Like A Rolling Stone: Why Are So Many DJs Leaving Australia?

In 2025, Australian DJs/producers are at the forefront of a booming global electronic dance music culture, and many have permanently relocated overseas to base themselves in the US or Europe, rather than travelling back and forth.

Naarm/Melbourne's Dom Dolla, who lately played with John Summit under their Everything ALWAYS banner at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami, emerged as a superstar DJ after moving to Los Angeles post-lockdown.

In fact, Australian dance music has consistently been exported, with Yothu Yindi's 1991 Treaty (Filthy Lucre Remix) a worldwide hit and powerhouse labels like Vicious Recordings, Modular Recordings and Future Classic – allowing DJ/producers to travel internationally.

Aussie club names have made headway as tastemakers and trendsetters, receiving prestigious nominations for Grammys and BRIT Awards (Sonny Fodera was up for the BRITs' Song Of The Year with Somedays, losing to Charli xcx's Guess). Today, they're touring as headline acts, playing major festivals, securing celebrated residencies in Ibiza and Las Vegas and placing in DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs poll.

Formerly a member of BodyRockers, Kaz James was famously a 2000s pop star in Australia, but he's likewise a credible house DJ whose skills impressed Frankie Knuckles (the Melburnian occasionally still spins vinyl).

Kaz has long been based between LA and London, where, back in 2011, he co-founded the UK coffee chain Grind. Proud of his Mediterranean heritage, Kaz has also held residencies in Mykonos. "I've lived in Europe more than half my life now," he said in 2022. "I definitely feel more European than Australian."

The DJ co-produced 2014's Blast Off with David Guetta (as heard in the movie Furious 7) and recently launched Krushes Music. Kaz just played The Do LaB stage at "Kazchella" alongside fellow Aussies Confidence Man, Pretty Girl and What So Not (a b2b with Snakehips). 

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Several DJs/producers have accelerated their careers abroad, but some actually started them remotely. NERVO established themselves as songwriters after moving to London in their teens during the 2000s, teaming with Guetta for the zeitgeist hit When Love Takes Over, featuring Kelly Rowland. Guetta encouraged the twins to DJ – and the big room faves became the highest-ever ranked women in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs (they remain in the Top 50).

Similarly, FISHER, originally a Gold Coast pro surfer, headed to LA in the late 2000s to pursue music. He first DJed on The Do LaB stage at Coachella as part of the duo Cut Snake in 2016.

Underground stalwarts are globetrotting, too. CC:DISCO! grew up in rural Cobram on Bangerang Country before transferring to Naarm/Melbourne, where she built a profile as a radio, then club, DJ. In 2019, CC migrated to Lisbon, Portugal, and was booked for Glastonbury. Returning home regularly, she was here over summer, guesting at The Gasometer Hotel's Last Dance. 

DJs have traded on their 'Aussieness'. Roza Terenzi (aka Katie Campbell), from Boorloo/Perth but residing in Berlin since early 2020, hilariously put the "bush doof" on Pitchfork's radar with her debut artist album, Modern Bliss.

The trend for DJs to leave is set to continue. The buzz NME100 DJ Sam Alfred is tipped to follow Pretty Girl in relocating to the UK, having wrapped a sold-out Australian tour.

The reasons seem obvious: DJs want access to bigger markets and to travel without prohibitive expenses; then there are the benefits of being closer to international agents, labels and potential collaborators. Many cite a desire for adventure.

But are there other issues, such as declining opportunities at home for residencies or playing festivals, that make DJing viable? And what does this say about Australia, with its traditionally rock-dominated industry? What then are the disadvantages and challenges in moving – bureaucratic, logistical and cultural?

Leaving a domestic scene is risky. Though not a DJ, Chet Faker lost momentum here when, following 2014's Built On Glass, he resettled in New York.

DJs have returned to live in Australia. Notably, Flume – pioneer of the so-called 'Australian sound', an atmospheric future bass – quit LA after four years for the idyllic Brooklet in New South Wales' Northern Rivers region amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Music asked influential DJs now living in LA, London and Berlin to share their experiences.

ANT J STEEP

Ant J Steep was among those mythic DJ/producers who put Australia's deep house scene on the global map in the 2000s.

Steep is most often equated with the fabled Naarm/Melbourne nightclub Honkytonks, where he was resident of The Slap Shack alongside Angela Maison. They formed a band, Little Beasties, airing music on the UK label Music For Freaks (launched by now-Beyoncé producer Luke Solomon and Justin Harris) and Future Classic.

