find deeply uncomfortable. I’m happy to say that on record. I feel like I’m going into pickleball on my own terms. Maybe, for some people, it’s not cool or fashionable, but it absolutely puts me in my happy place.
Great. That’s the most important bit.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My husband started playing pretty recently.
What’s some art that connected with you early on, whether that’s music or not?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Well, it was definitely the music, because that’s what I tr[ied] to use to distinguish myself from just playing techno records.
That musical reference draws from stuff that I’ve stored in my head since I was very young. I’ve talked about P.D.Q. Bach; I’ve talked about Dr. Demento. Those things I absorbed from when I was, say, starting from fourth grade, fifth grade, middle school. I found out about Monty Python around that time. I was absorbing all these comedy things like a sponge. So, in a way, music and comedy have always been the same thing. I’ve been comfortable with that relationship. I think it’s been great that I’ve been able to present that in a scene that doesn’t have a lot of humor in it sometimes. I think since I’ve come on, maybe, in some ways, people are being a bit more free, a little bit more oddball about different blends.
How did you find your way towards this lane as a kid?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: MTV has a lot to answer for, but back when they had very good programming—I saw Monty Python on MTV. I know that it was on PBS, but that was before my time. And I think they also showed The Young Ones, I think. But I was too young to kind of get that anarchic Abe Edmondson male humor until I moved over to the UK. That surreal gonzo-comedy is something that really spoke to me as a kid. I think I was gonzo-anarchic in my own way.
With the blends that I do, in the past three or four years—I feel like, this year—I don’t want to say I’ve run out of material, but the way that I used to play out—that spontaneity wasn’t there anymore. I felt some sort of internal obligation; I play a lot of promos that I get, and because of that, I don’t have as much time to listen to music. I’m not blaming anyone else but myself. I think, with this break, I can go back to just listening to music for its own sake and enjoying it, and then restockpiling my library, in a way, and see what happens from that.
I don’t blame anybody but myself for how my mindset has become. Especially doing the radio show, there is an obligation to listen to promos, because I wanted to showcase new tracks and artists. Because Marital Aid was as freeform as I wanted it to be, there’s nothing stopping me from playing old, weird stuff, but I think the focus, for me, shifted to, “I’ve got all these new tracks to play.” I felt like if I didn’t, I would be letting down new artists who deserve that exposure.
Right. You have a platform, so there’s a certain implied obligation to use it a certain way.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. It’s about responsible use of your position and the platform that you’re on, I think. Maybe I can’t do stuff as freely as I’d like, I guess. But again, that’s a self-imposed guilt.
When did you notice this starting to work into how you played? Is this a relatively new development, or is this a slow build?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Probably more of a slow build. Then it came to a point where it became less fun than it used to be. Everything became a squeeze on my schedule. It’s definitely an escape, but at the same time, you know, why spend the limited time we have on this planet just doing stuff because you feel like you have to to fulfill some external obligation, instead of doing things because it makes you happy?
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
I’ve come to the realization that I no longer want to fulfill whatever the societal expectation is of what I have done academically and professionally. It came about when I read this book at the start of this year called [Celeste Headlee’s] Do Nothing.
In a way, that book kind of gave me the permission to say, “Fuck the hustle culture.” And DJing, where I was—hustle culture is involved. Maybe not as direct a way as hustling in the startup businesses, but you definitely have to put your face out there, be present on social media, [and] do that stuff that I find deeply uncomfortable. I’m happy to say that on record. I feel like I’m going into pickleball on my own terms. Maybe, for some people, it’s not cool or fashionable, but it absolutely puts me in my happy place.
Great. That’s the most important bit.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My husband started playing pretty recently.
What’s some art that connected with you early on, whether that’s music or not?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Well, it was definitely the music, because that’s what I tr[ied] to use to distinguish myself from just playing techno records.
That musical reference draws from stuff that I’ve stored in my head since I was very young. I’ve talked about P.D.Q. Bach; I’ve talked about Dr. Demento. Those things I absorbed from when I was, say, starting from fourth grade, fifth grade, middle school. I found out about Monty Python around that time. I was absorbing all these comedy things like a sponge. So, in a way, music and comedy have always been the same thing. I’ve been comfortable with that relationship. I think it’s been great that I’ve been able to present that in a scene that doesn’t have a lot of humor in it sometimes. I think since I’ve come on, maybe, in some ways, people are being a bit more free, a little bit more oddball about different blends.
