Nicky Night Time Interview

With a new single under a new moniker, Nicky Night Time has released possibly the most successful club tune in Australia this year, the feel-good, piano house tune, ‘Everybody Together’. Five weeks at the top of the ARIA club chart, this addictive OneLove release has received love from across the globe, including Radio 1’s Annie Mac and Atlanta DJ, Treasure Fingers. Nicky has proven he can go solo, parting ways with his Van She bandmates to produce original house music he loves and DJ around the world. With this instant hit under his belt and despite his hectic schedule, we grabbed some time with the music-maker to talk about being electrocuted on stage, Glad Wrap, and making it in the music industry.

Hi Nicky, how are you?
I’m great. How are you?

We’re good, thanks! Where in the world are you right now?
I’m in Rome. I just came over from the UK, I had some meetings to sort out future record stuff, and I’ve just got new management, so I was meeting them. I thought I’d go to my friend’s house in Rome for a week just to get out of winter! Any excuse!

So we – and the rest of Australia! – are loving ‘Everybody Together’, a feel-good piano house track with a nod to the ‘90s. What was the influence to move to this sound?
I’ve always loved house music, so I went back to my roots. It’s the kind of thing I can see myself DJing for at least the next couple of years, so I thought I’d make it!

Five weeks at the top of the ARIA club charts is huge; how have you dealt with its success?
[Laughs] I don’t know! It doesn’t really change your life, so much. My friends have been going “Number one , eh?” But that’s the extent to what I have to deal with.

Have you celebrated at all?
I did throw a party a couple of weeks ago, and I signed a management deal out of it and another three singles to OneLove which is exciting because I really love what they do and the machine behind it. That’s my way of celebrating – doing business!

We know reaction has been pretty crazy everywhere; what’s surprised you the most since its release?
All of it! I only really made it for myself to play – I was never gonna release it. I just liked the idea of making a bunch of dance music that I would like to DJ because I got sick of DJing everybody else’s music and trying to work everybody else’s flavour, but I like this flavour and no one’s really making it, so I just made it. Matt from OneLove really liked it and asked to put it out and I was like, “Go for it”. It’s all been quite organic, like, I haven’t pushed for anything, I’ve just done what I trusted myself to do and love. It all felt right. I think that’s the best way to do everything.

So you’d rather make your own music? Obviously we know you for your remixes including Utah Saints ‘Something Good’; do you get more out of your original material?
Well, I’m doing a remix for Tiga ‘Bugatti’, but I just love making music so, for me, the original stuff is more exciting.

And how does it feel to have that success solo after working so long beside the guys in Van She?
It’s good! [Laughs] It doesn’t feel shit, that’s for sure.

Was your recent Australian tour all that more fun with this to play to the crowd?
Yeah, it was good to DJ house the way I want to. It felt good.

Are you going to be DJing in Europe soon?
I’m doing something in Ibiza and Mykonos, but I’m trying to keep it quite minimal until I have more stuff out there. I’ve got another single that’s going to be promoted in the next four weeks perhaps. I’ve got another three that are gonna come out on OneLove, which is very exciting.

Will these all feature on your set for Stereosonic?
Yeah, definitely. You’ll hear all of that.

With that to look forward to, is there anyone on the line-up that has particularly inspired you?
I’m a big fan of MK, his Chicago and New York stuff. I love Disclosure, their production is amazing, obviously, everyone loves them! Lots of people, really. They’re all really good in their own way. Even if I’m not into the music, I like watching people just to see what the appeal of that person is for the audience and how they work it.

Relying on so much instrumental and tech during live gigs, have you ever suffered a mishap or fault?
Er, yeah! Anything that could possibly have gone wrong, happened to us in the past, which was devastating, but you learn how to cope quite quickly. Laptops dying, samplers getting the power unplugged, getting electrocuted on stage, you name it, it happened. Once, we played this festival in Taipei – it was massive with 400,000 people on a beach – and it was about to pour with rain, so they covered every piece of gear we had in Glad Wrap… [Laughs] Like, how are we possibly supposed to play a keyboard, or guitar, or sing through a microphone with Glad Wrap on it? So we had to deal with that, but it was good that we did because the band before us got electrocuted.

What do you think is the worst thing to happen in music this year?
There’s a lot of things I can say but… I don’t want to! Honestly, there’s so much other shit happening in the world that I think dance music is the least of everybody’s problems. At the end of the day, it’s just someone trying to express themselves, and the music industry is a hard place to live in, to make money and succeed here are certain things you have to do that certain people don’t like. I just think, let people do what they wanna do, if they can make a career out of it, being idiots on stage, go for it!

Thanks, Nicky!

Watch: Nicky Night Time ‘Everybody Together’

By Charlotte Mellor