Today, Ant is based in Los Angeles, working variously as an artist, composer, sound designer and music software developer.

Ant relocated to California in 2013, yet has "had two stretches living back in Australia," he says. "My career started in Melbourne, but after 15 years of career growth, I felt things were starting to fade away. The industry was controlled by only a handful of promoters, and I wasn't in the clique. I chose to move."

For a spell, Ant settled in Eora/Sydney. "I was still getting great headline and top support bookings in Sydney, so in 2015, I decided to move there and accept a residency at a revered after-hours club [Spice at The Cellar]. Unfortunately, this coincided with the Sydney lock-out laws, and this made it difficult to make a living out of DJing there, so I moved back to the US."

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The DJ/producer sought to expand professionally, but his goals were stymied locally. "The move overseas was my effort to escape the Australian tall poppy syndrome," he admits. "I had other aspirations in music besides my DJ and electronic music career.

“I wanted to put my formal music education [an MA from The Australian Institute Of Music] to use and find a career path that might include film music. I had toured through California several times and found the mindset to be refreshing. It was a place where I could develop a multifaceted music career that wasn't possible in Australia.

"If I told anyone in Australia that I had aspirations to be a film music composer, they would usually ask me what my back-up plan was. In LA, they would be enthusiastic and supportive and even make introductions to people who might be able to help.

“In Australia, few people have seen anyone have that career path, so they don't believe it is possible. In many situations, my musical aspirations outside of club music were met with ridicule and even bullying from people active in the Melbourne electronic music scene. Australia loves to cut down the ambitious.

"When I first moved to LA, someone told me that it is a city full of people who were too good for their hometown – such a true statement. This city forces you to level up your craft to compete."

Ironically, Ant currently has little time for DJing (though he recently inaugurated the Dimensioneers project.

"The career opportunities in somewhere like LA are vast. It is one of the centres of the entertainment industry. I have worked with A-list composers and producers and some of my favourite artists while living here. I would not have been in their orbit if I was basing my career back in Australia.

"I now write for one of the largest media production music libraries [BMG – Production Music], making music for film, TV and advertising. I doubt I would've been able to get on that platform, being based in Australia – or, if I did, the legalities and logistics would be much more difficult."

Ant used to visit Australia over the summer to DJ, but hasn't now for five years (one of his last gigs here was 2018's Subsonic Music Festival). "The pandemic pushed DJing aside for me, and I was lucky that I had already started to diversify my income from my music when the world locked down." But he's easing back into performing.

Still, Ant's advice to others is relativist. "I think every artist who wants a career should explore moving away from their hometown. It's a common story for creatives to be popular outside of the city they live in and yet struggle for gigs, recognition and respect once they return home.

"On the flip side, you have Australian DJs who have built reputations and careers as local resident DJs in their home cities. There are few DJs in the world who have held down residencies for 25–30 years like some Australian DJs have."

CASSIAN

An EDM prodigy, Cassian Stewart-Kasimba was raised between Naarm/Melbourne and Eora/Sydney. The musician-for-hire took up DJing, befriending RÜFÜS DU SOL when he played Bondi's Beach Road Hotel.

Cassian became RÜFÜS's mix engineer (and tour DJ), winning a Grammy for his work on their single Alive off 2021's Surrender ('Best Dance/Electronic Recording'). He'd also be the inaugural signing on their Rose Avenue Records. In 2020, Cassian presented an album, Laps, demonstrating his acumen as a producer – and artist. Latterly, he's served as music director for Matteo Milleri's Anyma project – the Genesys spectacle enjoying an acclaimed season at Las Vegas' Sphere.

Cassian decided to base himself out of Los Angeles in early 2020. "I officially moved over just before lockdown, and then COVID forced me to commit to it," he says. "[But] DJing and producing started taking me all over the world almost 15 years ago. I've been spending a lot of time in the States since around 2012, when I played my first run of shows there. My lease in Australia at the time was coming to an end, and I had a US visa, so I thought, 'Why not give it a crack?'"

In LA, Cassian's profile has only grown – his melodic house now instantly identifiable. But he's uncertain how vital relocating has been.

"There are pros and cons to everything. As a DJ/producer living in LA, you have access to a pretty massive country to tour as well as one of the biggest, if not the biggest, communities of people in the music industry. It's hard to say whether or not I've gotten more opportunities since moving here, but for sure I've been lucky to have a ton of great opportunities come my way."