How did you find your way towards this lane as a kid?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: MTV has a lot to answer for, but back when they had very good programming—I saw Monty Python on MTV. I know that it was on PBS, but that was before my time. And I think they also showed The Young Ones, I think. But I was too young to kind of get that anarchic Abe Edmondson male humor until I moved over to the UK. That surreal gonzo-comedy is something that really spoke to me as a kid. I think I was gonzo-anarchic in my own way.
With the blends that I do, in the past three or four years—I feel like, this year—I don’t want to say I’ve run out of material, but the way that I used to play out—that spontaneity wasn’t there anymore. I felt some sort of internal obligation; I play a lot of promos that I get, and because of that, I don’t have as much time to listen to music. I’m not blaming anyone else but myself. I think, with this break, I can go back to just listening to music for its own sake and enjoying it, and then restockpiling my library, in a way, and see what happens from that.
I don’t blame anybody but myself for how my mindset has become. Especially doing the radio show, there is an obligation to listen to promos, because I wanted to showcase new tracks and artists. Because Marital Aid was as freeform as I wanted it to be, there’s nothing stopping me from playing old, weird stuff, but I think the focus, for me, shifted to, “I’ve got all these new tracks to play.” I felt like if I didn’t, I would be letting down new artists who deserve that exposure.
Right. You have a platform, so there’s a certain implied obligation to use it a certain way.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. It’s about responsible use of your position and the platform that you’re on, I think. Maybe I can’t do stuff as freely as I’d like, I guess. But again, that’s a self-imposed guilt.
When did you notice this starting to work into how you played? Is this a relatively new development, or is this a slow build?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Probably more of a slow build. Then it came to a point where it became less fun than it used to be. Everything became a squeeze on my schedule. It’s definitely an escape, but at the same time, you know, why spend the limited time we have on this planet just doing stuff because you feel like you have to to fulfill some external obligation, instead of doing things because it makes you happy?
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
What’s some art that connected with you early on, whether that’s music or not?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Well, it was definitely the music, because that’s what I tr[ied] to use to distinguish myself from just playing techno records.
That musical reference draws from stuff that I’ve stored in my head since I was very young. I’ve talked about P.D.Q. Bach; I’ve talked about Dr. Demento. Those things I absorbed from when I was, say, starting from fourth grade, fifth grade, middle school. I found out about Monty Python around that time. I was absorbing all these comedy things like a sponge. So, in a way, music and comedy have always been the same thing. I’ve been comfortable with that relationship. I think it’s been great that I’ve been able to present that in a scene that doesn’t have a lot of humor in it sometimes. I think since I’ve come on, maybe, in some ways, people are being a bit more free, a little bit more oddball about different blends.
How did you find your way towards this lane as a kid?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: MTV has a lot to answer for, but back when they had very good programming—I saw Monty Python on MTV. I know that it was on PBS, but that was before my time. And I think they also showed The Young Ones, I think. But I was too young to kind of get that anarchic Abe Edmondson male humor until I moved over to the UK. That surreal gonzo-comedy is something that really spoke to me as a kid. I think I was gonzo-anarchic in my own way.
With the blends that I do, in the past three or four years—I feel like, this year—I don’t want to say I’ve run out of material, but the way that I used to play out—that spontaneity wasn’t there anymore. I felt some sort of internal obligation; I play a lot of promos that I get, and because of that, I don’t have as much time to listen to music. I’m not blaming anyone else but myself. I think, with this break, I can go back to just listening to music for its own sake and enjoying it, and then restockpiling my library, in a way, and see what happens from that.
I don’t blame anybody but myself for how my mindset has become. Especially doing the radio show, there is an obligation to listen to promos, because I wanted to showcase new tracks and artists. Because Marital Aid was as freeform as I wanted it to be, there’s nothing stopping me from playing old, weird stuff, but I think the focus, for me, shifted to, “I’ve got all these new tracks to play.” I felt like if I didn’t, I would be letting down new artists who deserve that exposure.
Right. You have a platform, so there’s a certain implied obligation to use it a certain way.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. It’s about responsible use of your position and the platform that you’re on, I think. Maybe I can’t do stuff as freely as I’d like, I guess. But again, that’s a self-imposed guilt.
