It’s a safe bet to say Dave Nada and Matt Nordstrom – aka. Nadastrom – have been the two busiest DJ’s in America this year. With their ‘LezgOZ’ Australian tour already underway, amidst preparation for an upcoming album, we’d be understating if we tagged them as ‘busy’. Aside from their recent endeavours, Nadastrom hold an enviable palette of original productions, have renowned success in their solo projects, and collectively possess more remixes than Tommy Lee’s got STD’s.
The boys had just penned a residency deal with UC Music Hall in Washington when we quizzed them on their Aus tour. Though technically their first residency under the Nadastrom moniker, Matt and Dave first met playing a weeknight gig as solo artists.
“Dave got offered to do a night in DC on a Wednesday and he was looking for someone to do the night with,” said Matt. “We’d been kind of chatting a little bit online, trading music, things like that – so this is kind of where we left off.”
Their names on the bill were short-lived, Matt explains, due to the ‘progressiveness’ of their music at the time.
“Basically, we wanted to hear really weird, left-field electronic music. Not your ‘run of the mill’ house and techno and club (laughs). The club owner didn’t really want us to play progressive music.”
To rub salt into the wound of club-owners from residencies past, Nadastrom’s “progressive” music style is now the benchmark for every budding DJ. Both Matt and Dave agree that their roots lie in residencies, and while they’re embracing the intensity of touring worldwide, there’s comfort in coming home to a night entirely devoted to them.
“One of the things we really like to do is to be able to take over an entire night, and we’ve actually gotten to do that a couple of time on tour and its really fun. But at the same time, you get a huge rush from playing an hour set to such a huge crowd,” said Matt.
Back to touring and the duo have just kicked off their Australian gig stint. Labeled the ‘LezgOZ’ tour – “why not chuck a ‘Z’ at the end of a cool word,” said Dave – the trip will finally see both halves of Nadastrom play at various gigs around our shores. As his solo project, Dave Nada has been to Australia several times thus far, which played catalyst to the duo’s timely arrangement to come as a team. Being his fourth time now, he’s quick to admit his borderline addiction to the Australian scene. So, what does our music scene have that the yanks can’t grasp?
“I think Australia for the most part are a little bit more progressive in general,” said Dave.
“You know, every time come out here (Australia), there’s so much love for a lot of new music that really hasn’t translated over here. I just feel like the US is just kind of catching onto it now, but I would say the audiences I’ve experienced in Australia are just amazing.”
“(They’re) really ready to throw down, really excited about the tunes. You know, overall everyone’s having a great-ass time. Not that we don’t have that in the States - we go to places like LA and the crowds are insane; we go to Canada and the crowds are wild, they’re engaged and we like to interact with the crowd as well. The difference would be that I think Australia for a while has been ahead of the curb. So I think for Matt to come out with me, together as Nadastrom, you know I keep telling him, “these parties, they throw down so…(hysterical laughter).”
The electro duo have been invited to both the Winter Music Conference in Miami and South by Southwest in Texas over the past year – an appraisal for Nadastrom thanks to their thumping sound and equally enigmatic live show. When asked what Australia can expect in their tour shows, Matt explains there will be a swag of new material.
“I think a lot of it (our live shows) is just kind of, trying to be the way that we present it, not only visually – we’ve been putting together a lot of visual stuff – but also just trying to party with everybody. What we always try and do is make sure that we’re as much part of the party as everybody else.”
Aside from their upcoming residency in Washington, Nadastrom have been on a tour frenzy since their inception in 2007. It’s because of this that Matt and Dave have spent almost every minute together for over two years. Surely tensions rise spending so much time with your co-worker.
“We’re pretty “Bro’d” out,” laughs Dave.
“I think the only time I’ve fought Matt was when I didn’t want to leave a club, I wanted to keep dancing (laughs). I think we’re pretty good for a longer run. It’s really funny, even our friends kind of laugh at how similar we are sometimes.”
“I can speak for myself that musically and creatively since we’ve been collaborating two-and-a-half years ago, I’ve felt like I’ve benefited and learned so much since I’ve started working with matt, as a DJ, and as a producer and friend. So it’s a pretty amazing relationship that we’ve started with Nadastrom and continues to be a big learning experience. And yeah, we’re pretty tight bros. (laughs).”
