This past weekend at Snowball Music Festival, we were treated to a wonderful palate of eclectic artists, all in the heart of Denver Broncos territory at Sports Authority Field. From major acts like Busta Rhymes, Pretty Lights, Yeasayer, Twin Shadow, RÜFÜS DU SOL, Griz, Knife Party and MiMOSA to the amazingly well represented house tent with names including MK, J. Phlip, Graff, Justin Jay, Maxxi Soundsystem and The Juan Mclean; it was safe to say our tastes for all different genres of music were well satiated. We also had the chance to catch up with some of our absolute favorite up and coming house artists option4, as well as the duos of Keepers. and Need & Necessity round-table style in their home city to talk about their burgeoning record label Night Supply, their drinks of choice, spirit animals, Miley Cyrus and a whole lot more. And who better than these three entities to give us a little insight into the climate of dance music in their own state? Check out the full transcript below.
The Music Ninja (TMN): Alright, The Music Ninja here at Snowball Music Festival with option4, Keepers. and Need & Necessity. First things first, I know we can be a bit intimidating so how about a round of Fireball shots? [five minute pause from interview] Okay, let’s get the ball rolling!
TMN: Now, we’re obviously here in your guys’ back yard of Denver. A lot of people don’t realize this, but all of you have been throwing and curating proper house music events in the city for over three years as TheHundred and have built relationships with most every dance artist on the festival. With this year being so heavy on house music, what has it been like to see your collective work begin to take a bit of a hold through more mainstream outlets like a Snowball Music Festival? Let’s start with option4.
option4: Man it’s been awesome to see so many people that might not normally be into this style of music fully support and accept it. For example, last night MK was killer, J. Phlip was killer and all those people choosing to be in the house tent as opposed to some of the other stages. That was something that felt very tangible, very real. It was kind of a weird stage to begin with because nobody could really hear the music outside of the tent and it was a little bit tucked away, but that thing was still absolutely packed. It seemed like there were a lot of people there for that style of music, so it was nice to see house music have a real footing at an American festival.
Read the rest of our interview with option4, Keepers. and Need & Necessity after the jump!
TMN: Not to pump any air into your tires, but can you not help but feel a sense of pride as this ‘club-house’ or techno movement whether it be deep-house, indie-dance, tech-house, techno or nu-disco begins to be embraced in a city primarily recognized for dubstep, trap, big-room, electro etc? Let’s go with the boys from Need & Necessity (Ross & Matt) on this one.
Ross (Need & Necessity): Well, it’s been fucking amazing honestly. It’s really great to be a part of something this big. We’ve been making some serious moves over the last year. It’s just absolutely incredible to see.
Matt (Need & Necessity): It’s cool to see you and all of your friends’ hard work come to fruition and really build something that’s become a collective community of people who are all supporting the same stuff. It’s just been great.
TMN: How about you Keepers. (Colin & Peter)?
Peter (Keepers.): It’s definitely been cool. We’re so used to dwelling in this whole underground scene. Everything started so far underground, so subterranean that we weren’t really getting any exposure for anything for a while. But seeing it all grow, all our hard work has been coming together and growing like… a Snowball if you will.
Murmuring laughter from the rest of the group…
TMN: We’re going to keep picking your brains a bit more about the scene here, and more specifically your burgeoning record label. You guys felt the need to helm an independent house music label here in the Mile High City, which if our readers aren’t familiar, is called Night Supply. How did you all come together and most importantly come to the conclusion that there was a need for a proper label in Denver? Let’s go with the boss, option4.
option4: I don’t know if it was necessarily a “need” or any kind of void that needed to be filed. Like anything, it all comes from an idea. We were already throwing really fun parties, so I guess technically the concept grew from just kind of organizing the people in the city who were all kind of pushing that same thing. Everyone was kind of independent in the beginning. Take Need & Necessity for example. I heard one of their tunes from a friend of mine who just said “Hey, check this out. This is really cool.” And I listened to it, and it was very deep, very proper and I just thought to myself: “I don’t know these kids”. Let me just try and organize all of the entities who were pushing the sound under one roof, and this was way before it was the movement it’s recognized as today. Now it seems everything that’s not electro is classified as ‘deep-house’, and we’re getting a lot of people saying they love deep-house because they know who MK is and from my perspective it’s kind of like… “Bitch we been doin’ this for years.”
More laughter erupts from the room. Maybe those Fireball shots are creeping up…
option4: So it was more a matter of combining everyobdy in the city who were behind this movement and putting us under one tent so that we have something to support collectively. I’m a believer in that nothing will succeed if you don’t clique up. And for me, when I came up with the concept, it was a random night. I just called everybody which was about nine people and said “Hey, meet me at the bar at 9:00”. I didn’t tell them what it was, I didn’t tell them what it was about, I didn’t say “We’re gonna start a label.” And the people who showed up took me seriously, and we’ve over the last year-and-a-half we’ve built something that is relevant. It’s beautiful to see, but it was more of “Let’s just get passionate about something and organize everyone that’s doing what we’re doing” and we make a little brotherhood out of it. So like I said, it didn’t come from me saying “the city needs this”. Labels are already everywhere.