When did you notice this starting to work into how you played? Is this a relatively new development, or is this a slow build?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Probably more of a slow build. Then it came to a point where it became less fun than it used to be. Everything became a squeeze on my schedule. It’s definitely an escape, but at the same time, you know, why spend the limited time we have on this planet just doing stuff because you feel like you have to to fulfill some external obligation, instead of doing things because it makes you happy?
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
That musical reference draws from stuff that I’ve stored in my head since I was very young. I’ve talked about P.D.Q. Bach; I’ve talked about Dr. Demento. Those things I absorbed from when I was, say, starting from fourth grade, fifth grade, middle school. I found out about Monty Python around that time. I was absorbing all these comedy things like a sponge. So, in a way, music and comedy have always been the same thing. I’ve been comfortable with that relationship. I think it’s been great that I’ve been able to present that in a scene that doesn’t have a lot of humor in it sometimes. I think since I’ve come on, maybe, in some ways, people are being a bit more free, a little bit more oddball about different blends.
How did you find your way towards this lane as a kid?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: MTV has a lot to answer for, but back when they had very good programming—I saw Monty Python on MTV. I know that it was on PBS, but that was before my time. And I think they also showed The Young Ones, I think. But I was too young to kind of get that anarchic Abe Edmondson male humor until I moved over to the UK. That surreal gonzo-comedy is something that really spoke to me as a kid. I think I was gonzo-anarchic in my own way.
With the blends that I do, in the past three or four years—I feel like, this year—I don’t want to say I’ve run out of material, but the way that I used to play out—that spontaneity wasn’t there anymore. I felt some sort of internal obligation; I play a lot of promos that I get, and because of that, I don’t have as much time to listen to music. I’m not blaming anyone else but myself. I think, with this break, I can go back to just listening to music for its own sake and enjoying it, and then restockpiling my library, in a way, and see what happens from that.
I don’t blame anybody but myself for how my mindset has become. Especially doing the radio show, there is an obligation to listen to promos, because I wanted to showcase new tracks and artists. Because Marital Aid was as freeform as I wanted it to be, there’s nothing stopping me from playing old, weird stuff, but I think the focus, for me, shifted to, “I’ve got all these new tracks to play.” I felt like if I didn’t, I would be letting down new artists who deserve that exposure.
Right. You have a platform, so there’s a certain implied obligation to use it a certain way.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. It’s about responsible use of your position and the platform that you’re on, I think. Maybe I can’t do stuff as freely as I’d like, I guess. But again, that’s a self-imposed guilt.
When did you notice this starting to work into how you played? Is this a relatively new development, or is this a slow build?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Probably more of a slow build. Then it came to a point where it became less fun than it used to be. Everything became a squeeze on my schedule. It’s definitely an escape, but at the same time, you know, why spend the limited time we have on this planet just doing stuff because you feel like you have to to fulfill some external obligation, instead of doing things because it makes you happy?
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
With the blends that I do, in the past three or four years—I feel like, this year—I don’t want to say I’ve run out of material, but the way that I used to play out—that spontaneity wasn’t there anymore. I felt some sort of internal obligation; I play a lot of promos that I get, and because of that, I don’t have as much time to listen to music. I’m not blaming anyone else but myself. I think, with this break, I can go back to just listening to music for its own sake and enjoying it, and then restockpiling my library, in a way, and see what happens from that.
I don’t blame anybody but myself for how my mindset has become. Especially doing the radio show, there is an obligation to listen to promos, because I wanted to showcase new tracks and artists. Because Marital Aid was as freeform as I wanted it to be, there’s nothing stopping me from playing old, weird stuff, but I think the focus, for me, shifted to, “I’ve got all these new tracks to play.” I felt like if I didn’t, I would be letting down new artists who deserve that exposure.
Right. You have a platform, so there’s a certain implied obligation to use it a certain way.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. It’s about responsible use of your position and the platform that you’re on, I think. Maybe I can’t do stuff as freely as I’d like, I guess. But again, that’s a self-imposed guilt.
When did you notice this starting to work into how you played? Is this a relatively new development, or is this a slow build?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Probably more of a slow build. Then it came to a point where it became less fun than it used to be. Everything became a squeeze on my schedule. It’s definitely an escape, but at the same time, you know, why spend the limited time we have on this planet just doing stuff because you feel like you have to to fulfill some external obligation, instead of doing things because it makes you happy?
