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INTERVIEW: Flosstradamus

28 January 2013 | 7:36 pm | Lauren Payne

Flosstradamus have taken the blogosphere by storm and their electronic melodies mixed with hip-hop flavor have caught the eyes of musos the world over.

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The hip-hop genre has changed dramatically over the past few years. In the beginning, Debbie Harry of BLONDIE did the very first rap in the song ‘Rapture’ after hearing a group of local kids rapping around a park table.

From then hip-hop has evolved in many ways and one of them, is how artists today tend to mix the genre with modern pop and electronic melodies to create unique tracks that show just how far hip-hop has come. One of the artists who has taken the blogosphere by storm is FLOSSTRADAMUS, and their electronic melodies mixed with hip-hop flavor have caught the eyes of musos the world over.

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J2K (Josh Young) and AutoBot (Curt Caveleri) have released some exciting tracks of late that make you want to just shut up and dance. But their latest project, a mixtape called Banned 2 has just been released and I chatted to AutoBot (aka Curt) about Banned 2 and Australia because FLOSSTRADAMUS will be hitting our shores soon and we need to be ready for awesomeness!

So with Banned 2, what did the creation process involve?

Josh and I, we have some downtime right now so we were like, alright lets do this, lets make another mixtape for the fans. So then we just uploaded like a little bit, did stuff to it, and gave something to the fans.

Are there any artists you look up to?

Yeah, Fatboy Slim, the Beastie Boys and I think that’s it. Of course there are lots of other influences, we also look up to our peers as well. Anyone in our circle that’s doing next level stuff, we look up to all of them. Like if anyone puts out a song that’s like next level stuff, I wanna start hurting them so (laughs).

Like a little competition?

Yeah like a competition. But we play their songs in our sets for a reason, it’s because we look up to them, but we’re mates.

Being an ‘underground’ act, are there any new up-and-comers’ that you could recommend us?

Alex Young, we got Jet and Johns, we got Huchi and Lil Texas. All of those people are people that have music, this creativeness that sound great in their own way. Jet and Johns have a track called ‘Turn Up’, and it has a cool little sound to it. It’s progressive like this new indian chant and it’s pushing it to, sound almost like stadium sort of stuff. All of the people that have been putting stuff into this genre are really underground sounding, and it’s next level. Also all the stuff Alex Young sends us, even the songs that are like not even put out yet that he’s still doing, are so dope.

How did you feel when you broke Twitter by getting users to reply to one of your songs?

So we had broken Twitter by just uploading a tweet and getting people to send stuff back to you like messages and when we ended up finding out that we broke it, we were pretty excited. We were excited that it happened because it brings attention to us and that’s cool, but we were also disappointed because this project that we’d worked weeks or months on, failed. So it was a fail – win I guess.

Would you say the internet is a big part of Flosstradamus?

100 per cent! The internet is 100 per cent part of us because whether it’s influences, getting samples it has everything and we use it to produce our music, distribute our music, everything is using the internet. If I don’t have a connection, then it’s the end of the world.

Since you’re coming to play in Australia again soon, what can we all expect from your live show?

Smoke, strobes, and a bunch of underground exclusive songs like a bit of hard-style, maybe a bit of club music, and a bunch of American hip-hop artists that you guys probably haven’t heard yet, but it’s gonna be good.

What’s been your most exciting gig to date?

Miami, it was the last show, from memory, that we did with DJ Slink and it was a good last show because it was just so memorable. It was super smokey in the crowd and you could see the lights from peoples iPhones, and it looked just like a sea of stars. That was pretty amazing, and the whole entire night was pretty amazing it was one of the best shows. I ended up, soaking wet with sweat [my shirt] was totally see through, it was amazing.

Still looking to top that?

Yeah I’m still chasing that dragon. There have been good shows since then, but that was just, from beginning to end, it was a great show.

What’s the biggest difference you’ve seen between Australia and the United States?

Definitely the coffee! I love it out there it’s super tasty. I haven’t found coffee like Australia has. I’m like a coffee fiend, I was getting it every day so I was always finding good spots [for coffee].

What’s next for Flosstradamus?

We’re gonna get reppers, finish some of our songs hopefully. Putting out some new EPs as well as, publish something on iTunes and Spotify for people overseas so. Hopefully that’s what we’re doing in the future, but there’s heaps of stuff, we’ve got shows up until middle of spring or summer. There’s a term in the states called ‘making hay when the sunhines’ so we’re just trying to do that, make the most of it.

Catch FLOSSTRADAMUS live at CANT SAY Melbourne on Feb 15. MORE INFO HERE

Words by Lauren Payne