While some of the biggest names in the world of electronic music such as Tiesto, Afrojack, Steve Aoki, Kaskade, and deadmau5 will all be making their way to Addams/Medill Park this weekend for Chicago’s Spring Awakening Festival, the homegrown heroes known as SAMF Class Of 2018 look to make their presence felt throughout the weekend.
Featuring only best and brightest talent coming out of Chicago, we sat down with The Windy City’s blossoming brotherly duo, Birthdayy Partyy, to discuss Spring Awakening and their plans for summer 2018. Check it out!
DJ Times: Still buzzing off your set from EDC Las Vegas, the hometown heroes are headed to Spring Awakening next weekend, what can festival goers expect from your set this weekend?
Birthdayy Partyy: Spring Awakening attendees can expect a LOT of unreleased Birthdayy Partyy tunes from us on Sunday. We played something like 5 or 6 brand new tracks at EDC, and we’ve got a few more on top of that in store for our hometown. You’ll get to hear our take on some genres you may not expect from the tracks we’ve dropped so far, like DnB and dubstep, as well as some nice bangin’ bassline house tunes.
DJ Times: You guys are quite familiar with SAMF, do you have any advice for those looking to make the most of the festival experience?
Birthdayy Partyy: My number one tip for this festival is to check out some of the local artists. Chicago has an incredible music scene, and there are some really amazing producers that you may not have heard of playing all three days. Check out Tombz, Sn0wmass, and Porn and Chicken to start, and work your way through the other locals and you’re bound to find a bunch of great new music to get your weekend started off right.
Birthdayy Partyy: Also, make sure you stay hydrated and give yourself breaks during the day to get some shade, eat something, and sit down for a while. Festivals are a marathon, not a sprint, and you’ve got to treat your body right in order to take full advantage of all the good times Spring Awakening has to offer.
DJ Times: What are some sets you’re looking forward to catching this weekend?
Birthdayy Partyy: There’s so much good music this weekend that we’re excited about. We get to play right before Joyryde, who is a big influence of ours, and also one of our favorite artists. Destructo, AC Slater, deadmau5, Tchami, and Zeds Dead are bound to be incredible, but we are equally excited to hear some killer sets from our friends that we have the honor of sharing the lineup with. Definitely take a listen to the first few artists on each stage that you may not have heard of and you’ll definitely find some new favorites.
DJ Times: You two will be getting the “partyy” started at the Equinox Stage, what’s your ideal DJ set-up these days?
Birthdayy Partyy: Because there’s two of us up there, and both of us learned to DJ solo, we love having a full Pioneer setup when we hit the stage. 4 CDJ 2000 Nexus or Nexus 2’s, a DJM 900, 900 Nexus, or 900 Nexus 2, with everything all linked up. We love to take full advantage of all 4 channels when we play together. It really lets us move quickly and fluidly through all the tunes we want to play.
DJ Times: What came first: DJing or production?
Birthdayy Partyy:We started producing long before we started DJing. We’ve been making music all our lives, but only started producing about 6 or 7 years ago, and DJing came later when we were finally making things worth sharing that we wanted to showcase.
DJ Times: What can we expect from Birthdayy Partyy throughout the rest of summer 2018?
Birthdayy Partyy: We’ve got a pretty hectic release schedule, and we plan to keep releasing music every two weeks for the foreseeable future. We’ve released a lot of remixes recently, so we’re going to be pushing some more originals as the summer heats up. We’ve got a few breakbeat tracks, a funky twerk tune, and a couple remixes that we’ll be for sure releasing by the end of the summer, on top of a house-y remix that I’m personally really excited about. We’ve been trying pushing our boundaries while still maintaining the “Birthdayy Partyy sound”, and we’re really excited to share some of this new stuff with everyone.