Peter (Keepers.): Yeah, we definitely didn’t calculate everything and say “hmmm… the city needs this”, it’s just always what we’ve been doing. And it’s all about building that community from the ground up with the people that really do love the music, and then to spread that love to other people.
Matt (Need & Necessity): Just putting smiles on other people’s faces.
option4: You can’t do anything by yourself. It’s as simple as that. And now we’re moving onto way bigger things. We’re pushing bigger artists from around the world, we’re not just doing us in Denver anymore. And we all believe in it, and like I said, now it’s become something that’s tangible. People are starting to know what Night Supply is.
TMN: Yeah I mean just less than a year ago you guys were mostly just playing locally. Seeing as The Music Ninja was one of the first publications to hear your guys’ music and say “Wow, this is… fucking incredible”, and since then you’ve all been insanely busy. Need & Necessity just got back from playing a show in Miami at WMC, Keepers. has been on larger eclectic bills wth the likes of Purity Ring and Giraffage, option4 just got back from NYC, WMC and SXSW and loads more. It has been really great for us to see all of the different outlets from blogs to print magazines pick up your music, but does it ever overwhelm you guys seeing all of this recent coverage when you think about where everyone was just a year ago? Let’s start with Keepers.
Colin (Keepers.): I mean I guess we really didn’t expect to all start working together in a label sense. We’d always spent time together around the parties (Peter and I) and had similar tastes, and we’d always talked about it and one day option4 suggested that we be a duo.
option4: Boss move.
Colin (Keepers.): And from that we’ve just fallen into this ridiculously amazing group of awesome people. It’s not just like we’re business or music associates either…
Peter (Keepers.): …It’s a family affair.
Colin (Keepers.) …We all love each other like we’re brothers.
Ross (Need & Necessity): We’re all really close. It’s been a long road too. So I wouldn’t say it’s overwhelming per se, and it definitely didn’t just happen out of the blue. We’ve put in the time.
Matt (Need & Necessity): We’ve definitely been grinding.
Colin (Keepers.): And we’ve had the luxuries of having the residencies we’ve had at NORAD, Beauty Bar and most recently Vinyl in Denver to really help get us out there a little more.
Peter (Keepers.): It’s definitely really surreal.
Matt (Need & Necessity): It is. Especially today at the festival.
Peter (Keepers.): Every time something cool happens it feels surreal. It seems like the next show is always getting bigger. Every single step of the way has been amazing, but certainly a gradual process.
TMN: Let’s touch on Night Supply a bit more. We’ve featured every release including your debut EP Night x Night Vol. 1 which all three of you (option4, Need & Necessity and Keepers.) were a part of. We’ve now seen an unbelievable rate of growth within the last year in just 10 releases, including Night Supply’s most recent record, the first from a non-Denver artist, which came from established NYC deep-house duo Walker & Royce who were recently tabbed as one of the almighty Pete Tong’s ‘Future Stars’. Talk to us a bit about what is coming down the pipe in the next few months or so for the label.
option4: Well we have the newest addition to our roster, Sylent EFX who’s just 18 years old. And that’s what’s so great about Night Supply now, is that it can function as a vessel to build new acts as well. That’s why I specifically organized everything, so that we could take incredible underground acts like Keepers. or N&N and we could put them in front of tons of people, potential fans really, and put them on as support with these other great artists from around the world and they’ve gained their own following just from how talented they are. Night Supply is the train we’re riding to get to our destination. And basically the whole point of this has been to build peoplewe believe in. Now this 18 year old kid sent me his first record when he was 17. I was just like “Wow, this is fresh and exciting.” And I just gave him a few tips to change in the track and told him where it could be, and nasically this light dawned on me that this kid just has amazing potential. This release will be big. It’s really an amazing tune. When I played it out at the Sweat It Out party in WMC, it just went off. And that’s one thing about being a clique of brothers and not jsut a corporate label, is that we all support and play each other’s music, and when I’ve played the new Sylent EFX track it’s just done incredibly well. I’m going on record to say that our next release will be a big one for Night Supply. I think that the kid has all the tools to have a great career, and the next time SNowball rolls through, he’s gonna be playing an awesome slot.
Well we certainly can’t wait to hear that one. What about for you guys individually. Do you have some more music coming out, whether it’s on Night Supply or any different labels? Keepers. why don’t you go first.
