I Heart the Music: Your Online Source for Live Music Reviews and Interviews in Toronto!

If the name 84.85 isn’t familiar to you, don’t be mad.  These two dudes are seemingly flying right under most people’s radar.  While most take the express lane to success, Jay and Cass are taking their time with things, allowing themselves to work out every kink as they hone their craft and make sure you lose your minds when you do finally hear them.  But don’t call them electro-rap – these two are straight hip-hop heads who just have the need to make you dance.  While that may be too much for hip-hop fans to take in, don’t worry about it – the dirty basslines and faster-than-usual tempo shouldn’t stop you from giving props where props are due.

iheartthemusic sat down for a less-than-typical interview.  This wasn’t a Q & A; it was a conversation between a few people over a couple of drinks to get a better sense of where they come from.  So while some questions remain, you get a better insight into who they are and what they want you to feel when you’re ripping up on the dance floor with your hands in the air.

iheartthemusic: You guys have found that balance between doing shows frequently, but just enough to build an anticipation to your next show.  Few peeps can really boast that.

Jay: Well, everyone thinks playing more shows equals success, but what we realized is when Cass moved back to Ottawa and we started to get booked more, playing twice a month or whenever he’d come back [to Toronto], half our fans and friends would come to each of them.  They know we’re playing again.  So for the past 4 or 5 months, we’ve played one show [a month].  One show and make an event out of it.  Make sure it gets press, make sure we have a photographer there, and make sure that at each of those shows is a huge event.  I don’t want to play the Social, Wrongbar and the Drake every week.  Maybe as a DJ, yeah.  But for us – one show a month and make it fucking crazy.

iheartthemusic: Your last few shows have gone really well for you guys.  When I saw you at the Boat, I showed up for the last 2 songs, but it was nuts!

Cass: Well that’s the best part.  For the last few months, we changed our sets to have “40 and a Fistfight” first, because everyone shuts up – especially with the “Billie Jean” sample at the beginning.  Then we tear it back down after and build all the way back up.

iheartthemusic: The other thing too is that you guys have so many choruses that are just so catchy, and you end up getting people to sing along to words they didn’t even know before they showed up that night.

Cass: When we started working together, 90% of the music we made was chorus-less because I thought I didn’t know how to write a chorus.

Jay: And I wouldn’t let him.  I’d be like “Ok, let’s do like a 4 bar instrumental thing, we don’t need choruses.”

Cass: I just always thought choruses were really hard to write, but they’re not.

iheartthemusic: And it’s funny to hear how those choruses have made their way around – I remember when TMDP had their CD release party, they started with a sample of “40 and a Fistfight’s” chorus.

Jay: Funny story about that is we gave them the acapella, and we never got a remix from them, they just started using it in their live show.  So, when they played Circa for the NOW Sounds of Toronto show, Barletta was there because Mansion was playing that night as well, and he saw what happened when TMDP played it.  I got a call at 2 in the morning from Barletta saying, “I NEED the stems from 40 and a Fistfight.”  Days later, he sent us 2 remixes. We get played a ton in Toronto, but it’s not us, it’s Barletta’s edit.

Cass: It’s super hard, too.  When I first heard it, I was like “holy fuck.”  Barletta’s actually a really supportive person in this scene.

iheartthemusic: Absolutely, and I think everyone in Toronto is very supportive of each other – going to each other’s shows and showing a lot of respect to one another.

Cass: That’s the thing – when people talk shit about Toronto, I get really pissed off.  The music scene here is unbelievable.  It’s unbelievable to see how supportive everyone is.  Everyone wants to help; everyone wants to throw in two cents.

Jay: But you’ve gotta be putting it down, though.

Cass: That’s true.  Especially these days where anyone can go on their computer and bang something out.

Jay: When we first started making music in Ottawa, and I moved back to Toronto, neither of us really knew what we were doing.  We had tracks but we didn’t know whether they were that good yet, but they weren’t ready.

Cass: They were recorded so badly.

Jay: People were really nice to me about it, but no one was willing to put us on.  To this day, we’re not really known for the highest quality audio out there; we’re known for putting on a pretty good live show.

Cass: That’s really the science that we’re messing with right now – how do we capture our live show and put it on a record?

iheartthemusic: Speaking of the scene in Toronto, it’s always good to see some collaborative efforts amongst local artists, and I heard that you’ve done a couple of verses on some TapeDeckBros. tracks.

Cass: Well me and the TapeDeck guys are working on something right now, and I think we’re gonna start with 1 track, but I was telling Ash that when I come back to Toronto, I’m gonna try and spend more time with him and work on more stuff.  It’s cool collaborating with other people.  It can be hard to work with anyone but Jay sometimes, because my entire experience of making music has been with Jay.  He knows how to get good shit out of me.

Jay: But it’s important to work with other people.  I support that 100%, just as Cass supports me doing remixes for other artists.  I mean, I love those TapeDeck guys.

