Forever Sticking To Their Guns

Since emerging on the scene at the turn of the millennium, Stanton Warriors have become masters of evolving with the community, remaining relevant and on top of the game without bending to any pressure. The duo is known for their supreme remixing abilities, and their biggest asset is, as Butler has pointed out, their readiness to work with artists across a range of different genres. “We work with very different people each year, from reggae artists, to punk singers, rap singers, whatever, jazz musicians... For us, it's basically just get a good beat down and anything can go into a song and fit into our sets... People go, ‘Oh, you can’t do this, you can’t do that,’ but we like it, our fans are dancing to it and people are buying it, and that’s all that really counts.”

"The thing with our music is we’ve never really pigeonholed it."

Butler is adamant they’re making music as much for themselves as for their crowds, and it’s keeping them honest. “A lot of people from our area, if you like, have gone off and done other things when different fads have come in, electro house and dubstep and trap and things, which is fine, but we’ve never had that. We don't go into the studio and think, ‘Right, what are the kids listening to?’ We go into the studio and... We’re always making music that we want to hear. By doing that, over time, we’ve developed our own little following and our own fans.”

They're also big on spontaneity. “We’ve been doing it for so long, we can scope it out – Australia and Perth especially, they like it more bass-heavy and techy, and you can kind of feel your way around it. You might play one tune which people really like and it might change into something that people don’t like, but you can just cut it short and work into something else. We’re very impromptu, and that’s good because it’s exciting for us as well as the crowd. So many DJs just stand there, play stuff and do fuck all – we're constantly gauging out audience’s reaction.”

Recent electronic music juggernauts such as Disclosure have been singing Stanton Warriors’ praises of late. “It’s super flattering. We’ve been doing this for a while and we’re still doing it, and we’re happy with it. We’ve stuck to our guns, and to have people saying we’re an influence is super flattering and encourages us to keep doing what we do and not worry about going off and doing a house tune or something. People like our stuff and with accolades like that, we’ve got the confidence to keep going.”