Foss: I heard people and thought, “I know I can do a better job. I know I have better taste than this. If it was me up there, I know I could be doing something special.” After that, I started forcing myself to actually learn to DJ. After the third year that I was in Ibiza, I really forced myself to start DJing locally in Chicago. I came back and saw myself to start making music.
DJ Times: What spurred the move to L.A.?
Foss: I was working a lot locally in Chicago as a DJ, probably one of the most successful local DJs. I was playing around 20 hours a week, which is a lot of DJing. It’ll make you good fast. I earned a lot of money from local DJing, so I reached this point where it would’ve seemed crazy to leave it, but I met some people in L.A. who were like-minded. I also saw some of the venues there—like the roof of The Standard—and I had enough nascent friends in the scene that had burgeoning careers like Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler, Lee Curtiss, Matt Tolfrey. I had a lot of friends who would come out to play for me in Chicago. Jamie and I went out to L.A. together after we had met some of these people, and I saw the little scene they had growing with the afterhours and the venues. He even said to me, “You should move out here,” and I started talking to these guys Droog who were doing the events. Before I moved, we collaborated, they brought me to play a few more times, I brought them to Chicago, and it felt right.
DJ Times: From your perspective—having moved from Chicago to L.A.—what sort of effect did the early last-call time at the clubs and the city’s spread-out nature have on the growth of the scene there?
Foss: These guys had this really nice afterparty house, but yeah, the struggle was always to find work with venues where we could go ’til 4 a.m., instead of 2, because you want to showcase yourselves. That’s the struggle: America has all these cities with these little scenes and they get big or don’t grow based on the local DJ promoters who want to become these traveling house and techno DJs. L.A.—from that perspective—was and is seemingly a little hamstrung because people leave as soon as the booze stops being served at 2, and most places won’t stay open after 2. If you have a little collective and you guys want to open up, it’s hard to even just put on the one DJ’s set, and certainly you’ll struggle to have lineups up with multiple touring artists because no one’s going to be there before 12. Last call’s at 1:45. That’s not a lot of time to showcase music at all. But there were other options, you know.
DJ Times: Like what?
Foss: We were residents at Avalon, which went later, and The Standard [in Downtown LA] had a longer Sunday afternoon party that went for seven or eight hours. But yeah, we really struggled with venues that had a two o’clock closing time. It still doesn’t make a lot of sense in several respects because you’re also flooding the street with drunk and high people at 2 a.m. in these congested areas. That seems a little unsafe, and artistically obviously it doesn’t foster the artistic side of nightlife, but I don’t think that’s something they care about. It’s just damage control.
DJ Times: Are there more venues now than there were seven or eight years ago?
Foss: I never have a problem with it clearing out, but for some artists it may clear out early and there may not be any reason to play after 2:30 or 3 a.m. I’ve played to houses that were packed until 4, so it just depends on if you can keep that energy up there. But yeah, there are venues that stay open until 4—more than there were—but it’s still not normal. More and more of these house music clubs are opening that play quality music and stay open after the alcohol stops selling. But, it’s a liability for these clubs. I can understand why they’re not jumping at the opportunity. It’s an uphill climb in L.A., but it’s certainly a burgeoning scene with a lot of young, artistic people.
DJ Times: Going back to when you met Jamie Jones in Ibiza, what drew you two together initially?
Foss: We were both kind of music snobs back then, and we could stay up longer than everyone else [laughs]. We liked good music and had some sensibility for fashion and a “do-whatever-it-takes” attitude to stay out there for the season and to keep the party going. We’ve definitely changed a lot since then. We’ve become really good friends over the years. I think when you’re going to own a business in this industry—especially with Type A personalities—you’ve got to know each other and trust each other and be able to listen to each other and not take the stressy parts too seriously. You see a lot of DJ duos that split up or these labels where people who are best friends will split up or leave, and I just think it takes a strong friendship and the ability to communicate to keep those things going.
DJ Times: Hot Creations launched in 2010. What caused you guys to go from DJing together to working together?