Cass: I’m really impressed with their work ethic.  They came out the gate hard, and they’re throwing down as hard as they can.  That’s what it’s about.

ihearthemusic: Listening to your tracks, there are definitely a lot of influences that come through.

Cass: I think it’s important to pay respects to where you came from, and I know where I came from.  I know what I grew up listening to.  Two artists that have stayed with me since I was around 14 are Jay-Z and Mos Def. You’ve got a very talented commercial side and a very talented artistic side, and my goal is to be somewhere between them.  But your influences always change because we’re always listening to different music.  Last year, I listened to so much hard electronic music.

Jay: That’s a funny thing for us too, because we were both hip-hop kids growing up, and other things just snuck in.  I was listening to the same stuff Cass was listening to, but then got into jazz, funk and soul through hip-hop samples.  Cass also had a sister who was really big into punk, and so Cass might’ve gotten a bit of a punk influence through that.  But at the end of the day, we were just two hip-hop kids and that’s all we really listened to.  When we started doing dance music and listening to dance music, we realized “wait, what happened to the hip-hop?”  So when you hear songs where we slow it down a bit, it’s because we’re still a hip-hop act.

Cass: We can still make people dance at 90 BPM; it doesn’t have to be at 130.  And don’t get me wrong; I love the fast stuff – like Bass Live, for example.  I don’t even have to rap on that.  People lose their minds when that comes on, but it’s nice to slow it down, and it’s nice to add different dynamics to the set because you want to give people different sides to your music.

Jay: It was a couple of months ago that we realized that a lot of the stuff we’re making now isn’t really electro.  All the old stuff like “40 and a Fistfight,” “Breathe,” and “Don’t Worry” were all distorted bass lines and what not.  Now the stuff we’re making involve big drums, samples and that sort of thing.  I slowly stopped doing electro remixes because I realized that that wasn’t what I was about – I’m a hip-hop producer who’s doing dance music.

iheartthemusic: If you go back and listen to “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force, that’s an entirely different sound, but it’s still classified as hip-hop.

Jay: Exactly, and those are the roots of hip-hop.  I was reading an interview with Egyptian Lover, and they asked him “how does it feel to be the pioneer of electro?”  His response basically described that as much as he appreciated being considered the pioneer of the genre, that’s not what he set out to do.  He was making rap music in Detroit in the 80’s, and that’s the sound that came from that.  They weren’t making a different genre; to them, it was rap music.  That’s kind of what it’s about for us.

Cass: We’re at the point where people are trying to call us ‘electro-rap.’  Really?  This is hip-hop!  There’s a DJ and an MC, and yeah, some of it’s fast, but it’s still hip-hop to us.

iheartthemusic: So with this new lane that you guys are making for yourselves, is there an album coming?

Cass: I think the problem with us is that I feel very ambitious about an album, but I think it’s better for us to go on singles until we make the album we want to make.  I want to make something epic.  An album is meant to be your masterpiece.  It should be mind blowing, and it should be meant to be heard front to back.

Jay: We’re putting out an EP that we’ll be selling at shows starting July 17^th, but I totally agree with what Cass says.  We come from an era of albums, even though the market right now is very single-focused.  Right now, everything we’re doing is for our live show – that’s our bread and butter.  Every track we make is to contribute to the illest live show we can put on.  We’re all about paying dues.  Hip-hop was started as a live art.  There weren’t records cut when hip-hop was started.  That’s where we’re at right now.  We’re only known for our live set – that’s how we come up.  So, by the time an album comes out, we’ve already done as many shows as possible and we know how to rock it – I don’t think a lot of artists have that these days.

IF you’re still not convinced, don’t hesitate to check the 84.85 as they tear up Wrongbar this Friday, July 17^th, AND as an added bonus to the weekend, Jay will be doing a special DJ set as his alter ego, Lucy ‘Lo, spinning some real deep house at Sneaky Dee’s on Saturday, July 18th. You’re guaranteed to see iheartthemusic at both of those shows, so come holla on the dance floor.

Photos by Patricio Estebar and Amy Young.

In person and off the tables, Barletta comes across as a pretty unassuming guy; a quick glance at him wouldn’t draw you to the conclusion that he’s one of Canada’s hottest dance music exports, or that he’s half of powerhouse duo Mansion… but indeed he is! iheartthemusic got the chance to chat with the star-in-the-making about the whirlwind success he’s been getting and his plans to help Toronto reach a whole new level in dance music (bring us up to 11, if you catch our drift).

iheartthemusic: You’ve been a busy guy lately, you’ve been releasing music on a consistent basis for the last couple of years and now you’re on tour for the month of May. Are you getting worn out?

Barletta: No. Honestly I’m just riding the hype as much as I can and having a lot of fun. All the shows are awesome and the kids are gnarly as shit.

iheartthemusic: You’re headed to California too, right?

Barletta: Yeah, I’m doing a couple of dates in LA and a couple of dates in Mexico.

iheartthemusic: Is that your first time heading down there?