They may be chums but Dave and Matt certainly have different roles when it comes to a joint persona. Who plays father figure and who’s the angry teen?
“We’ve traded off on duties on that one a couple of times, that’s for sure,” said Matt.
“Mostly the other one has gone a bit too far, and they’re like “ alright, I’m going to quit drinking now”. We take good care of each other, but we both tend to have our wild sides.”
“We look out for each other on the road especially, because we know how crazy it can get. And speaking for people who travel a lot, artists and whatnot, there’s nothing like having a good friend or a partner out there that’s on the road with you,” chuffed Dave.
“The game can be pretty lonely sometimes, but when you’ve got your partner in crime, it’s almost like world domination, taking shit over.”
Bromance’s aside, Nadastrom keep us in the loop with some details on their forthcoming debut album.
“I would say, this album is definitely geared for the dance floor,” said Dave.
“The vision that we have for it right now is something that’s focused toward a club. We love to take tracks in a really deep end or a really heavy end – I think that shows in our catalogue, our remixes. We’re known to do really heavy tunes, just a wide range, and I think with this album we really want to flesh out the dance music and make it as an album.”
Any surprise collaborations for the album?
“We’re working on a few things, but it’s too early to say now,” hints Matt.
Touching on Nadastrom’s reputation for uncontrollable live shows earlier, and the initial misunderstandings between the patrons and their music, Matt informed us that it’s all about sticking to a particular model of thought that helps to gain appreciation from the masses.
“It’s just about trying to push something new, and trying to educate someone and then bringing them back; and then they won’t know quite what to think at first. But after a while, we’ve found that the more you push your musical style on someone that wouldn’t understand – the more you push it, they’ll eventually come around.”
It’s all about pushing your ‘sound’, but what do Nadastrom consider their genre to be? With remixes and originals that span from house to tech, dubstep to indie-electro, it’s no surprise they don’t focus on a single strand of music.
“With our sound, we feel we pull inspiration from and we never try to limit ourselves creatively,” said Dave.
“Every time we have an idea of what we want to sound like on a track or a remix, it never really comes out that way. That’s how we’ve been doing it since the beginning. And our sounds definitely progressed since our first EP and it continues to, and I feel like right now we’re like sponges, and its really inspiring to hear music like Renaissance Man and Solo and Mowgli; and then you hear Moombahton ‘poppin’ off.
“We love all kinds of music and apply it to our production as well as DJ-ing. We’ll bang out like an hour-and-a-half set of really huge tunes at a festival, and then we’ll play deep tech-house for five hours, from 7am till noon, and we have the ability to do this because we love this music and I think it gives us the leverage that we can play at all kinds of parties at different times of the night.”
It’s clear by this point that both parties (interviewer and interviewees) were foaming in anticipation for the Australian tour, and conversation quickly throws back to the ‘vibe’, fresh material and all things party in the way of their upcoming Sydney show.
We have a lot of new tunes that we’re ready to showcase,” said Dave.
“Plus a lot of bass and a lot of visuals to go along with the new tracks. Like we were saying, we love to just take over a night – whether it’s an hour and a half set or a marathon. Depending on the vibe of the crowd and the dance floor – we take it in from many different angles, so we’re just geared up for everything and pushing our new sound and the visuals to go along with it.”
Can we expect a variation?
“There’ll be some punk, some techno, some house, some dub. Not for gimmicks sake, we never try to force it, we’ve got a lot of new mixes that we’re working on that’s going to give people a good ‘heads-up’ as to where we’re coming from and a background of music that we’re really getting inspired by,” said Dave.
“As far as that “sound” now and in the future – we don’t know what its going to sound like in the future, we know for a fact right now its definitely on some dance floor shit.”
“So yeah, we’ll be going nuts for ya’ll (laughs).”
Also check out the Dance Club Trailer Featuring Nadastrom
myspace.com/nadastrom
facebook.com/nadastrom
last.fm/music/nadastrom
crimson-communications.com
