Doorly

BBM’s Ash Moore gets to grips with a man renowned for genre crossing, spinning turn tables with his nose and a roster of collaborations set for this year that can’t be missed, DJ Doorly, a.k.a Martin Doorly, sheds some light on his plans for 2012.

Hello Martin, I hear that you have been touring extensively at the moment?

Yeah I kind of went on the road about a month ago. It’s because the Ibiza season started, I circled from there backwards and forwards. This next run is all the European festivals like Hide Out festival, I’m doing some in Sweden next week and I was in Poland at the weekend in this football stadium. I’m off to America for about a month before I come to you guys (at this point I still think, he thinks, that I am Australian) and then I fly straight from there to you and then back here, back to Ibiza and stuff so yeah pretty busy. I go to Australia on… yeah I go from America to Australia.

What date’s that?

My first Australia date is the 27th of July

Have you played there before, is there any major clubs that you like there or prefer to play?

I’ve done one big tour in Australia, but it was a few years ago because when I went there at the time I was playing a lot of dub step and it wasn’t popular there. It was good, it was a good little tour, but it wasn’t amazing and as I got back my career exploded in America so I just focused on America really and I never really went back to Australia. It’s been two years after that so it’s been a while since I have been and I just cant remember much about it to be honest. I remember a couple of the New Zealand gigs but other than that I think it was a bit before its time when I went there; the stuff I was playing at the time.

Like you were saying about these warehouse raves that have taken a back seat,
What about Pigeon Hole This Records?

Yeah that’s good yeah, I’ve got a good team behind that. The people that run Southern Fried records co-own the label with me. We’ve signed the first band- Extra Curricular – their first EP is out on Monday and I’m just going on a signing frenzy now really, I want to get loads of new talent. I’m going to try and put out as much of my own music on there as possible, rather than giving my tracks away to other labels at this point because I want to give the label a bit of strength as well. If it’s not good enough for my music then why should it be for other peoples?

You are known as non-genre specific, I think that music appreciators at times close themselves in with sticking to one genre, but it seems that your taste is quite eclectic, is that a personal choice or did you fall into collaborations?

No I just don’t want to be stuck to one genre, I get too bored too quickly and the landscape of music changes so fast that if you associate yourself with one sound, then six months later you’re out of date, and no one wants to book you anymore because your music’s not relevant anymore. So I never want to get stuck to anything. I think I got stuck to the dub step thing – out of my control – because of how big the tracks went, even though at the same time, I was making minimal techno. But for some reason everyone in the world thought I was a dub step artist because that’s the only music they were familiar with and that was painful because I like dub step, but I don’t want to be just playing dub step and less so ever than now really. I’m not really that into it any more, there’s some really good stuff, but a lot of it is so bad.

Talking about the American music scene, Skrillex obviously has a massive hold over that and that’s mostly dub step, but what direction do you think the electronic genre is heading toward?

Well that’s massive and that’s always going to be massive now there. I dunno [sic] really, I think with America, it’s always going to be two years after it happens in the UK. Right now its just like everything has gone deeper as it always does, all the heavy genres have gone deeper. The next thing I think to cross over will be – there’s not going to be a phenomenon like dub step again for a long time, there all stupid made up names that merge into one anyway – but the closest thing that’s something that’s going to be big now is that dirty bird thing like: Eats Everything, Julio Bashmore and Claude Von Stroke and Justin Martin because the music they’re making is really cool house music, but it’s got base mentality to it, so it means girls can get into it and people that don’t know about music. They just want a bass line that they can get into, so the kids that are discovering dub step get bored two years later because it’s too cheesy for them, so they go underground. The dirty bird sound is bass music, but its cool so I think that’s the next thing the hairdressers are going to be into next and the hipsters, they’re already into it on a bigger scale, hopefully it does…but maybe hopefully not; I don’t know depends… its popular sounding to break through.

So what have you got left for this year? What are the plans for the future?

This year just touring until October, I’ve got no days off, I think I have one day. I haven’t lived in London yet a year and I really love it. I didn’t think I was going to, but it just fits me like a glove and all my mates are here and it’s just the most productive I’ve ever been because I’m collaborating with all these people that I never would have got to do before. I’m working with Grandmaster Flash; we’re doing an EP together. I’ve got Jake Shears from the Scissor Sisters; he has done a track with me. Me and Dave Spooner are doing a new side project thing that’s like a new project where we’re working with loads of different people and I’ve done a track with the Jungle Brothers. Just loads…me and Beardyman have a new track coming out next week, just loads of really different interesting ways of working with people. Reverend And The Makers have done a collab with me. Really interesting different worlds that I wouldn’t have been able to work from in Huddlesfield, but I think I’ll achieve the same in LA. But I just am enjoying it here too much at the moment, moving house is a fucking pain in the arse and I cant be arsed with that right now.

By Ash Moore

Doorly Tour Dates:
Friday 27 July – The Clubhouse, Canberra
Saturday 28 July – Soho, Sydney
Sunday 29 July – The Bakery, Perth

For more information, check out: www.doorlydj.com