Barletta: Yeah, it’ll be my first time in LA ever. Other than that, I’ve only played in New York as far as the U.S. goes.

iheartthemusic: You’re on tour promoting the Panther EP. Describe Panther for someone who hasn’t heard it yet.

Barletta: I’d say it’s pretty dance floor banger-ish. I’m really into super heavy baselines that make girls take their clothes off and gets people dancing. Just fun party music is what I classify that EP as. Shit for people to get down to, which is essential the club scene right now. That’s what I really wanted to convey – something that was super fun, really base heavy that anyone could jam out and have a great time to.

iheartthemusic: You’ve been getting a lot of love since you stepped onto the scene – a search on Hype Machine pulls up 10 pages worth of your music. How does it feel to be getting such a positive response for your work?

Barletta: It’s totally rewarding – I mean, doing a lot of self-promoting and letting the music speak for itself is fairly rewarding. I’m taken aback when big DJs like Crookers are playing my tracks. It gives me that much more inspiration and honestly, I’m totally doing it for the music and for the love of making music and I feel like it’s something that I have to get out on a regular basis. Like, I’ve gotta make a track a week.

iheartthemusic: Well you want to keep the momentum going, right?

Barletta: Yeah, keep up the hype, you know?

iheartthemusic: Your remixes of Meech’s “Bottom of the Fourth” and Steve Angello’s “Leave The World Behind”, as well as your own track “Fire + Gold” have a very different style compared to to earlier Barletta tracks. Do you feel like that kind of positive response lets you experiment a little more?

Barletta: Totally, but I find it a process of maturing. Like, I totally love the party music and the party scene, but I definitely think there is more to offer. I’m drawing a lot of inspiration from acts like Jessie Vendetta, Deadmau5 and a lot more progressive artists that still give an edge to their music, which is appealing to people who really want to thrash out, but also incorporate elements that are very sombre and thought-provoking. You kind of get the best of both worlds. Like Deadmau5’s Ghosts and Stuff has moments where people are having a great time, but also has those breaks that gives moments to reflect. I view it as a progression, but I’ll never lose that amped up, I-wanna-party vibe. It’s just a very natural progression for me.

iheartthemusic: Your Bass Live EP was dope. How important was it for you to get a hand from local acts and get that Toronto flavour?

Barletta: I think it’s important to embrace all that Toronto has to offer. Like Syntonics, for instance, one of the very first remixes I made ever was a Syntonics track – huge props to Barbi and Mitchell for introducing me to everybody in the scene. Barbi is like the godmother DJ of Toronto, so I credit a lot to her and her promoting my shit. So, I feel like whenever I see an act out of Toronto that’s fucking hot, I’ll totally remix their stuff. And when you think of different places like New York, for instance, you think Armand Van Helden, Drop The Lime and AC Slater. You have those names to associate with that city, and I want it to be like that here. Like, who do you think of when you think of Toronto?

iheartthemusic: I think Barletta, TMDP…

Barletta: Right, TMDP, Syntonics, the 84.85, GoldenGirls – all those cats are hype. Toronto has a lot to offer and I think that we just need to step up and put shit out. We definitely have a lot of potential and we have to exploit it, and make ourselves known as that fucking city.

iheartthemusic: You’ve scored a couple of official remixes for big names like LAZRtag, among others. How does it feel to be getting props from acts that you’re a fan of and look up to?

Barletta: It’s really exciting, rewarding and humbling for people to approach me to do a remix, and I wish someday to be in their shoes.

iheartthemusic: What’s one of your favourite tracks that you’ve done so far?

Barletta: Fuck, I hate all my music.

iheartthemusic: Ah, don’t say that!

Anna V.: What about Pizza Hut and Taco Bell? [Laughs] I love those Das Racist guys.

iheartthemusic: That’s definitely one of my faves.

Barletta: Ok, yeah – Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

iheartthemusic: Last question – what’s next for you in ‘09?

Barletta: I don’t know, world domination? Touring my ass off, no sleep, vices of many different kinds, and I don’t know, worldwide success.

Worldwide success is a big dream. However, following his blistering set that had a sold-out crowd sweating out their problems like nobody’s business, we came to realize that that dream is closer for Barletta than most think. All eyes were on the fresh-faced DJ as he tore through the dirtiest, grimiest tracks Wrongbar’s sound system could bear. With every epic break came the crowd’s demand for more, peaking at the drop of Klaas’ remix of Jean Elan’s “Where’s Your Head At?” that had everyone yelling the chorus – and with every cheer, Barletta got more and more into it, begging the crowd to enjoy it as much as he was.

With his sharp blends, an electric stage presence and song selection that was second to none, Barletta had Wrongbar in the palm of his hand. Anyone thinking of jumping into this city’s electronic music scene needs to take notes – Toronto’s best DJ isn’t letting go of his crown anytime soon.

Written by Sebastian Galvez

Photography provided by Amy Young