When CANVAS Singapore launched in July, it established a signature musical direction that is a crossover between the underground and the commercial, with the resident DJ team serving out its own distinctive spin on familiar genres.
Brimming with a mix of exuberance, edge, candidness and an obvious aptitude for electronic music, the team (comprising of Ming, Jerls and William J) flaunts a three-dimensional front in terms of musicality and personality.
In collaboration with Converse, we brought each of the boys a pair of Converse Rubber Chucks to complement their style and discovered more about their craft.
Nookmag (N): It’s been a couple of months since the launch of CANVAS. How do you think the crowd is responding to your music?
William J (W): It’s interesting how we have different crowd coming through, and depending on the night, they are responsive. Sometimes we have a more ‘atas’ crowd that doesn’t really get it.
Ming (M): In the first month, we played a bit safe. But since we’re picking up, we’re playing more of less known but dance floor centric acts.
N: Do you think you’re attracting the kind of crowd that you’d like to?
M: To me I like a mix of crowd. Anyone who doesn’t mind the music. I think that’s the crowd we’re going for musically.
W: They don’t need to be musical experts. They don’t need to know every track that’s playing, as long as they’re opened to something that’s not what they know.
M: Preferably not clueless (chuckles). As long as they have an open mind, they react to energy, then we can work with that.
N: How do you discover fresh sounds?
W: We have our own process that is quite hard to explain because there are so many sources. I mean, there are certain labels that I follow. If I see a release, I’ll get it from those labels. But I couldn’t put it down to one thing. Soundcloud is a big help and my friends as well – we share a lot of music.
Jerls (J): We have this friend that tags us on Facebook whenever he source for new music.
W: Bottom line is we spend a lot of time not just finding music, but there must be habits, sorting through what’s good and what’s not and organising them in a way that we can read the music properly.
M: It’s really looking back into the past, like the whole garage thing that’s coming up with Disclosure that was big. If you roughly go back 15 years, and you go back to another 15 years to around 1985, that’s where you find your retro/disco/mumbo era. You roughly get a feel of that sound and put a modern production on it – that’s how you get your fresh sound.
W: There’s always this cycle of trends and music. It’s okay to participant in trends but the big distinction is, like when the new garage trend is up, people get into it and only play the new stuff. They don’t know the roots and don’t understand where it came from.
M: Hip Hop is now like a marketing tool to control a certain demographic. I like drum and bass because it means culture.
J: I find my music anywhere, like Spotify and all sorts online.
N: Let’s talk about originality and creativity. How can aspiring DJs get it right?
W: I feel like all of us have a background in underground music and we have times where we did gigs that we wanted to do. But now being a resident DJ is a bit different – we don’t always get to play what we want to play. But I guess all of our backgrounds really influenced the sounds here.
M: Originality – there’s no such thing. The way to make it as an aspiring DJ is to be an individual or to craft out something that people can relate to you as a DJ. Like for me, it’s playing with three decks.
W: When I first started DJ-ing in Singapore, I looked at it and didn’t really think that I had much to offer that people aren’t already doing. So I just waited. But when I felt like I could bring in something different, I started pursuing it.
J: I was from a band, quite hardcore. I had long hair, like I was able to be naked and cover my nipples with my hair. I was playing a guitar and one day I just stumble into the world of electronic music.
M: That’s the whole thing that we were talking about earlier. If you express creativity, it doesn’t matter if you have hair like Rapunzel or no hair at all. It’s just about sharing that love for music.
N: What fuels your creativity?
J: I watch a lot of shows. I like comedy. Comedy fuels my creativity and it makes me happy. You know when you are happy, you forget all your worries and stuff. I’m usually the happier person and he’s the dark side (points to Ming).
M: I’m not the dark side.
W: I guess any life experience affects your creativity. Film is a very obvious answer but music outside of what we play is really refreshing and regenerating. For example, jazz or boogie. Travelling as well.
M: I come from a very design-orientated background. To me, how it works is – problem and solution. Connect the dots to find your solution.
N: Complete these sentences.
– When I’m playing at CANVAS, I’m most looking forward to…
W: An open-minded crowd and testing out the music
J: For me, I don’t care about the number of people. There can be like five of them, as long as they’re having a lot of fun, I can ride it out.
M: Girls (laughs). No no no… but, yes and no. I try and maintain being a man whore, which I’m not. I have no time whatsoever to be a man whore but I mostly look forward to having guest acts. We get to expose what we love to the crowd and get them to love it too. I think that’s the most rewarding.
– If I had to listen to an album for the rest of my life, I would pick…
J: Bad by Michael Jackson
W: London Calling by The Clash
M: I might actually go with Now That’s What I Call Music 1960… No no no. Maybe a Lionel Richie or… No no, I know – Notorious B.I.G Greatest Hits.
– I would love to collaborate with…
W: For me, it’s Night Slugs – a label. I want to bring them all down at one point.
J: Kerri Chandler
M: Ben Westbeech of Breach or Biggie but he’s dead.
– The best gig I’ve done is…
W: Probably the first gig there was a real dance floor at Blu Jazz. I didn’t expect it to go very well and I was a bit nervous. I took over and couldn’t see a crowd in front. So I just played, looked up 10 minutes later and saw that it was packed up to the back. Never quite matched that same excitement since then.
J: It was when I had my first gig at Home Club when I still had long hair. I wasn’t in the club roster, I was in the gig roster. There was a heavy metal band playing before me. I came up with my controller and laptop and everyone was like “what the hell”. I started playing dub step and I was very afraid what the crowd’s reaction will be like. Surprisingly, dub step has the same rock element. So the crowd enjoyed it and that’s where Home Club found me and I found Home Club.
M: Zoukout 2012. We actually got asked to shut down suddenly because there weren’t enough people in the main tent. We were supposed to close at 4am but we went on for an extra hour and a half. We played anything we wanted.
– Converse is synonymous with…
M: Rebellion or I’d say alternative. Wait, let me google it.
W: American culture.
M: (Whispers to Jerls while reading from his mobile phone)
J: Disruptive creation!
N: How do you like your Converse sneakers?
W: I was a little sceptical when I heard they were Rubber Chucks but it’s comfortable. It’ll be good for Laneway Festival or something.
J: Yeah I was just telling Jordon (William J) that it is good for festivals because I don’t like wearing boots.
W: I just stole your line.
J: Yeah I said it first! I like it because it’s waterproof and it’s light.
M: I’ve owned so many pairs of Converse. I’m really digging this colour (yellow).
The new Chuck Taylor All Star Rubber collection comes in Black, Red, Wild Honey, and White. These are available for purchase in Singapore from October onwards, at Converse stores and online for SGD79.90.
Conversation seeks out inspiring individuals who possess a creative spirit and brim with passion. It offers an insight into the lives of these individuals and the things that drives them. This edition is proudly sponsored by Converse.
Photos by Sulhan S