Colin (Keepers.) Yeah we actually have a couple of tunes we’re working on right now. We have a collaborative Keepers. and Need & Necessity tune in the works. It’s going to be really proper and we’re really excited about that. We’d like to get our track out by the end of the month.
Ross (Need & Necessity): In terms of us we have been cranking out music. WE’ve got a whple EP which will probably be on Night Supply. We’ve got a remix for a friend on a label called Strangers IN Paradise out of LOndond, we’re really proud of the remix which will drop in late May and we’re really looking forward to that. Other than that we’re going to keep pushing on Night Supply this year.
TMN: What about option4 over there? We know you’ve been keeping insanely busy.
Ross (Need & Necessity): Oh he’s got three albums, 17 remixes and 9 EP’s…
option4: I have 400 records coming out this month. No, in all seriousness I made a huge mistake, after I had a couple tracks of mine do really well I started getting hit up by all kinds of different labels, and agencies etc to do remixes. So I went from small labels to major labels, and I accepted it all and I looked at it as a paycheck because of where I was. If you come where I’m from there’s no food and you gotta eat hahaha. It’s always a struggle to make rent which you know that’s what you sacrifice when you go the artist route. So I’ve done 7 so far. I’m in town for one day so I need to actually finish the seventh one tomorrow. But I haven’t technically released anything since January, so the next release from me will probably be an original EP from me on Sweat It Out. That’s my next project. And then, I’m going to do a record for Anjunadeep. I hung out with them in Miami and they were just such good dudes, such good family.
Ross (Need & Necessty): What?!
Colin (Keepers.): When did this happen?!
option4: They’re very family oriented and that label is so strong and so credible. They hit me up and asked why we hadn’t worked together before, and I jumped at the opportunity. They’re just really inviting like Dusky and all of those guys are so family oriented it just really felt right.
You mentioned a couple of really great labels there with Sweat It Out and Anjunadeep. Are there any other record labels you guys have found as a source of inspiration, whether it’s from a business standpoint or the artists they’ve signed, tracks they’ve put out or anything else influential when you talk about building up the Night Supply blueprint?
Colin (Keepers.): Well as far as the formula goes I would say French Express. Just pushing and pumping their tunes out for free. All of our music on Night Supply comes out for free and they were one of the first house labels to really make that successful.
option4: Yeah that’s kind of the business motto for us.
Matt (Need & Necessity): That’s definitely the framework.
Well that’s why we love you boys. This one’s going to be for all of you. You al lplayed SNowball this weekend. How does the environment of a festival compare to playing to a really tuned in club audience that knows all about your stuff? Did you feel like you needed to play a bit more generic than normal or were you able to translate your sound to the crowd? Let’s start with Need & Necessity.
Matt (Need & Necessity): The festival crowd is awesome because everyone is already there to dance and just have fun, whereas at a club you kind of have to work for it a little bit more and you have to really mold and build the energy. It’s much more of a project at a club, which is really rewarding.
Ross (Need & Necessity): Everyone is already turned up to 11 at a festival and ready to go. People are always ready and the artists tend to bring it a little bit harder in the festival setting.
TMN: What about Keepers.?
Colin (Keepers.): Yeah you might have a bit more freedom in the club, especially with those opening sets. You might get a better response for going a little more left field. It’s kind of like a blank canvas you can paint to set the entire mood for the night when you’re in a club.
TMN: What about you option4?
option4: I don’t know, these guys are better festival DJ’s than me. They played great sets. I felt a lot of pressure, and it’s actually not as natural to me compared to playing in a club and honestly I prefer playing clubs by far as opposed to playing stages in general. Festivals are really different. You know I played almost a two hour set and who knows how many different acts which were bigger than me drew away the crowd. There was definitely a fluctuating number of people throughout my set. In a club, they’re there the whole time and you can take everyone on a journey and build a story. In a festival you’re awesome for thirty minutes until someone bigger comes on and there’s they roll over to another stage. My set on Friday night, I started and there were about four people on the floor, then forty minutes in we had a full tent, then another fifteen minutes after that everyone cleared out again. It’s really different than in a club because you’re going to have a good crowd as long as you’re the best option… no pun intended, at the time.
TMN: So let’s change up the pace a bit. Enough with the usual stuff… It’s been a long weekend, and with the festival and after parties going on, we’ve had the chance to witness some of the most special sets of music ever. At one of the after parties around 1 a.m., label boss option4 played b2b with one of the true legends of house music MK , which led us to start wondering. If you could play b2b for an hour with any artist in the present, who would it be and why? I’m gonna have each one of you answer this separately.
After a lengthy pause…
Colin (Keepers.): You know honestly I think I would love to go b2b with Soul Clap. They’re just so grooving. They’re like a DJ’s DJ.
Ross (Need & Necessity): Dennis Ferrer. Just straight house. That gangster jacking shit. The truth.