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
When did you notice this starting to work into how you played? Is this a relatively new development, or is this a slow build?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Probably more of a slow build. Then it came to a point where it became less fun than it used to be. Everything became a squeeze on my schedule. It’s definitely an escape, but at the same time, you know, why spend the limited time we have on this planet just doing stuff because you feel like you have to to fulfill some external obligation, instead of doing things because it makes you happy?
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
Talk to me about making mixtapes as a teenager. What kind of materials were on that? Did you find yourself carrying that spirit into your professional work?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Those mixtapes I used to make, it would be pairing songs that I liked that were, thematically and stylistically, very different. I can recall in my head what some of those tunes were, but not in what order. Oh, man. I wish I could. It would be, you know: The song that follows the one that you’re currently hearing in the mixtape would be a complete right turn, but it would all be stuff that I like.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
So, stylistically, that is a natural evolution to how I DJ, except with all the hard right turns. They have to be mixed right. There’s got to be some sort of key and phrase matching, because you’re blending rather than just playing songs end-to-end. Some of those blends are quite technical on CDJs. For example, a blend that I did in my last gig, at Positive Education in Saint-Étienne, involved playing a riff of Pantera’s “Domination” from their Cowboys From Hell album.
It’s a really fucking good riff, but it’s all live, so you have to spend quite a bit of time making sure that the beat is correct. And then [I] blended that into a Freddy Fresh track. At Positive Education, I ended up refreshing that set piece and playing an old rap track from Teki Latex, which sampled a gabber-y sort of beat. So it’s sort of like blending four different genres into two tracks. That’s the kind of stuff I want to be remembered for.
In the RA interview you did in 2018, you talked about what stuck with me: an interest in “Bad and incorrect music.” You’ve shown an interest in Eurovision, and your blends, to my ears, lean a bit confrontational. You’re taking pretty incongruous things and saying, “These can work together, too.” Does that track for you?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The less incongruent my sets get, the less satisfaction I get out of playing them. But, I have to build up to that incongruence, and sometimes, it makes me uncomfortable how long that build takes, because of all the new stuff I have to play that’s not so incongruent.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
But, again, that’s a design choice on my part that felt convenient at the time. Sometimes, it’s not even that complicated. There are new tracks that aren’t particularly incongruent that I played at Positive Education, which made me feel, like, “Damn! I wish I wasn’t taking a break now, because these tracks are fire, and I want to play more of them.”
In particular, I’ll name-check Miyuki Omura, a Japanese industrial hardcore techno producer. There’s a surf-rock track – “The bird is the word?” I don’t remember the name right now. She starts off with that sample and goes into a 200-BPM speedcore thing. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. I wish there was more time for me to explore her back catalog, because I’ve heard two tracks, and I’m like, “I’m instantly stanning you now.” I don’t know if she’s new to the scene, but I like what I hear.
One more thing before we go too deep into the weeds. How did you find your way towards DJing?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I had a techno radio show at my college station. That’s where my ‘90s techno roots came from. I was cutting my teeth playing techno on vinyl—badly. And not in any sort of interesting way, because I wasn’t really blending. I was just learning how to beatmatch, you know?
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
[Doris gets distracted by someone handing out drinks to spectators: “Reign Total Body Fuel”]
Okay, anyway. Radio show. Yeah. Technically speaking, I’ve DJed for decades. But the touring thing has only been since you’ve heard about me, and maybe a few years before that. But the current incarnation was when I started being associated with the Wrong Music guys and DJ Detweiler. It was around 2012, maybe, when I played at Bangface Weekender for the first time. I did Soundclash with the Chin Stroke guys, like Detweiler, [DJ] Dadmagnet, and Queerhawk.
You at Bangface makes a lot of sense.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: My memory from last year is a bit hazy, but I believe that, this year, when I played there in May, that was the first time I played in the main lineup rather than playing as part of a crew’s takeover. What I enjoyed about playing Bangface this year was that it was on the weekend immediately before the Eurovision Song Contest.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
Bangface Weekender, for the past few years, has been in Southport, which is in Merseyside, northwest England. And Eurovision was in Liverpool. It was only 30 minutes away. So it could not have been lined up better for me. So, obviously, I played a very Eurovision-heavy set at Bangface, and then drove up to Liverpool, where I spent the rest of the week working as a volunteer and going to some [Eurovision] shows as well.
