Five Minutes With Feki

From the emotionally-charged originals Quiet Minds and Remember to bass-saturated remixes for Paces, Years & Years and Urban Cone, to highly-acclaimed sets at Beyond The Valley and Listen Out and even strutting his stuff as a model for Universal Store, Brisbane young gun Feki has tackled 2015 head on and the results have been phenomenal. With a mammoth year ahead for the producer, which includes his debut headline tour that kicks off this month (dates at the bottom of the page), we caught up with the man of the year himself to chat about his year just gone, his year ahead and more.

Hey man! What’s up? How are things at the moment?

Ayy whats good bruh! Not so good man. Brisbane is going through some sort of muggy heat wave at the moment so I’m just trying to keep cool.

You’ve had a pretty big year - you got nominated for a J Award and played some big shows, must have been pretty surreal.

Yeah dude, definitely such a surreal experience considering all the big names who have been nominated before me. Winning the triple j Unearthed Listen Out competition for Brisbane was definitely one of the big highlights for me as well. These opportunities were a huge motivator for me to keep working hard and pushing through with everything. Big S/O to all the triple j fam! <3

Let’s kick things off by talking about how the Feki project originally started. You’ve been working with Yuuca for a while now, what made you break away and release solo material?

It’s actually the other way around hahaha. I started releasing stuff under Feki well before Yuuca started. But yeah, I got my start through the beat cyphers that Team Supreme used to hold on a weekly basis. I was using it as a tool to not only gain exposure, but as a way to help better myself as a producer. Highly recommend them to any producer trying to make a start.

It all started with remixes for ODESZA, GRMM, Kilter and a few others, but lately you’ve been releasing more original work. Do original productions give you more freedom than remixes?

That's actually a really good question. I sometimes find that remixes are easier to work on than writing originals mainly because there’s something already there to work with. Writing an original can also be pretty daunting because there is so much freedom you just don’t know where to start. BUT, there have been cases where I’ve done a remix and the label/artist didn't take it, so I just took out the vocal and VOILA! You have an original. #ProducerHacks

How about production work? You’ve made beats for Gill Bates and such before.

It’s funny - when I first got into production, I only wanted to make beats for rappers and singers. I never thought that I would be my own artist so to speak. But yes, production work is something I definitely want to start/have started venturing into. Gill was obviously the first but I’m working on beats for a lot of cool Aussie artists that I can’t really share about just yet. So keep a lookout for that, hopefully in the coming months.

With your more recent work, you’ve adapted a #MakeWhatYouFeel slogan of sorts, can you tell us more about this?

It started out as a joke, but then I just thought why not use it as my slogan? You might think it has a deeper meaning, but really, it's just an excuse for me to make any type of music I want. I don’t want to be kept in a box with any particular sound. (Except the “yeaahhh” sample, that's staying). 

Speaking of which, what are you feeling at the moment music-wise? Any artists you recommend?

I’m actually really digging the new RÜFÜS album. So in saying that, I’m much more into house music now than I ever was before. Artists like Hayden James, Jamie xx, Kaytranada and even my boy Running Touch have definitely opened my ears to house music that doesn't sound like a pre-made loop with a 909 hi-hats that makes you want to bang your head against a wall.

You’ve got some big dates coming up – Castaway Festival in Queensland, a Cosmo’s Midnight & KUČKA support in Perth and your whole upcoming tour, can you give us a little insight into what can we expect?

You can expect a lot of unreleased vibey-vibe material. So keen to play all this stuff I’ve been sitting on for months!

Can you also give us a little insight into what we can expect from you and the Feki project in 2016?

Apart from heaps of new music that will be coming out, I’ll be out and about much more this year. I’ll also be having a lot of cool collabs happening throughout 2016 so keep your ears peeled for that. But all in all, I’ll be working as hard as ever to bring something new to the table with my music. We out here doing big tings.

Finally, I know you’re a bit of a food guy so as a bit of a fun one – as devastating as it sounds, if you could eat only one particular meal for the rest of your life, and only that meal, what would it be?

That’s an easy one. There's this Vietnamese place near my house where they have this meal with grilled pork, spring rolls and vermicelli in one dish. I could easily live off that for the rest of my life, no problem whatsoever (and pringles).

TOUR DATES:

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