The main drawback is homesickness. "Being away from home definitely sucks, to be honest," Cassian divulges. "I truly believe Australia is the best country in the world, so being away from that can be a bummer at times. [But] culturally, it's a pretty seamless shift. We're all bombarded with American culture from a young age, so nothing has been a total shock."

Cassian DJs frequently in Australia. Late last year, he toured with Listen Out and soon after joined Anyma for ALWAYS LIVE's Genesys exclusive in Naarm/Melbourne (plus Revolver side-gig). "I've been trying to come back at least once a year; ideally twice," he says. "It just depends on what type of shows I'm planning that year and what opportunities I get from festivals or other events."

Cassian is "really excited" to be playing May's homecoming dates in Naarm/Melbourne and Sydney/Eora, following a party at London's KOKO and staggered North American expedition.

Busy as ever, the all-rounder recently circulated Where I'm From alongside SCRIPT and Belladonna (ofc) – an Ultra Music Festival Miami anthem – and has an imminent release, SOS, on John Summit's Experts Only.

And Cassian apparently has notions other than superstardom. "I'll definitely be moving back home permanently at some point," he reveals. "I just need to work out a deal with Qantas so I wouldn't have to sell a kidney every time I'd need to fly to the States and back for a gig."

HAAi

HAAi (aka Teneil Throssell), based in East London with her fiancé, EarthPercent's Alice Pelly, has an unusually winding come-up. "It's been a real journey," she says.

The musician grew up in Karratha, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, attending school 20 hours away in Bunbury. But, determined to realise her career, she left for Eora/Sydney.

"I took a risk when I was younger and moved to Sydney in search of my dreams," HAAi recalls. "I moved with no money – literally zero – so I used to play this night called Sing For Your Supper at the Bondi Beach Hotel. I was writing folk music and would perform for half an hour, and they would give you dinner in the restaurant there – I loved the trade-off."

The singer/guitarist formed the shoegaze outfit Dark Bells, and "around 2011," they emigrated to the UK. "For the kind of music we were making, we had quite a limited audience back home and knew there were loads more bands and venues and music lovers abroad who were into the kind of stuff we were. Also, there was something so exciting about the idea of trying to make something of ourselves over in the UK."

Nevertheless, after two EPs, Dark Bells folded. HAAi accidentally reinvented herself as a DJ, having fallen under the spell of techno raving at Berlin's Berghain.

"I didn't move here with the goal of becoming a DJ, but being in London and its proximity to the wider European scene immersed me in electronic music in a way I hadn't experienced before. That exposure sparked a love for techno and DJing – which eventually snowballed into the career I have now.

"I don't think you have to relocate to achieve that these days – especially with how global everything is now. But, at the time, moving here definitely helped me find my path musically."

HAAi did face difficulties. "It was definitely tough. Moving with a band who were only a couple of years off ending and running out of money pretty fast was character-building, for sure."

However, she stresses the unexpected opportunities. "As cliché as it sounds, those moments of uncertainty often lead to the biggest breakthroughs. I ended up working in a bar that had turntables, and so I started coming in on my nights off with a bag of records and kind of taught myself to play on the job. That turned into a regular DJ slot, which led to a series of sliding doors moments that resulted in me being offered a residency at a club called Phonox in Brixton – which was the new hotspot in London."

HAAi won the BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix Of 2018. She's since established herself as a producer – and solo artist. HAAi remixed Romy's first solo single Lifetime, co-produced by Fred again.. – the trio reconnecting for Fred's Lights Out. She's likewise an in-demand remixer – clubbifying Kylie Minogue's Padam Padam.

In 2022, HAAi presented a trippy debut album, Baby, We're Ascending, on Mute Records – its title-track a collab with Jon Hopkins. The selector would next be the first Australian to mix a volume in !K7's trailblazing DJ-KiCKS series (an earlier one by Bang Gang Deejays' Dan Single under his ksubi brand never materialised). 

HAAi continues to gig solidly. In 2024, she launched her own queer party, UNiSON, in London. In May, the DJ will represent Oz at Movement in Detroit along with Sonny Fodera.

Post-pandemic, HAAi has visited Australia annually – playing The Warehouse Project last May. And, she says, "It looks like I'll be going again this year."

In the interim, HAAi is promoting new music. She opened the year with the shoegazey Can't Stand To Lose ("inspired by being away from Alice while on the road") and just aired the beatswitching Shapeshift, about her double life as a countercultural star and homebody – reuniting with the "amazing" London rapper KAM-BU. "Both tracks are part of a bigger project I'll be unveiling soon," she teases. 

