Julio Caesar

"It's time!” Matthew Walker enthuses. He's heard good things from Jessie Ware, just here for Laneway. “She was like, You're gonna fuckin' love it.” Walker, slightly distracted, is conducting phone interviews from a bus. “I couldn't say it at the time, but this guy just got on, wasted, and he has his trousers around his ankles,” he later bursts out. When Walker started working with Ware, the pair hooked up by their shared management, he was still living at – and working from – his parents' crib in Bristol. “We made the track If You're Never Gonna Move about three years ago – so it's actually quite a long time ago.” That song was originally entitled 110%, and released as the second single from Ware's Devotion, but a legal drama forced the singer to drop a sample of the late Big Pun's The Dream Shatterer. She totally overhauled it. “I'm not sure what happened when they were trying to clear the sample,” Walker says. “I think it just hadn't gone through properly – and then I think they cleared pretty much everyone from the Big Pun camp except for one person and then they kicked up a huge fuss about it. But it's a shame, really, because we're both Big Pun fans.”

Discovering house through Daft Punk, Walker messed around with the turntables (courtesy of an older brother) and production gear. There was a phase of playing in bands, Walker picking up guitar as well as keys, but club music won, with him issuing that Dirtybird EP. “At that time, I was really into the UK funky scene that we had over here – which was really strong – and so I'd always just made that. Then, when I made the Dirtybird EP, that was me trying to copy Justin Martin – in fact, all I wanted to do was sound like Justin Martin... Then they liked it – obviously, it sounded nothing like Justin Martin, but I did my best. But right now, 'cause I've got my own label, I don't really have to sound like anyone, so I'm just doing whatever comes out. It's actually quite soul-based at the moment.” Indeed, having consolidated his profile with 2011's smash Battle For Middle You, Walker launched Broadwalk Records, unleashing Au Seve. He's also departed Bristol for London. “'Cause I never went to uni, I've lived in Bristol for all my life, 23 years, it feels like a good opportunity to live somewhere else, get a bit of perspective on things – and it's been great for that. I really enjoy it.”

Bristol is the home of trip hop (and, in Reprazent, intelligent drum'n'bass), yet Walker didn't always feel a part of the local scene. “I was like a bit of a black sheep in Bristol in that I was pushing and making house music, and most other people were dubstep and stuff.” Ironically, as Walker “matured”, he'd come to “appreciate” his bassier peers, such as Peverelist. 

Since Devotion's UK top five success, Walker has fielded opportunities to produce other vocalists but, for now, he's content recording with friends like Ware and Bristol's Javeon McCarthy, touted by The Guardian as “the Britstep R Kelly” and the voice on Father Father. Walker considers it “shocking” that his “instrumental acid house beats” should cross over. The rockcentric NME, Ware supporters, reviewed Au Seve and the recent Husk. “It's kind of strange, 'cause I've never made songs with the intention of them getting into the charts or anything crazy like that.” Walker is unsure about cutting an album of his own, questioning the format's relevance to listeners (but not artists). 

In Australia Walker will play “a blend of the old and the brand new.” It will be “the same old shit,” he laughs self-effacingly. “I think that's what everyone wants to hear, so I'm happy to play it!”

Julio Bashmore will be playing the following dates:

Friday 8 March - The Alley, Perth WA
Saturday 9 March - The Met, Brisbane QLD
Sunday 10 March - Golden Plains Festival, Meredith VIC
Friday 15 March - Brown Alley, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 16 March - Oxford Art Factory, Sydney NSW