Foss: We started Hot Natured, and that was pretty exciting. We were making so much great music, but Jamie was younger—he didn’t want to have a label. He thought it was too much work, but he had friends like Robert James who were giving him music that he liked. He saw that I was making too much music, but he had a lot of backlog music and he started to realize he wanted a little more control. I just had a bad breakup and was going to be in the U.K. a lot more, and it just made sense for us to start our own thing. We saw the strengths of what it was going to be and how much music there was, and we already had this Hot Natured project started together. Initially, Hot Natured was going to be a disco and edits label and a party, but then we decided the name was too good and used it as the project name. We still had the label, but then there was just too much good music around us and we said, “We need to start an originals record label.” It just all tied in really well.
DJ Times: Hot Creations grew from a sort of quirky alt-tech house label to a massive force in the underground scene. What do you think caused people to latch onto it so heavily?
Foss: I think there’s always been a consistent high quality, but especially at the nascent, very important first 20-25 releases. It was different from what was coming out, and it created a lot of emulators. At the same time that it had a consistent sound, it was varied enough to keep people interested and surprised. It launched the careers of so many new artists, and you also had these charismatic, identifiable people behind it. It wasn’t faceless. You had two of the biggest personalities on the electronic music scene playing the songs and generally being fun while they played, and I thing that resonated with people in a post-minimal world. It was the opposite of what they’d been watching; it was a bit more ’60s rock-inspired personality.
DJ Times: Is the solo record pop-leaning or club-leaning?
Foss: It’s hard for me to say yet because I don’t know what’s going to have vocals added to it. I’m in the process of making a lot of beats. There was a lot already finished. It’s definitely not an all techno album, but I don’t think anyone would expect that from me. I just want to make something like in the sense of the Hot Natured album and how you could always sit down and listen back through, but more varied types of beats and BPMs, which probably makes it even less clubby. I make an effort to make my music timeless, sometimes at the expense of what’s in the moment.
DJ Times: What’s your studio setup for the album been like?
Foss: It’s in my house [in LA]. It’s been great: I’ve been flooding money back into my studio. I’ve only been in the house for two years, but I just took the step to finally acoustically treat the room. It wasn’t cheap. It’s cool, I flew out my friend from Chicago to paint the panels, and I’ve just been treating myself with outboard gear and synths. It’s been great. I’ve been working all this week with Lee Curtiss, so it’s also been fun to have a few dates where I have different producers—Lee Curtiss, Tensnake—come in. I’ll have a few collaborations on the album, too. I’ve been able to really focus over the winter on my own music, and it’s really exciting when you’re excited to listen to the songs in the car or on the airplane.
DJ Times: With your career, you seem unafraid to exist both in the underground dance sphere as well as the pop realm. Is that something you’re consciously fine with?
Foss: Oh yeah, I’m fine with that. I don’t put a whole lot of stock in it. I mean, I enjoy underground success to an extent.
DJ Times: The dichotomy is interesting. You can go and play at a Paradise party in Miami one day and then open for Gorgon City at Terminal 5 in New York another.
Foss: I think more than anyone, I probably represent the best possible scenario of a DJ who can reach the widest possible audience and can play the most universal and be underground. I don’t shy away from that. A long time ago, I made the decision that being underground for the sake of being underground is kind of silly. You should be trying to reach the most people possible, but you should still be yourself. I don’t ever play anything I don’t love; I don’t ever play something because I think it’s cool, but I do follow the crowd. I don’t go up there and masturbate. I go up there to be an authentic performer and creator, but at the same time, I try to be really in touch with the crowd and to understand their energy. It’s not something I shy away from, but I personally don’t care what Resident Advisor thinks. I don’t give a shit. I don’t care what the message board people say about me. On the underground tip, I like playing the parties, but I’m not here to serve the people who like me because no one knew about me in 2009 and think I’ve sold out. I don’t care, and I think that’s the weakest kind of fan. I’m not interested in trying to keep them, but I’m happy for them to like my music if they want. To me, it’s just the same quality. If you can reach more people, that’s more utility for others. Begrudging them that happiness is weak.
DJ Times: You’d rather the music be the focus and not the hype around it.
Foss: Yeah. Hype can be useful in utility to reach more people, but I just feel like underground fame is sometimes capricious in nature. Liking something because nobody knew about this band and then saying the band is bad because more people know about it? No one should listen to those people. They’re not real music fans. People who like things to make themselves cool are not who you should worry about.