You’ve talked, in the past, about constructing your sets like a stand-up routine. How did you try to do that? Do you still try to work in that sort of way?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Not in a literal way. That’s not something you can get away with in many places. I played Freerotation, and that was probably my highest profile gig at the time. I used it as a carte blanche, because when you go in with nothing to lose or no idea of what to expect you can play more [freely].
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
Of course, the following year, when I played Freerotation, I was so wrapped up with stress about how I followed up from the previous year that I played really nervous; I played really tight. It wasn’t a set I was happy with, technically. That is something I have to work around: How do you still perform your best when there is some external or internal expectation to perform at a certain level?
There’s a lot of pressure that you can keep on yourself that way. And it’s not healthy. You have to go in and play as free as you did the first time. But you have to artificially recreate that situation, because the reality is you do have expectations because of what you did before. But you have to put that out of your mind, somehow, and start to play free[ly]. That translates into both sport and DJing, I think.
And so over time, I take it, you started to feel kind of hemmed in by that expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: And without being derivative! There’s this expectation of pulling out something wild, creative, and fresh. That’s always been a pressure for me. When I don’t have the pressure of time or a touring schedule, I’m able to create new sets that I feel creatively represent how I want to represent myself. I can wear other hats now.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
Being able to stay as free and creative as the very first time—It should not have to get harder. Because if you’re creative, you can find the raw material to keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, maybe that means I do need to take a pause for a few years to rebuild my library. To, I don’t know, restock my arsenal.
The DJ scene has changed, too. Since COVID-19, it’s changed in a way that makes getting gigs for the stuff that I do even more difficult.
Right as I was feeling that way, though, I ended up playing Positive Education, which felt like the first couple of years I went out! It reminded me of why I was so happy to play those types of shows. It’s well-organized, it has a very diverse lineup of artists; the sound was great; the crowd was great; they went for everything that I was playing. It just reminded me of playing Dekmantel Selectors; of playing Horst; or—what’s the one in Sweden? The ones that made me feel like this is where I belong. [laughs]
Can you pin down what specifically felt different about it, or is it just vibes?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Definitely a vibe thing. Positive Education does have a reputation for really good curation; it’s not, for lack of a better word, business techno. Everything was just really well run. That’s really important. I enjoy playing festivals more than club gigs, in that sense. You have space to yourself, and you can also spend time checking out other things that are happening around the festival too. It’s more laid-back than turning up at 6 a.m and playing in a club. I honestly don’t want those hours anymore. I much prefer playing a festival where there’s an early curfew, or I get to finish playing at midnight and still get a decent night’s sleep and dream about pickleball.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
Talk to me about your interest in hardcore. In your material, there’s a million strains of the stuff: breakcore; gabber; donk; industrial. Where does this interest come from, and how do you dig?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t dig as well as I should. But the interesting hardcore was, again, back in my college days. I went to college with a friend who grew up in Munich, and he introduced me to the Thunderdome compilation. In particular, this track called “Tiroler Kaboemsch” by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo. It’s the one with the yodeling in it, if you remember. [laughs] I think they made a ridiculous amount of money from that track.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
He gave me that Thunderdome CD—he hated it so much. He thought it was so, so cheesy. But then he was introducing [me to] stuff like the K.N.O.R. compilations, and German trance, and stuff. That was my first taste of techno and techno-adjacent things. I guess I’ve always liked hard music; that’s why I enjoy thrash metal from my middle-school days. I have to confess I’ve only started to get into Sepultura very recently. Obviously, I had to squeeze in a Sepultura mashup at Positive Education as well. What was really cool about that was their album, Chaos AD, combined samba drumming with metal riffs, and they’re still as heavy as fuck.
Part of the reason I ask about hardcore is that A) it travels through your stuff and B) it’s all a little cheesy, right?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I love the cheesy element. But not so much the misogynistic stuff, because there’s a lot of that, and especially the Rotterdam stuff. A friend of mine told me that the top selling Beatport tracks are shit like that again.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
If there isn’t a tongue-in-cheek-ness about it, I am not about it. If I play things, it’s going to have some sort of stupid twist to it. It could be something basic, like gradually pitching up the vocal, or they’re they’re saying, like, “Fuck her in the ass,” or whatever, but saying it in a Mickey Mouse voice, or sampling something in a stupid way.
