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Still exhausted from NERO the night before and a day at the beach, Swaager made the trip from Fort Lauderdale to Miami to catch the electric dance, disco music of Los Angeles duo, Classixx. Most famous for their remixes of songs like Yahct’s “Psychic City” and Phoenix’s "Lisztomania," Classixx, returning to the U.S. after months in Australia and Europe, is now working on their first album all the while entertaining at dance halls night after night.
Grand Central, a venue in downtown Miami that resembles a warehouse, welcomed a crowd that was ready to boogie. The opening female DJ readied the crowd with party songs from The Ting Tings, Cut Copy, Passion Pit and more. Then, around 1:30 a.m., Michael David and Tyler Blake took stage, Amstel Light in hand, and started their set. Seamlessly in sync, they reached over each other to turn knobs and would switch places; one flipping through a booklet of CDs (no laptop for this crew) and the other manning the mixers – all the while clamping onto their cigs.
Those few crowd members not dancing and doing the Bernie could be entertained by the strobe lights and background screen that had ever-changing colors and dot patterns. Classixx played their feel good music throughout the night, and Swaager caught up with them at the Standard in Miami the next day around 2 p.m. A couple of cigs later, here’s what we found out …
Swaager: How does it feel to be back in America after months in Europe and Australia?
Classixx: It’s really nice. We got pretty exhausted.
Swaager: What was your favorite part of your tour so far?
David: Probably the festival in Norway - Hove Festival. It was really beautiful and the people were really nice. It was in the middle of a forest on an island, and there was basically like all these lights coming down and hanging in the middle of the forest with a disco ball in the middle of the trees …
Swaager: So, what did you guys think of the show last night?
Blake: It was good!
David: We’ve played Miami a lot now so we kind of have an idea of what to expect. And it was good.
Swaager: You two vibe really well with each other on stage, how long did it take you to get into that groove?
Michael: I don’t know, it’s kind of … we’ve known each other for a long time so when we started DJ-ing it was pretty easy.
Tyler: We started together.
Michael: Yeah, exactly, that’s how we learned.
Swaager: What types of feedback have you guys gotten from artists whose songs you remix?
Blake: I think they like it.
David: Yeah, everything that’s gotten a proper release they like.
Blake: Yeah, if people don’t like it they won’t give it up.
David: And if people don’t like it, it’s usually because it’s not our best work. A lot of the people that we’ve remixed, like Yacht, are good friends of ours. So you know, they’re just like “yeah, it’s cool.”
Swaager: Has anyone reached out to you asking you to remix his or her song?
Blake: Yeah. Like we’ve done a lot of pop stuff. We’re at the point where we remix a lot of our friends’ stuff.
Swaager: Are there any songs or artists you are currently looking into remixing?
Blake: Um, we have an album that is coming out and we are focusing on that mainly and not on remixes that much.
Swaager: Do you have any idea when that may come out?
Blake: No, but we have a goal to finish it in October.
Swaager: What can we expect from your album? Are there a lot of people making cameos as vocalists?
David: Yeah, it’s mostly guest vocalists. Like, Nancy Whang from LCD Soundsystem will be on the album. Jesse Kivel who’s in a group called Kisses from Los Angeles is doing one, and Active Child is also another LA-based electronic musician helping out. Those are some of them.
Swaager: If you guys were listening to Classixx at the club, would you be in the center dancing or posted up at the bar?
Blake: I guess it depends. Like, Mike doesn’t go out that much, and also I don’t really go out that much either because we’re out all the time doing this, ya know. So when I do go out it’s just for like a quiet drink with friends usually. But um, I would hope so. The music that we play is for dancing so hopefully we would be dancing.
Swaager: I was reading that your vice is cigarettes. Have you ever played in a venue that doesn’t let you smoke?
Blake: Yeah, it’s the worst.
Swaager: How does that go over?
Blake: I usually break the rules a little bit. Yeah – when you’re playing for 2-3 hours and you smoke as many cigarettes as me, it’s pretty hard. So like …
David: Usually the promoter will like let you smoke behind the DJ booth. You’ve just got to keep it on the down low.
Swaager: Are you still mixing and broadcasting forTriple J radio in Australia?
David: It just ended.
Swaager: How was it?
Blake: It was awesome. It was every Saturday afternoon, and I think they were streaming the mixes. We are going to try and figure out a way to somehow make the mixes available for download.
Swaager: What are you guys listening to right now?
Blake: Benoit and Sergio, they’re like this - they just put out a lot of music and put out a new track with DFA called “Everybody,” and it’s pretty, it’s not very typical of DFA but it’s like a huge house track that’s really good. We’ve been playing that a lot recently. And uh, yeah, a lot of our friends listens to a group called Poolside from Los Angeles, and like Cosmic Kids from Los Angeles.
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