Interview with Classixx
It all began in a basement apartment in Echo Park, Los Angeles, where hundreds of people appeared at semi-regular Hush Hush parties hosted by Tyler Blake and Michael David — aka Classixx. That was over three years ago; since then, Classixx has become one of the most respected duos in dance music, thanks in no small part to a string of high-profile remixes (including Phoenix’s “Lisztomania” and Yacht’s “Psychic City”). Blake and David — both highly skilled musicians and producers in their own right — also began recording original singles as well, including their most recent, the Green Label Sound release of “Into the Valley”.
AdobeAirstream spoke with Classixx while they were on the West Coast stretch of their “Into the Valley” tour as DJs — this tour will eventually bring them to The Parish in Austin on Friday, August 19th, an all ages gig that promises to be a “sweat-drenched dance floor burner” of epic proportions with opening DJ sets by Orthy and Thomas-Austin.
According to Classixx, touring as DJs “gives our fans an opportunity to see us perform and it pays the bills so we can focus on making music for a living instead of having to get day jobs.”
Much to my dismay, Classixx leaves their vinyl collections at home when they tour; as they explain, “We don’t DJ on vinyl very often because it’s much easier to travel with a couple of CD booklets and a flash drive than multiple crates of records.” Blake and David like to mix up (mind the pun) their DJ sets from night to night, never settling into a static routine. “We don’t ever really plan our DJ sets. It doesn’t make much sense to because you never know what the crowd is gonna be like. [DJ sets are] a huge advantage over playing live because you can feel out the crowd and play to it rather than having a setlist you have to stick to. Its probably rare that we we’d play two nights in a row without repeating a single song.”
As far as playing their own singles or remixes during their DJ sets, Classixx says, “We usually play one or two of our own things, if it seems like the crowd really wants to hear our music. We play “Lisztomania” as our last song pretty often when we have a good crowd.”
Once Classixx wraps up their “Into the Valley” tour, they will return to their home base of Los Angeles to continue work on their debut LP. Who knows? Maybe the next time they swing through Austin they will be performing their own songs as a band.