The Thousands

Conducting an interview is almost never as easy as they portray it in the movies. In Interview With the Vampire they edited out all the haggling with the vampire’s publicist, calling card problems, the inevitable busy signal, freaking out about deadlines, and panic tweets. Chatting with Nick Catchdubs was pretty smooth though, and the dude is really nice. Kind of like this picture of him, only through the telephone. He has just flown in for the I Heart NY party in Melbourne and had time to chat with me about his Fool’s Gold partner, mammals, and being a party DJ.

Patrick Collins: My friend Sierra always gets stuck sitting on the train next to some chump DJ talking about how hot his set is going to be that night and showing her his iPod. What would you say in this situation to convince Sierra that you’re actually a good DJ and she should come to your party?
Nick Catchdubs: Oh that’s hard, because one person’s biggest song of the night is another person’s cue to get a drink or even leave. I don’t think I would try to convince someone on the train with a playlist, I’d just be like ‘Naw, come on, it’s cool, I’ll give you some drink tickets, you don’t even need to check your coat, just put it under the turntables, I’ll watch it.’
PC: That’s very smooth Nick.

PC: What’s it like working with A-Trak? Is he real cool or is he weird from touring with Kanye so much?
NC: No it’s cool, because when we first became friends, well I was never a person that followed the world of scratch competition and such, so when we met each other it was like starting from scratch. I think our general working relationship is still very much on that level. We take stuff as it comes and neither of us really go Hollywood on each other.

PC: If you could be in a room full of any one mammal, what would you choose?
NC: Oooh, are platiplii mammals?
PC: Oh I don’t know.
NC: (laughs) Well if I were to answer this question legitimately, I’d say like a room full of baby puppies, and that’d be fun, you could just hang out and roll around. But this is a one-time chance where the room is being filled specifically for my mammalian needs. I would want something exotic. It’s a bummer that Platiplii aren’t mammals.
PC: Well I don’t know if they are, but I do know they have spines in their feet and are poisonous.
NC: Um well are dolphins mammals? Well I guess they are aquatic mammals.
PC: Well we could fill your room with water.
NC: In that case, yeah, definitely dolphins, I think that’d be really soothing.

PC: How did you tell Fader that you were quitting? Was it drastic or was it nice and you gave them a full two weeks?
NC: Well the events that led up to me working there were that I was just starting to do more professional DJ stuff around the city, and I was working here and there with Turntable Lab, which is how they knew I was around. I was never actively seeking to be a writer, but it’s something they tried me out on and it worked. So when I started, they knew I had other stuff going on, and the whole time I was working there it was a balancing act between DJing, other projects, and the day job at the magazine. So when I decided to leave, I don’t think it was a shock and everyone sort of knew it was the right choice. It’s hard to split your attention in all of these different directions.

PC: Is DJing the glamorous world everyone expects it to be, or is it days and days filled with staring at Ableton, freaking out over mixes?
NC: Naw, it’s fun, I have a lot of fun with it. This is a great job to have, being a DJ is a lot of fun. It has its moments where you’re spending 30 hours on and airplane but whatever, it’s fun to just spend 2 hours each night just totally wiling out. It makes everything else worthwhile.

PC: What is your favourite effect to use while you’re DJing? I’m not really familiar with a lot of effects so if you could make the noise with your mouth, that’d be really cool.
NC: (laughs) I don’t know, I’m not a big scratch DJ, I just straight up party DJ. As far as effects I like backspinning records when it makes sense, or being able to drop out and then cut into the next record.

PC: Do you have any particularly embarrassing stories about Ayres?
NC: Well let’s just say that Ayres and clothes, have a tenuous relationship and to know more you’d have to come to the show.