Dr Blogs - Creativity, Love & Music w/ Eris Drew & Octo Octa
We sat down in East London to talk about creative processes, musical influences, and remarkable stories with Eris Drew and Octo Octa.
Over a few hours, the exchange explores taste making journeys that have led them to their revered position today as turntablists, educators, authors, producers, and more.
Octo Octa - referred to as Maya
Eris Drew - referred to as Eris
Interviewer - referred to as Felix
Felix: What’s one of the first songs you have a strong memory of?
Eris: For me… it’s gotta be… CJ and Company - Devil’s Gun.
[Eris sings a short part of the chorus]
My parents were disco dancing in the late 70s and 80s… I was only a little kid, maybe 3 or 4 years old and they had a hi-fi and record player. We were in Minnesota and it had a good music scene. CJ and Company were a soul, funk and disco band from Detroit and Tom Moultan did this production.It starts with spooky kinda sci-fi synths and it’s got this amazing cover too. I would sit on the floor when my parents danced and it’s a fond memory. That was a romantic time in their lives and we would listen on these big old wooden speakers. It took a lot of power to get them going but when you did, the sound was really amazing.
Maya: Gosh… for me I think… Human League - Filling up with heaven.
It’s off their album Octopus. I remember my dad had a copy of it and I loved it cause it sounded like gameboy music. It’s an album where they went back to all analogue, really bright, wonderful melody and the vocals on top of everything are so great. Oh and also those remixes, like the Hardfloor ones, they’re awesome. I found them later on.
Felix: You’re both known as vinyl DJs. Have you ever questioned vinyl as a medium?
Eris: There was a time period around 2009 where I tried Serato…
[Maya interjects]
Maya: Bare in mind, Eris has been DJing since 1994.
[Eris continues]
Eris: Yeah I’ve been DJing for a long time, so I learned on records.
Then Serato came around and I think I played a set or two using that and a set or two on CDJs in the mid to late 2000s. It just didn’t capture my imagination, it was kinda clunky and awkward. I have such such a love affair with my records, the friendships around them, playing with friends, and associating them with wonderful places.
Around that time I only had a few gigs a year locally, but then it became a point of pride as turntables started getting neglected, being used as laptop stands and stuff. I don’t think of myself as a vinyl elitist, it’s just my tool.
At some point the records became like artefacts, like a talisman, and they would remind me of different times and people. I like to interact with that through the process of playing them.
Maya: So, Eris’ collection is organised by year of release. That’s how she sees them which I think is quite unique and particular.
Eris: Yeah, thinking of the years, and what connects music from different time periods has a lot to do with technology that was available and the ways people interacted with it.
For example, if you listen to an early hardcore track, or a hip hop track from that time period - Take the Jungle Brothers for example - they’re using samplers in similar ways, the mixdown focused a lot on the midrange, those are things that I can associate with different eras and that’s why I arrange them in that way.
Felix: What about you Maya? Have you ever questioned vinyl?
Maya: I started on records when I was really young. I got a pair of Numark belt drives. Friends of mine were in bands at the time, and some of the bands I liked, such as Incubus for example, had a DJ - so I wanted to be a DJ for my friends’ bands.
Where I grew up there weren’t really dance records - so I loved the music but I was just getting records occasionally when I could find them and trying to learn to play them on a pair of belt drive turntables, which are a nightmare to try and DJ on!
Then I was at a show and some friends there had a drum machine and a synthesiser, and that got me interested in producing which I did for a long time. Some time after I got to New York and finally got access to record shops with dance music.
I used money from a gig back then to buy a pair of Technics 1200mkII. This was 2012 and then I really started practising. For some years, I was touring live, and just practising DJing at home. So then… When I did start playing out, it was on records, but when I was touring live it was too much to take all the live gear and also records with me.
For a while I tried DJing digital, but like Eris, it just wouldn't work for me for similar reasons. The records were artefacts, they were more fun to play, they gave me more than looking at a track on a screen.
Eris: Maya and I have dedicated the last 6 years of touring to building a dedicated technical rider that really makes sure we have a good setup for playing records. All the way down to how the stages are built.
Maya: Yeah, I mean, we go to soundchecks for every gig - so we’ll fly in early, sometimes even skip sleep just to make sure we can go there for the soundcheck. We do everything to make sure it’s possible. It’s worth it.
Felix: Do you find with some of the highs of DJing, it can leave you with a numbness to day-to-day life?
Eris: That can happen… yeah, it can happen.
Maya: Doing performance, and especially for club music - it’s so ephemeral and in the moment.
Eris: I think most of the time we still do get really excited.
Maya: One thing that’s neat about doing this is that I can still be consistently surprised about spaces and places. We’re always looking forward to each gig and each one has the potential for these amazing moments.
Felix: With music, fashion, culture there are these cycles over the years - something’s cool, then it’s gone. But, wait twenty years, thirty years, and things come back. Do you ever feel a pressure to stay on top of trends?
Eris: One of the reasons I started touring was that I had a very open approach to music. I’d been collecting for 23 years before I did my RA mix and started touring internationally in late 2017.
That was because I was from Chicago and was buying records at a time when they were really faceless objects. It’s not that they didn’t have a design, they just didn’t say much about where it came from or what it was. Our record store, Gramaphone, which is still here - it had a great imports section.
House comes from Chicago and it developed there and it did so, not because someone said ‘let there be house!’. That’s the mythology, right.. but the truth is that people were playing italo records with certain electro records, particular types of disco records, new beat, detroit stuff and new york stuff and even early warp records. So, as house moved out of its early phase in the mid 80s, that mixture continued.
