DJ Booth: Future Classic DJs

Chad Gillard and Nathan McLay

From: Sydney, Australia (proud of it :))

How did you get your DJ name? Well our DJ name is pretty straight up, our management, touring and record company are all under the umbrella of Future Classic so it made sense to use the same name for ourselves when we DJ.

What you play... Generally we play a lot of house, disco and techno though we're pretty open minded. We've got a pretty broad spread of acts that are part of the Future Classic family. Things like Flume and Charles Murdoch that are more beat oriented through to more traditional indie bands like Panama, New Navy and Mitzi. I guess our DJ sets are more reflective of where/what we're playing for. For Perth Festival, we'll be bringing tunes to make people dance!

What residencies do you have and crews do you belong to? We have our weekly radio show on FBi radio here in Sydney that we do live from the FBi studio every Saturday from 6-8pm Sydney time. We have a couple semi regular parties that we throw here in Sydney as well, the main one would be Adult Disco which is very much a dancefloor affair… somewhere you can get lost in the music and party all night… those are always fun times.

Career highlight. Not sure about a career highlight, things are moving pretty fast these days and the crossover between the label, the touring company and us as DJs means that it's often our other FC artists that we're getting most excited about rather than ourselves. I guess the compilation that we put out last year was pretty special to us though. Also being asked to curate a national stage for Laneway Festival this year was great too.

First set, and what was most memorable for you? Wow, we all DJ individually as well so it'd probably be hard to lock down when our first set was. When we use to run Adult Disco weekly, there was some pretty special parties where we just played all night (10pm – 6am) and those were pretty memorable.

All time favourite 12”? Way too many favourite pieces of vinyl to narrow it down to just one. There's a Pepe Braddock 12” of Path Of Most Resistance that Pepe signed for me with a nice thank you message after his 2009 tour that we did, that one's definitely got some sentimental value.

Fave DJs and why? Todd Terje is definitely up there for me, again far too many favourites to whittle down to one single favourite.

Funniest thing that's happened to you when DJing? We were playing in Wollongong at the end of last year and we dropped a Tom Trago track that (unbeknownst to us) was a big local crowd favourite at that club night. One of the guys in the front of the dancefloor totally freaked out and reached up inside the DJ booth and pulled out the black light tube that was in the booth and unplugged half of the DJ setup, that was kind of funny.

Weirdest thing you've seen in a nightclub? The crowd reactions that Flume gets at his club shows these days… lots of kids losing their minds and just wanting to touch him, it's amazing but also really odd.

What do you like most about your hometown's dance scene? We get told a lot from overseas friends that Future Classic has a really summery vibe to it. It's not something that we strive for or set out to do. I guess that's cool about Sydney though, the way that the weather and the chilled lifestyle here makes its way into the sounds of the records we release.

Funniest record you've ever played out? I have a pretty amazing edit of Maria Carey's cover of I Want To Know What Love Is that I've closed a few parties with in the last few months. The first reaction from the crowd is usually disdain until the chorus drops and then everyone sings along.

Next big thing to look out for? Mitzi album, Charles Murdoch EP, Catalina EP, Panama EP and of course our Perth mates Scenic have a new EP which is also sounding wicked.

Where can people get more info? Facebook.com/futureclassic, Futureclassic.com.au

The Future Classic DJs will curate at the Perth Festival, Chevron Gardens - Saturday 16 February.