By Dani Deahl
Lollapalooza day 2, Perry’s stage. The dome is packed, a neon-clad crowd smashed against the railing, singing along to Crookers’ remix of Kid Cudi’s “Day ‘n’ Nite.” A Soulwax edit drops, Daft Punk filters in, the crowd goes bananas. Hardly what one would expect from DJ AM, the tabloids’ most notorious nightlife personality, and yet, he seems entirely in his element, grinning and fist-pumping with every new tune dropped. Fact is, though AM’s status stems from top-40 sets for Hollywood’s it-list, he has a secret penchant for the likes of Ed Banger. We snagged AM after his set for a five-minute chat on everything from notoriety to the New Young Pony Club. Read on.
On being called a “Celebrity DJ”
Well, it depends on what you mean by celebrity DJ. If you’re someone who plays for celebrities, that’s one thing. It’s like a celebrity dentist – my dentist cleans Bruce Willis’ teeth, so that makes him a celebrity dentist, right? Then there are people who are celebrities that become DJs because they don’t have so much going on in their career anymore. That is what I would assume a celebrity DJ would be. Don’t you think that would be the main definition? I mean, what exactly is a celebrity DJ? (he pauses) Well, I guess I’m a celebrity DJ…It’s what I’ve turned into. The fact that I can be in an airport and someone says, “there’s DJ AM” means something, right? I just don’t consider myself a celebrity, I’ve never viewed myself that way.
On where he likes to travel
Sure, I travel a lot in the States, but overseas is a lot of fun. I just was in Hong Kong and Australia. Australia’s scene is so so good right now – I love Modular. I’ve been a fan of groups like New Young Pony Club for years. I’ve always been into that early hipster stuff and Australia is the place where a lot of those music trends came from.
On playing what he loves
Yea, yea, my residencies are in Vegas. I’ve been DJing in clubs now for thirteen years, exactly, and only in the past four years have I been able to play stuff that’s not on the radio. But, you know what, the top-40 and pop are the bread and butter. What I just played [at Lollapalooza] is what I love to play though. That, or I love playing classic rock – stuff like Tom Petty and Boston, but playing it like a hip hop DJ, real fast and cutting the tracks together. The thing is, as a DJ, it’s not about me. If I’m [at Lollapalooza] I play all the hipster tracks because that’s what they want to hear. When I’m in Vegas, I play top 40 – I’m at work, I’m getting paid to be here. I’m not going to be, fuck you all, I’m playing electro all night when they want to hear Fergie. It’s about them. I’ll take the odd track to educate, but if I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be able to pay my mortgage.
On producing his own music
All the big career DJs are producers also – they’re the rockstars of electronic music. They get to play their own records and everyone goes nuts. I’ve dabbled in producing but I’m way too anal to actually release anything so I do edits and remixes of other people’s songs. I’d love to [put out my own records], but it’s a quality problem, not an idea problem. I’m never in one place long enough to work on producing, I’m always traveling and DJing. I have countless, countless, countless unfinished tracks lying around.
On his favorite artists right now
Number one is the Ting Tings – I’m really in love with them. As I said before, I’m really into a lot of those early bands like New Young Pony Club…and then of course Daft Punk. I won a DJ battle in 1997 playing Busta Rhymes over Da Funk and I’ve never ever stopped listening to Daft Punk. This whole second emergence with all the new fans…I like it, but I have this whole thing like, motherfucker, I was first!
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