When I started going to parties in like 93’/94’, you were hearing records by Dutch artists, like The Trancesetters, mixed alongside Sheffield records, Bleep records, Warp records, mixed with Chicago Jack Trax, mixed with Jeff Mills records. All this was mixed together.
We were just looking for what we called ‘Trax’, you know… really cool ‘trax’.
Even when we heard the first minimal records, like the first playhouse records or the first Villalobos records, we were like “That’s trax, that shit's cool.” It was like, broken down house.
So my collection includes the things I could find that had a cool vibe regardless of genre.
For example, I never heard of UK Garage as a distinct UK style and pronunciation until someone pointed it out to me - how Americans say Garage vs how the UK say Garage. I had all these UK records I just thought of as fast house. To me Garage (said the American way) was vocal stuff with that east coast sound. But it felt natural to mix it all up and still does. Letting go of the philosophy of naming or labelling has helped get me where I am today.
I shop every section in the record store. I just wanna hear cool stuff. To me, staying current isn’t to try and be contemporary, I just do it because I want to find new things.
Felix: At the centre of this music scene, there’s a huge amount of love. I say ‘love’ because I associate that feeling with not needing someone to change. We may want certain things for them, but ultimately, if it’s love - we can truly accept them.
Are there other scenes or communities outside of music that carry this same kind of love at their core? If so, which ones?
Eris: Music is the only thing I’ve really found that has that.
Felix: If you weren’t DJing - what do you think would you be doing?
Eris: I guess we are other things. I am a writer, and we both like teaching - so we talk a lot about what the future holds. If I was out of the music industry I’d probably go back and do a PhD in music and culture to be honest, or work with animals.
Maya: Yeah, we’d definitely run an animal sanctuary if we weren’t DJing. The other thing I’d be doing is education. I love music education and I make a lot of guides, we both do, and we have them up on our site.
Eris: However… our unofficial answers would be that I would run a cafe and Maya would be a locksmith.
[Both of them laugh]
Maya: Yeah when I was a teenager I was interested in computers and hacking. But I loved pen-testing stuff, like physical pen-testing stuff and that involved picking locks.
[Maya asks me if we’re going off topic, but she looks and Eris and I who are both smiling, and then carries on]
I’ve had an offer for a job to do that but I couldn’t take it cause I was touring. The industry itself is really old, and undergoing some changes.
These days when someone comes round to pick your lock they’re actually using something called a bumpkey which vibrates and destroys your lock basically rather than actually picking it. The trade itself isn’t being taught much anymore.
Felix: What do you do to try and take care of yourselves?
Maya: I need to take better care of myself. We’re trying to do that more. I think you’re a little better at it than I am. [Maya looks to Eris]
Eris: I always feel like I could do better as well. It’s hard touring a lot and getting older and stuff. But… when I’m in my studio, that’s a different experience than a great DJ set.
Maya: Wiggle time.
[Both smile]
Eris: Yeah we call it ‘wiggle time’ because of our friend Glenna (DJ sold) - they say “Eris, get your wiggle time in."It’s time when you’re not trying to get something done, like a mix, or a song, or a project. Maya plays Mountain Dulcimer which isn’t something she uses to make albums or anything. We have an electric piano in the living room which I like to sit down at when I need my wiggle time. Those chords just disappear into the ether.
Spending time in nature is also important to us. We live in a very beautiful place, but so much of our time is spent in hotels and airports - intense human spaces… We need less time confronted by humanity and more time in nature. That would be helpful.
Felix: DJs have some really uniquely wonderful experiences but they also have to make unique sacrifices. Can you tell me how that has looked for you?
Eris: It’s hard. You’re never home. You always feel behind. We’ve always got a to-do list that’s pages and pages long. Now, we find ourselves saying no to things that a couple of years ago we would have been like yes! yes!… like someone wants a remix now, for example, and I’ve gotta say no.
I’d like to spend more time with my friends. We just went to my friend's wedding and they had to let me know a year in advance, and even then it was still quite difficult to pull it off. We always say they’re good problems to have, I don’t wanna sound ungrateful or anything. I just miss being around for the casual times.
Maya: Yeah we live 45 minutes from my parents, and Eris’s live a 2-day drive away but we still haven’t seen either of our parents very often.
Eris: For those who don't know Maya and I are partners in music but we’re also lovers and very committed to each other and in this very serious relationship - we get to share this life together. The high moments and the low moments.
In that first year I did a lot of touring it was kinda weird to have these experiences, amazing experiences, and not be able to share them with anyone. You come back home and people ask what you’ve been up to and I’m like - I DJ’d here, I DJ’d here, but I mean, what can you say?!
Felix: Can you remember a standout moment from the last few years when you had to pinch yourself?
Felix: I wanted to ask you about something you both wrote in an RA Newsletter:
“Body’s began to meld and sway in powerful but gentle harmony, which reminded us of something we could only observe in nature - like birds in flight. There was an uncoerced coordination and beauty.”
Eris: The uncoerced part is important. You think of people in motion together and you think of people marching together in military or people being asked to stand up at the same time at a formal gathering. The idea that people would all move together like that, but still have such freedom within it is beautiful. Like we were saying before, if you were an alien looking down you’d see a structure to the movement, a pattern.
Maya: It was this true moment of seeing such a unified left to right motion. It was an experience of everyone being so locked in that you just don't see.
Eris: I remember the song as well. It was a DJ Icey track… Everyone was swaying to the boom and the bap and the boom and the bap. It’s so compressed in there… Panorama Bar is not a big space actually, and to see everyone just moving together in an area that would feel uncomfortable to most people, or uncomfortable normally. Yet, once everyone ends up in motion together it becomes this organism. It was cool to see… the music just hitting that hard.