HAAi has made "a big leap creatively" in 2025. "I've been working on a couple of big projects and collaborations, which I'm excited to start sharing. The bulk of it has been kind of a creative pivot and allowed me to centre my vocals in my music again." Full circle?

LOGIC1000

A cult DJ, producer and artist, Logic1000 (Samantha Poulter) became a sensation when, at 2019's Coachella, Four Tet dropped her Deborah Cox-sampling track DJ Logic Please Forgive Me – lifted from 2018's self-titled debut EP on DJ Plead's Naarm/Melbourne label SUMAC. Yet Logic1000's career has been defined by fortuity.

Hailing from Sydney/Eora, Logic1000 shifted first to Naarm/Melbourne and then, post-virality, London. As for why? "I'm not really sure," she says. "It was a bit of a hare-brained idea. My partner, Tom [Thomas McAlister aka Big Ever], and I were actually very happy in Melbourne, but something about London felt really exciting and was drawing me to it. All of the music we had bonded over throughout the years was from the UK, so I think we were very bright-eyed about what it would be like over there. It was the best decision we ever made."

After 10 months in London, Logic1000 fatefully headed to Berlin on New Year's Day 2020, "just before lockdown," and it was here she had her daughter two years later – soon DJing at a post-pandemic Coachella.

Migrating wasn't simple. "The biggest challenge was finding the money to get to the UK in the first place," Logic1000 says. "You need capital to make it work. I don't think we had enough money, to be honest, but luckily, we landed a publishing deal when we arrived, which gave us the flexibility and freedom to feel things out a little. From memory, we only had AUD15K between us. This is nowhere near enough. But we got that through selling our possessions. We arrived with two suitcases and an open mind."

Ultimately, relocating brought benefits – Logic1000 acknowledging it as "a privilege." "I think it makes the decision to book someone like me a lot easier," she ponders. "If I was still in Australia, I wouldn't be playing nearly as much. Also, on a financial level, my fees increased pretty dramatically once I moved to Europe."

Aside from releasing other buzz EPs, Logic1000 emerged as a go-to remixer, latterly transforming Dua Lipa's Illusion. In early 2024, she presented an album, Mother, via the French label Because Music.

Logic1000 has spoken candidly about her mental health and balancing a music vocation with parenthood, introducing the podcast Therapy alongside Heléna Star last year (she previously launched a daytime party brand with the same name in Berlin).

Still, Berlin can be isolating. "Culturally, Germany has been difficult to adapt to. I think this is mostly because of the language barrier, which is my fault for not learning German when I had the time during COVID. I just find it difficult to get a read on someone's vibe here. Most of the time, I feel like I'm getting in trouble for something, so I'm on guard quite a bit. But, as I said, that's probably just a lack of understanding on my part."

Berlin might be Europe's club capital, but since Germany's reunification in 1990, gentrification and touristification have accelerated with adverse impacts. Not only have East Berliners been displaced from old neighbourhoods, but now there are controversial plans to destroy a memorial to Sinti and Roma victims of the Nazis for a new train tunnel. Rising costs also have implications for creatives.

"Honestly, my experience in Berlin has been pretty positive, apart from the culture shock and the feelings of unsafety and being surveilled on political things like Palestine," Logic1000 reveals. "The cost of living here has gone up so much – it's no longer the utopia it once was. It's just another major European city." It's no wonder that she intends to return to London "later in the year."

Logic1000 expects to stay in the UK, specifically in London, an enduring sonic influence on her hybrid of deep house, UK garage, and bass. "I don't see myself moving back to Australia," she admits. "It has never really felt like home, probably because I'm a first-generation settler.

"I come from quite a nomadic family who have migrated all over Asia, and my mum settled in Australia. My dad's family is less nomadic – they were from Scotland, England and Ireland for generations. So maybe that's the reason I feel so drawn to the UK?"

Logic1000 has played iconic gigs in Australia, including Meredith 2019, and was here in November as a special guest on Peggy Gou's East Coast tour. "Me and my family come back every year. I tie in touring around the country with seeing family and friends."

But, as a parent, Logic1000 is questioning that. "It's becoming really exhausting," she confides. "It throws us off for a couple of months once we're back in Europe. So I was thinking recently that travelling there every two years would be ideal."

In March, Logic1000 issued an ambient volume in the DJ-KiCKS series – with exclusive originals – and more music is in the pipeline. "We have a release that will come out over the European summer, which I'm super excited about." And she's branching out.

"I've started a Substack where I post music and writing for my subs, which is new and fun. Oh, and I have plans to host some Therapy parties in London once we're based there, so that'll be more towards the end of the year."