Note to self: Always make sure you write set times down correctly so as to not freak publicists and artists out that they’re on in 15 minutes but nowhere to be seen. Yeah my bad. Poor Yahtzel copped a 15-minute call when he wasn’t close to the site even though his set time was in fact two hours away. SMH. We all had a good laugh about it though!

You may not have heard much from Yahtzel this year but I found out why, and that we’ll probably hear a lot more from him next year!

What do you love about this festival, Sets on the Beach?
I love Bails, the big boss behind the whole thing. He has a massive sense of community and I think it’s the event that I most look forward to being at and hanging out at. It’s well run, the crew’s cool and I love everyone here.

I love that you put up a track called ‘Trump’ on your Instagram. What are your thoughts on him being elected as president?
If I was to get really philosophical I’d say that someone like Trump coming into presidency is the first step to the world healing. We’re going into a scary place where we’re electing fucking idiots to the utmost position of power in the world. The fact we’ve elected Trump is gonna make the whole world go holy shit, hopefully this is our lowest point and then from here we have to come back. That to me is what I’m hoping anyway. We’ve got him, we’re stuck with him, so we may as well be positive about it.

TRUMP

A video posted by Max Armata (@yahtzel) on

You and Tigerilla have gorgeous long locks. What are some of your top hair care tips?
Wash twice a year. I don’t do anything else. I’ve never once brushed my hair since having long hair. It’s all wispy, it looks like a mess, it’s damaged. Yeah, I need to take a good inch off.

You toured with Odesza not too long ago. How was that?
It was awesome. Those guys are sick, really awesome to watch, great crew to tour with and I had a sick time. We had heaps of laughs and a lot of good food. We went to Little Creatures in Perth, had the oysters and mussels; the whole shemozzle. It was a wholesome travelling experience too.

Electronic music has really progressed over the past few years. How do you see this?
I think it’s come from an introverted place and now it’s like every man and his dog is giving it a go. I love that though cause there are a lot of people who might not have known they were an amazing producer, just gave it a go and knew what they were doing. It can be daunting though cause there are 13 and 14 year olds coming out with tracks that you just can’t believe.

How do you keep up?
I don’t really like the polished and technical sound. I like something basic with a few key elements, and there’s a lot of soul in that. You don’t need to over exaggerate things – that’s my favourite kind of dance music, stuff that’s not so intense. Except for my DJ set of course.

I’d love to get our thoughts on the Keep Sydney Open movement that’s been happening over the past few months.
Keep it open! There’s no other thing I would say. It’s cost a lot of people a lot of jobs, a lot of musicians a lot of gigs, and if the problem is violence, then that’s what needs to be addressed; the violent nature of people instead of their nature of wanting to party. Good people want to party and if you’re an asshole that wants to king hit people well, you’re gonna ruin it for everyone else. There’s a lot of things that people did once on this earth that ruined it for everyone, like acid. I’ve never done acid though, ever, I’m a scaredy cat.

Well you’re not a scaredy cat on the skateboard though!
Oh no!!!! [laughs] You’re talking about the Carmada documentary aren’t you.

Yeah! You boys are wild. It was such a good watch though. How do you keep up with that lifestyle?
I took about six months of this year just to chill out. I haven’t released anything, no statuses on Facebook, I just took the time to realise why I loved it because it was starting to feel like a job where you’d have no sleep. When you get overstimulated by a crowd of any sort after a while it loses its pizazz and that to me is really upsetting.

What is your New Year’s resolution? What are we going to see from you in 2017?
A lot of new music, potentially the live show being finished, I don’t know? Just cruising. This year I took a bit of a stance to enjoy my life rather than stress out about how big my music was getting and what gigs I’m playing. I just started enjoying the times so I’m not making any strict plans for next year. I’m just gonna float through.

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author: Kara Bertoncini
photos by: Corey Harrison

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