We recently spoke to a “dusty” Gaz Harrison from Yacht Club DJs about their latest tour, giant cat heads and smashing Splendour.

 

“We took a bit of a risk this tour, going with bigger venues and things like that, but it just made the party bigger and crazier. And I’m wearing it a bit today actually,” Gaz Harrison, one half of the formidable duo introduces himself.

 

Harrison continues, explaining exactly how he is wearing it: “I broke my ribs on the weekend [in Adelaide], but I’m walking so I’m happy”. With that, the whole ethos of Yacht Club DJs is best explained. Party until you almost can’t walk, then rest up for the next night of partying. Discussing their most recent tour, Demons of Gymnastics, Harrison reveals what could have been, and what was. The duo had ordered two massive cat heads as- albeit bizarre (-ly awesome)- as stage props stuck in transit in America. “We were really, really disappointed about that. We were looking to have a really bad 80s metal, Alice Cooper-esque stage background.” But hope is not lost. Suggesting they might get them in time to chuck out into the Habourlife crowd (the duo are known for chucking stuff out into the crowd: if not mixtapes, themselves), Harrison discloses the true awesomeness of the catheads. “They’re about 8 or 9 feet [2.5m] high.”

 

The Ballarat local noted how their Adelaide show was “really, really weird”. It turned out to be an all ages show, but “everyone seemed to be drinking… it was a licensed all-ages venue, which I found quite strange. We had to play at 10:30, and we sort of just got real drunk to deal with it”. After all, as Harrison quite politely put it: “We’re not exactly a PG, all-ages band”.

 

With that, the question of Yacht Club the band arises. There’s been stories aplenty about the possibility of this band, and it seems to be all systems go: “It’s really interesting. Obviously we both come from musical backgrounds and we’ve always worked in bands, so the DJing thing is almost newer to us than the band is. It will have to be the punk rock-pop band with electro hooks band from hell. It’s just going to be a gory nightmare.”

 

Interestingly, Harrison reveals the mechanics of the duo’s recent remix of Little Red’s hit Rock It to be more band than DJ: “Everytime we’ve been doing remixes lately, we’ve been sitting down as a band with a couples of mates. We’ve got guys from Howl , Neon Love and heaps of bands from Ballarat, we all get round and we jam like we’re re-writing the song that we’re about to remix. The only example that’s out there at the moment is the Little Red remix, where we rerecorded everything with all our own instrumentation as a band and then just put the lyrics on top of it”.

 

But following years of some solid touring and hard work on their mixtapes, Yacht Club- in band or DJ form- isn’t about to quit anytime soon. “I haven’t done anything else [other than YC DJs] for the last two years”, Harrison admits. But success has brought with it certain constraints. “With the little bit of notoriety that we’ve gotten, it means that we can’t play as often. So I’ve come from being a complete road dog for the last two years and doing absolutely nothing but tour, and then all of a sudden I’m just sitting around on a bean bag, eating pizza and watching Nightrider for the fifty time.”

 

Harrison conitunes, explaining the hard work that goes into the life of a Yacht Club DJ. “We like to present a piece of work rather than just turn up and smash tunes like regular DJs,” Harrison affirms. Regular DJs they ain’t. He continues: “With Kleptomania, it was an embodiment of two years work. We’d just been hacking away at it and then Kleptomania was what we felt was the best we had after those two years. But with Demons of Gymnastics, our agency and manager came to us and they were like ‘Oh you’re doing a tour, you need to have something on it’. So we just sat down and smashed away for three months, I think it was the hardest work we’ve ever done as an act.”

 

Referring to a section of Demons that includes Florence and the Machine and Mumford and Sons , Harrison fondly remiences on his experience at Splendour in the Grass. “When Florence was on the night before [YC DJs played], I was trying to get some sleep. I had a bottle of Hendrick’s gin up in my tent and I was just sitting there listening to her sing, trying to put myself down. The next day I woke up and it was, let’s say, an early morning for us- it was like the normal people equilivilant of getting up at two in the morning. Then we were standing at the side of the stage with our manager going, ‘Ah well, we had a good run, people used to like us. It was always going to be a test playing at midday and we were absolutely stunned… I couldn’t imagine anything better.”

 

But after years of “riding a wave of luck”, Harrison discusses his plans for the future of Yacht Club DJs. “I think we’re going to take a bit of time, break down what we do and set some goals. We need to really sit down and analyse what we want to do. Obviously we’ve got plans to do the band and we need a fair bit of time to write and record that. But the start of next year, after we’ve got those festivals out of the way, is going to be about sitting down and really planning out the future. It’s so oddly serious for people like us, it feels a bit weird.”

 

Weird or not, Yacht Club DJs seem to be unstoppable regardless of their plans, even if it is “conquering the world with an 80 foot high cat head”. Speaking of their unusual Adelaide show from their recent cat head deprived tour, Harrison reveals a phrase Yacht Club coined that night: “We’re the people your parents warned you about.” You’ve been warned.

 

Catch Yacht Club DJs at Harbourlife Sydney
Saturday 20th Nov, 2pm-10pm
Fleet Steps, Mrs Macquaries Point
Adjacent to Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
Tickets & info at fuzzy.com.au