Will Eastman – Interview pt. 2
Judge Mental: You said the style on the album is going to be surprising to people who have listened to your sets and stuff. Can you describe the production style at all?
Will Eastman: I spent a lot of time playing in bands. I started my first band when I was 15, and I played guitar and bass. When I started recording this record, I envisioned it as an all- dance record, an all- club record. And I realized really quickly as I started writing songs and producing that you can take the boy out of the indie rock but you can’t necessarily take the indie rock out the boy. So there’s some actual live guitar and bass playing and singing…so it’s actual songs. It’s not just vocal samples that we’re cutting up…not to disparage that at all. But these are actual songs—there’re verses, choruses, bridges, harmonies. So I think if somebody just heard my remixes they’d probably be surprised if they came back and heard the record.
Judge Mental: Tell me a little bit more about your background with bands.
Will Eastman: I played in a band called The Secret History that was together from about 1999 to 2002. We released a record. We sort of like an indie- rock/pop band. We sounded a bit like The Go Betweens meets The Smiths, and I sang and played guitar. Before that, I played in punk bands when I was in high school. I came from a hardcore punk background…I was a big fan of Dischord Records. In fact, our band opened up for a couple of Dischord acts. We opened up for Seven Seconds and JFA…a bunch of hardcore bands that we really admired at the time, and we were all really young, like 16 or 17 years old. And again, it was just this attitude of “no one’s telling us to do this. we’re doing this on our own.” And we were making music for fun, really high energy music. And we got to play in a lot clubs with a lot of professional musicians who gave us a lot of really good tips, and that was my background as a DJ. You know, I started playing indie rock music in rock clubs. The idea was have a no-attitude, no velvet rope dance party. Because back then basically you had a few choices. You could either listen to house music, hip hop, top 40, or retro music…like 80s parties. But nobody was really playing dance punk or indie rock or electro pop in venues. So that’s basically the gist of my DJ motto. It’s like punk DIY meets dance music.
Judge Mental: How has the style of Blisspop evolved from the beginning to what it’s like now?
Will Eastman: Well, it’s gotten a lot better. Because when I started I couldn’t DJ…I stood in a club and I played records that I really liked for my friends, and when one was done I would press play on the other one and make sure there wasn’t a lot dead air in between them. But very quickly I learned that I loved dj-ing and I wanted to become really good at it, and so I’ve constantly tried to get better. So now there’s much more of an emphasis on dance music because as a pro-DJ you want to work with music that works better for mixing and getting people to dance. So I play a little bit of house, a little bit of techno…stuff that I didn’t play at the beginning. But tastes have evolved. There’s much more of an openness to listening to different types of music in the same night, at the same party than there was 8 years ago. Where things were much more seperated. Where you had house crowds, hip hop crowds, indie rock crowds, and club crowds. I have really diverse tastes in music. And the way I look at it is—everybody in the crowd also has really diverse tastes. So I’m not going to talk down to them and kind of just make things the lowest common denominator for them. Because I know that they may like all kinds of music. So I try to just play music that really resonates with me. And I’ve been really fortunate to find an audience at Bliss that’s receptive to that.
Judge Mental: So let’s talk about DC for a little bit. Recently the DC music scene has been on the rise. What do you think that’s going to do for you and your career?
Will Eastman: DC is really live right now. There are lots of great producers, DJs, bands, rappers, dance parties. I’ve been at this for 10 years now, and I think it’s more fertile now than it’s been in the past decade. I think with the Obama administration, there’s a lot of positive vibes in DC right now. And it’s a good think. Personally, for me I just try to do the best job I can when I’m out dj-ing, and hopefully people have a good time and if they respect that and they come to like the Bliss brand and they come back then that’s great. But I don’t feel like I have any sense of entitlement …just because I’ve been at this for 8 years…it means people should be listening to me 8 years from now. I gotta earn it every single time. And I think a lot of other people in DC have that same attitude…like “I’m going to earn this. I’m going to try as hard as I can every time I go out to do a good job and hopefully people like it” and I think people are liking it. I mean, we’ve got a lot of good producers coming up right now in DC. I think there’s going to be a lot of attention, hopefully, on DC in 09 and 10.
Judge Mental: Who do you think are some of the major players in DC that are going to grab some attention in the next year or so?
Will Eastman: Well, definitely Nadastrom. They’re already blowing up…they went to number 1 on Beatport. But I think they’ve got a lot of good originals, remixes in them. Tittsworth…I like Demerit which is a duo that consists of Micah Vellian and OutputMessage. They are making really fantastic French house and electro pop, techno-ish remixes right now. And they have an EP coming out in the next couple of months. I’m doing a remix of one of their tracks called “Stuck on You.” And I’m really excited about the stuff that they’re doing. I think band wise I’m really excited about US Royalty. They have a really good Americana, country-esque, indie rock sensibility to them. Their lead singer John is a really good melody writer, and they have really good, lush piano parts. I’m excited about them…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot of good stuff popping off.
Judge Mental: I hear that you’re planning to do a nationwide tour after the album releases. What’s the plan for that? Any places specifically that you’re going to hit up?
Will Eastman: I want to do some more dates across the US before the album comes out. But I definitely want to do a full tour, in US and Europe once the record’s out. I’ll probably do some more dates once the 12” comes out. I haven’t really been doing a lot of out-of-town dates because I’ve been in the studio every weekend grinding since September. But now that I have some decent progress behind me, I think I can start doing some out-of-town dates. I’m looking forward to it.
Judge Mental: What’s the format for that going to be like? Is it going to be similar to Blisspop where you have lots of friends in those cities…or just you as the headliner?
Will Eastman: It works any way. There are a lot of parties similar to Blisspop across the US, and I like playing at those, sometimes as headliners sometimes as opening for other people. Just depends on the situation. One of my favorite parties are a couple in Minneapolis. There’s a party called Too Much Love at 1st Ave. It’s huge. I dj-ed there twice with James Murphy to like 900 people. And there’s another party called Honey Moon that’s really great. I love dj-ing at both of those parties, I’d definitely go back to those. My friend in Chicago does a party called Panic that’s really good. Just lots of people that I’ve met over the years. And hopefully hit up some new parties.
Judge Mental: Is there anything else you want to say?
Will Eastman: Thanks for interviewing me and DC people. There’s no place I’d rather be right now than DC. Thanks a lot for bringing some visibility to what’s going on here.
peace,
-the judge
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