Your team at the AU got a chance to chat with Tiga about his upcoming album No Fantasy Required. Besides the album itself, we dug into nostalgia and why it’s bad, the sad farewell to David Bowie and growing up in Goa’s drug culture.
This is your first album in seven years. What was the reason behind the hiatus?
I had no deadline and that’s what I think happens to me if I have no deadline – it just goes on. So it’s [not] really a question. No one was forcing me to do it – I had a lot of things on my mind and time flies.
You describe Hudson Mohawke as a kindred spirit. What is it in him that you see and feel so relatable to? Is he your only kin or are there other kindred spirits you can name and talk about?
We share a lot of things that we like – specifically a lot of old hardcore rave records. He’s not my only kindred spirit, most of the people that I feel a connection to will share passion and a sense of humour. The bond is usually music, sense of humour and hopefully intelligence.
Many fans identify with your tracks because it’s so geared towards a retro aesthetic. Do you see yourself as nostalgic or think nostalgia is too confining as a musician? Would you even argue retro is incorrect and house music lives on?
No I’m not nostalgic at all – I consider myself the opposite. I rarely think about the past and when I do, I can’t remember it. I’m not interested. We carry around inspiration and we carry around our youth and the things we like, but I’m not interested in nostalgia. Nostalgia is a consolation prize – it’s a second choice for when you cant come up with something new or look forward to something happening. If the best time of your life was high school, then you’re going to remember what happened in high school. But as a musician, you should be thinking about what’s ahead.
In comments you’ve made about the track “Bugatti”, you said you knew it was always going to be a hit. Can you unpack how it was or what it was that gave you this premonition?
I just really loved it – I’m just quite honest in my reaction to my own tracks. We all know the difference between liking something and loving something. When you really adore something and you’re really excited about it, it’s a very distinct feeling. I don’t think I’m that different from everyone else and I think if you’re betting on something and adore something, it’s a safe bet that others will too. For me, a really good indication of something being a hit is if some people love it and some people hate it. That’s what happened with “Bugatti” – some people were like ‘What is this shit?’. So if some people are saying that and some people are loving it, you know there’s some action there.
I saw your Australian tour last year. Do you feel more at home in the studio creating or being live on the decks better and why?
I feel very at home DJing – maybe I feel too at home DJing, I’m very relaxed. If you find yourself at the wrong event it’s a bit weird, but I feel very comfortable maybe more so than the studio. The studio is a bit newer to me, whereas I’ve spent a lot of time DJing. They’re not really comparable. With one there’s an audience and with the other, there’s no audience so it’s a totally different experience.
You mention Bowie in your comments on the album as well. How did he influence you and your music? How did you discover him and bring him into your life? And how did it affect you when his ended not long ago?
My first exposure to Bowie was the video for “Ashes to Ashes”, which was playing a lot on TV in ’84 when I must have been like, 10. Before that I didn’t buy his records as a kid – I don’t think I started buying his records until I was about 20. I always knew the hits from TV and I was impressed.
When I was younger, I didn’t totally get it but the major influence was as soon as I started to dream of making my life in music – especially making music – Bowie emerged very quickly as the only real hero. Just the way he lived his life, his looks, his style, his passion, his intelligence, his humour. He is the living embodiment of how it’s possible to live at the highest level with no compromise. In this life people pressure you saying, ‘You have to live this way or that way’, but Bowie is proof you can do it a different way. I also love that he was in love with his wife and rich and I think it’s important to know that it’s possible to have it all. It was the first time I’d really felt sad that someone had died that I didn’t know. I felt really upset.
You’ve collaborated with a lot of different key players over the years. Who was the strangest or most interesting person to collaborate with?
Gonzalez was really interesting, because he’s a really out there character. We did things together that I can’t imagine doing with anyone else. We played songs on the piano but we also made a movie together – very original and, working with 2manydjs had the biggest effect on me – they opened my life up to so many things. They opened up my mind to different arts and books and computer things. They changed how I looked at things.
Did you always intend to start a record label and Turbo Recordings was the result or was Turbo an unexpected adventure for you back in the late 90s?
It wasn’t really unexpected, it was planned. I started it because I wanted to get involved with musicians. I started it before I started making my own music. It was a way to get into contact with other artists, a vehicle to be in that environment – to work on a release and artwork. I wanted to be creative and a little more in that milieu – it’s been an up and down love affair but in general, it’s been a good thing.
What’s the goal for this new album, or is there no real aim but more a concept we can learn about?
There’s no goal. For me, the goal is making it. Once it’s made – it obviously feels nice if people like it. The more people it reaches, that feels good; I’m not immune to it, but 90% of the satisfaction is completing it and putting it out there. So no real goal, but I don’t think about it so much – if I didn’t have press to do and interviews, I don’t think I would think about it again. Other people answering questions – it all fades away pretty quickly. To come back to the nostalgia thing, it’s part conscious and part subconscious, memory is the trap that leads to nostalgia. Some people really, really remember their high school sweetheart – but what is the purpose of that? Wouldn’t it be advantageous to not remember at all? There’s no real reason to think about the album again. There’s too much coming at you.
There are comments out there in that place called the World Wide Web that your father was a DJ as well. If that’s true, what was he like? If it’s not, what was he like anyway and did he influence your aptitude for music in any way?
It is true, he was a DJ. He played in Goa at Goa dance parties – I was there. I went to parties when I was 7 or 8 years old. I wasn’t taking drugs or partying but I saw it, I know what it was like. I think it was pretty awesome. It was like original rave culture – they didn’t play records they played tapes. They would buy records and put them onto tapes and go to Asia and play beach parties, all night parties and full moon parties. Now knowing my dad it seems so weird – he’s a good entertainer but he’s not one for technical things. I’ll give him props I think it’s pretty legit but I never saw it as his job and I never thought ‘I wanna do that when I grow up’. I saw hedonist drug culture up close, which is good to get used to, it was a cool place to grow up.
Now for a slightly Freudian segue, what’s your ultimate fantasy?
The ultimate fantasy – right now I don’t know. It probably involves something like time. It would be wonderful to have more time.
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Tiga’s new album No Fantasy Required is out now via Counter/OneLove!
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