Five Minutes With Flosstradamus

Flosstradamus need no introduction, they are fresh off of one of the biggest tours we have all seen, and they are straight up aviators of sound. They have driven trap to places people didn’t think it would ever go, to such a point that trap is now a huge umbrella for a multitude of sounds we hear in music today, from the underground to the mainstream formulas. Before they headed out I got on the phone to have a chat with them, keep in mind this interview is much more a conversation than a bunch of ill guided questions.

I remember the last time I saw you guys was actually when I met you, you were playing a show in Melbourne with What So Not and since then a lot has changed right, so how’s life?

Yeah it’s been awesome man, the progression has been amazing yeah. That was a crazy show man.

It’s quite amazing to watch, especially you guys because some people may or may not know but you had a lot of two step, house stuff going on so, yeah, it’s a big journey.

Yeah we been in this for 10 years now in September.

Hard work with a reward at the end yeah?

I think for us, it had a really big impact on how we approach music and our brand and ourselves, the maturity we have from it all has been really good, as opposed to blowing up overnight and not knowing how to handle it.

Yeah the overnight sensations seem to come and go, I feel sometimes some people only have one or two songs in them. It’s a weird thing but not everyone can stay creative, how do you do it? How do you keep going?

For me it’s being able to do multiple creative things, like we have music and if we have a lull in it, then I’ll just move onto designing some merch or some logos etc. Just doing stuff that’s still creative but different. It’s like going to the gym working on your legs one day, then coming back and doing your arms.

Yeah I get that, I feel a guy really public about multiple things is someone like Ta-ku, he has photography and music, and barbering and shit.

Yeah man he’s a very talented guy, and he has it all dialled.

His title should be creative director of all things creative. You guys really brand Flosstradramus too, it plays a huge part in staying present even if you aren’t releasing music a lot. I think you should be pretty proud of that stuff, I remember you guys played on the sunshine coast and stuff and I’ve seen your merch all over Australia. Flosstradamus is a business right? Or still more fun.

100% fun but still both, it’s fun and creative but if you don’t put your business hat on it’ll all fall apart.

So what would you say for people on the grind? Slow burn, working hard with their craft? As opposed to those trying to make one hit.

I guess the lesson we could teach, just really never give up, in a 10-year career you have a lot of ups and downs. You see offers on the table and you see them taken off. You have to be patient, and hungry. Don’t give up if you aren’t feeling creative.

Yeah it’s one of those things, people who have their own sound and they hone their skill in a particular way, maybe in time your sound is the next big thing and you don’t know that yet. Listeners change what they want all the time. It’s kind of hard to know when your time comes.

Yeah I like the way you are looking at it, but I think like if you enjoy making something and it isn’t popping right now you should just still be doing that. Don’t worry about success or trends, you could be into music because you want to become Skrillex or you just love it. There is so much grey area now, where musicians aren’t making millions of dollars but they are living more than comfortable lives. And the chances of you becoming successful are higher than ever before. But you just got to put your spin on it.

That really is true, and we all know that plenty of people have had a hand up, but I can think of loads of awesome examples where the underground went to the top out of nowhere, like Flume for example went number 1 over One Direction on debut.

Yeah the underground is so huge in pop now, its overshadowing the pop artists that use to reference it.

Pop is almost not cheesy anymore, are there any pop artists you’d really like to work with?

We’ve worked with lots of rappers like Wacka Flocka but the biggest of the big would be cool; Future, Drake, Atlanta dudes etc. We are working with Post Malone, he’s really good, he’s definitely someone to look out for if you guys don’t already know him.

Sounds great. Hip hop is in a really good spot at the moment, what would you say your earliest influences were?

I mean we have a lot of early influences that doesn’t come forward in our Floss stuff, but I grow up on ghetto house and duke. My sister was four years older than me and she was going to 18-and-under clubs, and she’d be bringing up CDs from the DJ, and duke records etc. so even some of the stuff we have sampled is from that.

I think I have to go? It’s been 15 mins.

Oh nah you are our last call man; we can keep talking.

Let's talk about Australia a bit - I can vouch for the Australian crowds at your shows, you really have won our hearts.

It's awesome man we are really fortunate that’s the case, it’s not like that everywhere. This sound isn’t popping everywhere, the United States, Canada kind of and some parts of the UK and then Australia are the places its big. Most parts of Europe it isn’t.

I agree, and Australian crowds I’ve seen chew up and spit out acts in less than a year. I’ve seen an act sell out a tour come back a year later and hardly anyone show.

Well you know with a lot of people who don’t have the sound that we have, their sound gets mixed up in everyone else’s, so theirs revolves around what’s on trend, but our fans are a part of us, they were all there from the start, and we are stoked to do it with them. The HDYNATION fans are loyal - it’s a cultural movement they belong too, even if they stop liking the music, they like what we stand for, who we are, the people that come around to our shows.

Yeah, and I 100% see that in the Flosstradramus brand. I really lost interest in trap. Lots of the trap music I hear these days all sounds the same to me, and I really couldn’t tell you who produced what sometimes. House is just as bad too at times. I just really got disheartened by the lack of creativity that can leak into genres. And sure some songs are good or whatever, but they are only as good as the last song just like it.

Totally, the point you are making I agree with 100% and unless there is a cultural movement for something like deep house it will go down the same hole as dubstep and it’ll spike and decline. Whereas trap, who knows what that even means anymore, and to the point where we played Coachella, and David Guetta saw our songs, then he changed his whole set to fit in our songs and some hip hop, and say what you want about it etc, but he supports trap, Tiesto does and Major Lazer. It may seem more like hip hop then it does dubstep, it’s a lasting cultural presence instead of a flash in the pan, and nothing will ever disappear, there will always be fans of everything now of course.

Yeah totally, trap really does have its own legs to stand on, its presence is big in pop and it really has become a big umbrella genre, that means a lot of things.

That’s what is going to keep it around you know, that and the fans, that’s why we rise for it and why we pioneered this shit, we love the growth. Most people’s careers whether they are pop artists or not, they blow up and decline, that’s just how the music goes. We made the Original Don remix four years ago, but just so you know when we made that song every media outlet was like “trap is over before it began.” Deadmau5 said it’s just dubstep with 808s etc like no one liked it, everyone hated it. We could go on and on about this, but we are feeling very lucky about it all, and the fans are a huge part of it. So we thank them mostly. And always.

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