The Vandals : Interview

Last Updated on Thursday, 20 August 2009 18:08 Written by Utility Man Wednesday, 01 July 2009 15:08

Horny Gimps

Coming together in a mutual love affair with ‘hip hop, hip house, blog house, fidget, Baltimore, indie, rock, pop, ghetto, tech and even electro’, Sydney DJ duo The Vandals - Vu and Handles - love to dish out party mayhem. Vu fills us in on what makes an ideal party.

Describe to us your ideal night of party mayhem - does it involve gimps and monkeys? My partner in dance is Handles, who is a complete gimp. And seeing as though our ideal night of party mayhem includes each other, I guess the answer to the question is yes.

With the passing of the King of Pop, will you be throwing any Michael Jackson tunes into your set at Monastery this weekend?

We like to play Justin Timberlake in every set.

Your bio talks about 'conflicting fashion sense'. What’s been your biggest fashion crime?

Biggest crime was getting caught stealing shit when I was in London.

How did you two first cross paths?

Walking.

Away from the decks, do you two hang out? C'mon, tell us you like to take long walks on the beach and play checkers together!!

We both live at Bondi Beach, so long walks along the beach are part of our daily ritual. We're both shit at checkers but prefer to drink French red wine from the south of the east valley in Bordeaux and recite poetry to one another instead.

You guys spin an eclectic range of party music - is it all about the party for you fellows, rather than making the perfect mix?

Well, we both hate watching DJs that look like they’re checking their emails, even if their mixing is tighter than a nun's downstairs. But then, a bad mix is always going to be bad, no matter how good the two tracks are. So to answer your question, mixing is important, track selection is important, and it is vitally important to have the crowd wake up scratching their heads as to what happened last night. One might say that these three elements work in juxtaposition to ensure the perfect munt.

Incorporating horns/sirens into DJ sets is coming back big-time - do you guys endorse this?

Handles is prone to getting the proverbial horn poking out his pants mid-set. It once got so bad I had to call the police.

And what is the ideal horn sound - fire truck or air raid?

Air raid.

Lastly, how do you deal with DJ groupies - it can't be easy now ...

Group sex.

The Vandals play Monastery July 4.