It’s a way to counter the toxicity of that kind of message. I don’t want to intellectualize or be all high and mighty about it. I just want to make this stuff sound stupid, and what better way of doing that than the tracks that are hateful?
The reason I ask about hardcore, and the reason I talk about cheese, is: That’s the clear throughline, to me, in your work. It’s comedy on the dancefloor. That’s the thing that connects [Teya & Selena from Eurovision 2023’s Austrian entry] “Who the Hell Is Edgar?” to Rotterdam Terror Corps.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah. But, ultimately, it’s because the kick drums are visceral. That is, number one, what makes me dance: A really fucking good distorted kick drum.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
How has your digging evolved over the years?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: A lot more, now, comes to me rather than me going out of my way to find things. Maybe that’s made me a bit more lazy: I listen to what’s sent to me. Before, it wasn’t something I went out of my way to do. I would just stumble upon stuff. There’s a lot of stumbling upon stuff that defines how I mix whatever together. I think that if you try too hard, it doesn’t happen. You have to let things naturally take their course. I think that’s always the best way for me to operate, rather than trying too hard. Because trying too hard—it’s diminishing returns, I think.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
Between that, and what has weaned you off from wanting to continue DJing, I wonder: When you’re behind the decks, do you try to surprise yourself in some ways?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
How?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It’s the way I kind of live-edit tracks. I try not to play the same thing twice in exactly the same way. Even though, on the tracklist, you’ll see the two same tracks appear together. It’s what I used to refer to as a “setpiece.” Sometimes, it’s out of my control. This is a technical thing, but I use [Pioneer CDJ-]3000s. You see them more often now in clubs, because they’re the newest CDJs. I like them more than I dislike them, but they do behave very weirdly with some of the beats that I create.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
I call them “non-quantized beats,” because they’re live, so the beats aren’t locked in like a computer-produced track would be. You have to manually adjust the beat grid so that the grids are in time with the music that’s being played. The CDJ-3000 does not handle those very well.
It just makes me worry about things that I have had to manually beatloop and play on the 3000s. Because I’m not just playing on a loop; I’m also changing the tempo at the same time. So there’s many different things that can go wrong. It does make me worried. The 2000[-NX2]s are absolutely rock-solid for the mixing that I do. So Pioneer needs to sort this shit out.
All told, you worked as a DJ for over a decade. How would you say your ethos, or your approach to mixing, changed?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t know if I remember this correctly, but the numbered mixes were a lot more in the spirit of those old cassette mixtapes I made as a kid. I don’t think there was any blending on them. Or, if there was, it was very much end-to-end mixing.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
When I play out now, though, it’s definitely blending: I’m playing three or four tracks on top of each other. But I’m trying to keep the mix sparse, too; when you’re playing three or four tracks together, it can sound like mush if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So that’s the main difference. Those numbered mixes were not recorded in the club. I made them at home on Ableton. It was just me starting to share the stuff that I like, and somehow, whatever theme or combination of those mixes is in keeping with releasing them. But as a DJ that’s playing out, again, a certain expectation of blending and mixing comes into it. I think that’s the main technical difference now with the stuff that I’m doing: back to doing a less technical mix and just sharing music. The radio shows that I did were a really good thing for me.
Here’s a Hail Mary: In that 2018 interview with RA, they asked you about why you donned the Kim Jong Un mask. In the piece, they say, “The slightly more serious reasons for wearing this mask have been redacted.”
DJ Bus Replacement Service: [laughs]
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
You know where this is going.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: It is a many-layered answer. Rinse asked me the same question when they interviewed me for Positive Education. The answer I gave them was: When I found that mask, I was quite obsessed with North Korean pop music at the time.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
Yep.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I don’t have any sort of fetish for Kim Jong Un or anything like that. It was just a reference to the North Korean pop culture that I was so obsessed with. That’s quite a tenuous connection for someone else to make that doesn’t have a space inside my brain.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
But I will try to give you that Hail Mary. When I got that mask, there was a lot of talk about misogyny in the DJ scene. In particular, with the likes of Boiler Room and HÖR, who, PR-wise, are in some trouble right now, because of [the genocide in] Israel-Palestine. These platforms gave so many more people a chance to see DJs. It felt like, to me, if you were a female, they would care about how you looked rather than the music that you were playing.
