A proud product of Australia, Melbourne’s Nick Thayer has been electrifying crowds the world over with his eclectic style of rhythms, no beat is left unturned as he ignites a dance floor and fortunately for Perth fans he’s joining us for Sets On The Beach on Sunday, December 4th at Scarborough beach foreshore. Glen Canning caught up with Nick half-way through his UK tour to have a chat. 

So I see you and A Skillz have been doing some work together, what else are you doing in the UK now?

I’ve spent the week with Adam (A Skillz) worked on some tracks for his album and a couple of things, some little bootlegs and stuff. This week I’ve been in the studio with DJ Yoda all week, we’ve got a couple of things on the go. I’ve just been hustling along each day, trying to meet up with people and make work happen. One thing I’ve found that when you’re on tour you have a lot of downtime so just trying to make the most of that and meeting up with as many people as you can to get things done is often the best way to hook up your contacts and new tracks.

So you are doing some shows over there?

Yeah I’ve been doing some shows, just had a big show at Cable which was a Krafty Kuts album launch so it obviously him and then A Skillz and DJ Yoda played at and that was out of control, I’m down in Southhampton this weekend then back in London on the Saturday before I head back home on Sunday.

What’s your interpretation of Sets On The Beach?

I believe the idea is making use of the fact that Perth in the summertime is a fantastic place to be so it’s sort of Sunday arvo, Sunday evening thing down on the foreshore making use of the scenery and the background. We’re going to be doing an AV set which we’ve been touring around Australia and Canada so we’re very excited about bringing that to Perth.

What prompted you to start the AV shows?

It’s a thing that I do with my brother who’s a visual artist, what our approach is that there’s more of a focus on club music and dancing, the visuals just enhancing the experience. We’ve custom made video clips for every track that we play. I use video Serato to send everything out so that it’s in synch and my brother runs a DJ program and runs all that through a video mixer and everything’s flashing and its all in time, we have live feedback loops, we have a camera on the crowd so you see your own face through the text of whatever is going on with the track, it’s kind of hard to explain I guess ha ha ha

Living in Australia doesn’t seem to have disadvantaged you with a huge fan base both punters and producers alike. How restrictive do you think it is being down under? 

The world is so small these days and there’s so many networks and avenues for people to get their music out and to get noticed, no matter what tiny, unique scene you’re in and a part of and like, there will be other people that are into that sort of scene and if you can link in with those people like on Facebook groups or websites or blogs then you can go and be a part of that community so I think that distance just isn’t an issue these days really. The internet has just opened it all out.

Since everyone is so consumed by genre labels these days I want you to tell me a brand new genre that best describes your sound?

The one I came up with most recently after a few pints was Elastic Crunk

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicce I love it!

How was last year’s release of “Just Let It Go” received by the public?

For me it was a great thing to do to release a body of work that represented a lot of sounds that I was into and played. I was very happy with the response and the guys from the label were as well and for me I consider it was a success.

Are you planning on another album or would you prefer to stick to releasing singles?

I’ve got a 7 track EP coming out half way through January which is half way through an album I guess so we’re going to see how that goes but for the most part we’re going to stick to singles. They way that club music goes these days is that it’s all about Beatport, it’s all about big tracks. You think of some of the biggest singles of the year and they haven’t even been on albums and probably won’t be like Skrillex’s Equinox track which is everywhere the world over yet you don’t need an album to help push a single these days yet this certainly used to be the case.

What something that you would love to do and/or achieve but have yet to do so?

I’m actually next year getting the opportunity to do something I’ve wanted to do in a long time which is in a completely different sphere of music but I’m writing music for a ballet next year and I’m very excited about that. I grew up with music all my life and I love writing it, I love playing it and the rest of it so getting the opportunity to try something in a different context is really exciting.

What can Perth expect from the Nick Thayer AV show on December 4^th?

Musically it’s a smorgasbord of stuff you’ll know and bass basically and visually the same thing, there’s bits you’ll recognise and bits you won’t. I’d say its party music! If you come down and check it out I guarantee that!

CATCH NICK THAYER @ SETS ON THE BEACH, SUNDAY DECEMBER 4TH SCARBOROUGH FORESHORE