Matt (Need & Necessity): This might be a bit cliche, but I think I’d go with Maceo Plex. Every time that dude drops a track it’s like a nuclear bomb goes off when he drops the bass.
Peter (Keepers.): I actually am going to go with someone who played this festival. A young buck that goes by the name of Justin Jay. We opened for him before and he’s just incredible.
option4: Oh man, I think I already did it after last night with MK. That party was a level that might not ever be touched again. It was a very surreal moment, and when he ended the night with my tune “Love Like No Other” I had pure goosebumps. But if it were any artist I could choose… my style is weird right now. I would say this kid out of Australia Motez is one of the only other people with a similar sound to me right now. I would say Derek Carter, but he’s so good he’d probably kick me off the decks within twenty minutes.
TMN: What is one song that you have on your iPod, or own physically, that you would be incredibly embarrassed about if the world knew?
option4: I’m not even embarrassed about this. I like “Fly” by Sugar Ray.
Matt (Need & Necessity): “We Can’t Stop” by Miley Cyrus.
Ross (Need & Necessity): Yeah Matt and I like Miley. I would say “Party in the USA” by Miley. She’s just got it right now.
Colin (Keepers.): That’s such a good question… I think I had a Fallout Boy on my iPod unfortunately.
Peter (Keepers.): Careless Whisper.
Your entire crew has earned a bit of a reputation as crate diggers, and we typically hear tunes from Night Supply artists we wouldn’t hear anywhere else in your sets. Do you have a favorite record store in the history of time, still operating or formerly in business?
option4: Oh yeah, it was this little store called Mole 33 that’s out of business in Colorado Springs. When I first started DJ’ing, that’s where I bought all of my records. The store owner even had a private layaway crate that he would hold for me until I had enough money to buy them.
Peter (Keepers.): When I first started getting my fingers dusty was as a freshman at CU-Boulder, there was this little store called Bart’s CD Cellar that I would always go to for house music.
Ross (Need & Necessity): We don’t get to frequent too many really, but the stores in Denver specifically Twist & Shout have always been good to us.
Colin (Keepers.): I was always really in love with Independent Records on Colfax, and Angelo’s because I worked there for a while.
TMN: This is always one of our favorites as it says so much about a performer with only a simple response. What is your drink of choice while performing?
Colin (Keepers.): I guess it always ends up being a PBR.
Ross (Need & Necessity): I’m gonna go with straight Tequila shots.
Peter (Keepers.): It’s always either PBR or Fireball.
Matt (Need & Necessity): Tequila
option4: My rider for all of my shows is just a 12 pack of OBR and two towels. I have the easiest and cheapest rider of any artist I know.
Ross (Need & Necessity): His rider costs like $17 .00.
option4: Except it costs like $700.00 in Miami.
TMN: If your DJ sets were an animal. Which animal would it be and why?
Ross (Need & Necessity): Oh my God… Hyena. You know Hyenas are vicious and aggressive, but you’re having a great fucking time.
Colin (Keepers.): The bear is my spirit animal so…
Peter (Keepers.): It would be a bear for Colin and then…
Colin (Keepers.): It needs to be something weird for you Peter. Like a duck-billed platypus
Peter (Keepers.): Something like the Pika Squirrel…
option4: What the hell is a Pika Squirrel?!
Peter (Keepers.): Because they’re endangered in Colorado and they’re friends with bears.
TMN: You’ve just blown our minds guys. What about option4 over there?
option4: I don’t know what is my music like?.. A little emotive and bassy. Something like…
Peter (Keepers.): An overweight dolphin maybe?
option4: Wow, well I guess if I were to choose anything it would be an overweight dolphin then…
TMN: Last question. Let’s keep it simple. What has been your favorite performance at Snowball this weekend?
option4: I think I’m missing most of it right now, but it’s probably going to be Rufus Du Soul. No, but honestly I’m surprised to say it but Bones has been the best set I’ve seen so far. He was able to take a crowd and really work it hard. And Waveracer was really cool too.
Peter (Keepers.): I hate to sound biased to the Dirtybird crew, and I know I mentioned him already, but I’m probably gonna call out Justin Jay.
Ross (Need & Necessity): Justin Jay.
Matt (Need & Necessity): Probably either Justin Jay or MK. I just love that euphoric vocal house that MK has been putting out lately. It really gets everybody in the right state of mind for something like Snowball.
Colin (Keepers.): I think MK’s set was definitely really fun and then Need & Necessity really killed it today too.
TMN: Nice. Well thank you guys so much for taking the time to sit down with us, it’s been a blast. We can’t wait to see what’s in store from your whole crew and you know we’re going to be covering most everything you guys do so thanks again!
All: Shout out to The Music Ninja! We love you guys!
Photographs Courtesy of Dante Cerda-Walker