And there’s a lot of objectification as well. In that era, a lot of the DJs that get around on social media—they were dressing down. Baggy t-shirts, baggy outfits. I don’t know if this was because of fashion at the time, but, for me, it had something to do with: “Don’t talk about the way that I look.” Maybe I’m overthinking this; dressing down was in fashion at the time. So maybe it’s a coincidence. Because of wearing the mask, a lot of people still think I’m a guy, which is cool because when they realize I’m not, it’s a gag.
You’re playing against the standard expectation.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yes. That tracks with what I do musically, so, obviously, that’s fine with me.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
It’s also nice because I hide my face whenever I want to without feeling like I’m going to be judged. When I wear a mask, I know that I won’t be judged for the faces I pull [and] the reactions I make. It’s very freeing. The main drawback is: I have to find other ways to read the room that don’t involve my eyes.
To what extent do you try to read the room? Are you trying to play counter to the floor, or something else?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Maybe I don’t read the room as much as a DJ would if they change how they play depending on what they see in the crowd. I tend to stick with my game plan unless there’s a major technical issue.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
I’ve just been given a backpack. [More free merch is thrown into the crowd: a paddle bag from a bunion surgery company.]
[The mask is] a nice shield so I don’t have to look like I’m having a party or putting my hands up and having a good time. I’m not that kind of DJ. If I’m having a good time, you won’t know it either, but hopefully I’m having a good time because of the tools I’m playing. I can hear them! So the way I read the room is the way I can hear the crowd react. I might mix a little bit more, or tease something out if I feel like they’re just going for it, but if it’s crickets, I’ll just try to finish the set nice and easy and then get out of there. [laughs]
I saw a Tweet from Midland a few years back: “Every DJ has played a set to two people.” It’s a rite of passage. I’ve had my fair share of that. But if you’re gonna be a professional, you have to suck up the bad with the good.
What is something you recently came to learn about yourself?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: I realized what I am doing because of a societal expectation of my academic and professional background and performance versus – is that really what I want to do? DJing isn’t necessarily the career path that was in the stars for me. It just felt like a fun thing to do and try out. Now, pickleball—I have no idea where this is gonna go. I’m definitely not like I’m doing it for the money. It’s just been so good for my mental health.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I’m starting a pickleball club in my hometown. I’m putting on my first club session next week. It’s going to start small. People in America can’t get away from it, because it’s the fastest growing sport in America. But, in the U.K., it’s a bit niche. There has been a lot of recent media coverage, so more people know about it, but I want to be a bit ahead of the curve, and get into it at a time when it’s still pure.
It’s like with early dance music, when it was more inclusive and people were cool. This was before people started seeing how much money you can make from it, which corrupts it in a lot of ways. I’ve been having conversations like this like every tournament and festival I’ve played at this year. It’s unreal how inclusive it is! That’s how the early rave scene used to be. I still have a close friendship with those people who used to go to parties; they’re back in the midwest. A lot of that has been lost now.
It’s hard to get away from that commercialization.
DJ Bus Replacement Service: The last couple years have been difficult for me, personally: confidence and self-esteem in these areas of life where I’m expected to achieve something. When I won my first medal [at the 2023 English Open], it gave me the belief I’m not shit at these societal expectations, or at least that I can still be decent at something else that makes me happy. I’m trying to continue on that direction of travel, because that feels like the right thing to do right now for me.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
For now, I’ve got the freedom to do this as long as I can. I want to play this game with compassion: you can be a winner, but be kind. It’s another reason why I’m obsessed with pickleball: Tennis is a little bit more cutthroat. Maybe I see a bit of that in the dance music scene as well; it’s almost a competition to get booked in whatever.
You mentioned that the COVID dance music scene got harder to do bookings. Is that part of what you’re speaking towards there?
DJ Bus Replacement Service: Yeah, but I know that impacted a lot of other artists as well: People who were on the ascendancy and got their momentum interrupted. Friends of mine who were in that situation have picked up work; they’re continuing to go upwards. I’m happy to see that. But it’s hard to say if that’s the case for me. Plateauing isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.
In a way, I feel like, having done that Positive Education gig, I want to finish my last gig on a high. I’m not dialing it in. I don’t do that. I don’t phone it in. If I finish, I want to finish being proud of what I’ve done.