Over the course of the last several years, dance music has gone from relative obscurity to the main stages across the world. Everything from trap music to techno, and everything in between, has risen to prominence on all seven continents, Antartica included. What makes dance music such a unique concept, is what can come out of it. Sounds we've never heard of, synthetic sounds mixed with instruments, new music with old music, and that is exactly what Robbie Bergin aka Throttle has accomplished.
Developing a sound all his own, Dirty Disco is that unique blend of what we as listeners want to here, mixed with ideas based in the 1970's. Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, the youngster took a different route from the Melbourne Bounce scene, and is slowly building a world wide fanbase for that exact reason.
We got to sit down with the rising star fresh off of his live performance at Tomorrowland and right before his set at Governors Island, in New York City. This is one Australian, you need to watch out for, and damn was this one fun interview to conduct.
Check out the whole interview below and let us know what you think!
1: So what’s up sir, how’s everything going on this fine Sunday afternoon?
Every things going well brother! Just got to the island a little while ago and honestly its insane. First time being back in New York City since EDC NY, and I have butterflies in my stomach, but hey I guess that’s good a thing.
2: What was it, like literally a week ago, I was watching the live stream and got to see Ollie come onstage and do his thing at tomorrow land. And low and behold, you came on stage and jammed out on the guitar. What was that experience like and how do you kind of channel that energy, to eventually get to that level?
Literally like two days ago I was in Europe and now I’m here. Funny enough, I have only been playing guitar for around two months now and to be honest, I was super nervous. Had a little jam session back stage with my Headphones in than hit the stage, but when I actually got out there, the only real thought in my head was holy s**t balls, this is insane!
3: So you’ve done live shows before, broke out the guitar at EDC New York and incorporated that into your set. Moving forward, how do you foresee yourself, incorporating that live element into your sets? And do you see yourself, bringing out other individuals to play live with?
It is something I want to gradually incorporate within my sets, but it’s definitely a process. Tonight I’ll actually have a guy come up on stage with me and play a live trumpet, and I do the guitar obviously. The goal is to incorporate a whole host of different sounds, from bells, to horns, to the guitar, and eventually vocals.
There are so many underlying factors that really play into my live sets like the venue, who I’m with, booking fees, etc. But within the next five years, my ultimate goal is pointing towards a full band DJ set hybrid sort of thing.
4: So obviously a big thing for you as an artist is the vibe that you present. And what’s become super evident with you is that you have a deep love for disco and music produced back in the 70’s. As an artist, how do you find yourself incorporating those sorts of vibes and sound, while also reaching out to the newer generation of music lovers?
Well my music as a whole goes around the vibe of Dirty Disco. It is a combination of the magic and the fun of seventy’s, but also the dirtiness and the grit of the EDM scene that the kids love now of days. It really is just the grit, it’s that sound and vibe that wasn’t available in that type of music back in the seventy’s, but also incorporates the ideas and sounds that I love. This newer generation of music lovers, specifically dance fans, music leaves so much open for interpretation and that’s where I find my music going.
It’s a magical thing when you can incorporate multiple things that you love into one specific thing. There is a lot of different takes on the direction of disco EDM, but I definitely feel I’m pointing in the direction of disco house.
5: The Melbourne bounce sound has been popular in the US dance scene for some time, but it seems more recently that artists from Australia making very unique and different sounding music have been breaking into mainstream popularity here as well. Do you see more artists out of Australia continuing that trend and whom should we be looking out for?
It’s a tough one to be honest, especially with the current state of nightlife in Melbourne. It’s really difficult for a lot of them to break right now because of what’s going on. One of my favorites right now goes by the name of Dirg. But at the end of the day, what I am truly focusing on is the state of my current music. With traveling and touring, its become a lot easier for me to get my sound out there, and until these guys have the ability to break free from the Melbourne scene, it’s going to be tough for a lot of them.
The mainstream Australian sound in the United States still heavily focuses on Melbourne bounce, but I think within the next year or so, you’ll see a lot of these guys break free from Australia and really start pushing their music on a more global scale.
6: So with the democratic national convention just wrapping up, lets bring it back a few months to when your team was asked by the Clinton campaign to use your song “Together”. What was that like and do you believe you are the reason why she won the nomination?
It was honestly crazy and nothing that we ever really expected. At first we thought it was fake naturally, but after some investigative work, we realized that this was a legit email. And from there, my manager began posting all this sort of stuff on my socials, and it blew up from there.
We got a lot of blog coverage and we even got television coverage, I had to slap myself a few times to realize like is this real? Well it was, and from there we used it as a launching point to push “September”, which eventually broke into the top 50 on iTunes in Australia. Unfortunately, Hilary never took us up on our offer for her to come to my show in DC, but we aren’t giving up hope just yet! If Obama can go to concerts, so can Hilary.
7: So over the past 12 months, you’ve come out with what seemingly is like hit after hit. Let’s jump back to your release with Oliver Helden’s, “Waiting”. What was it like getting into the studio with Ollie and over the course of this tour, how he has he mentored you or helped you with your production style and sound?
Well we’ve been in touch now for over three years, long before this track ever became an idea. It was just a constant back and forth for the two of us, looking for advise on our own personal ideas. So by the time right idea came around, we were so comfortable around each other, the process just played itself out.
It was a tough one production wise because we did most of the track online. With touring schedules and what not, it was really the only way we could figure out how to get this track done. We eventually got into the Studio in LA, and by the time the track was pretty much finished.
But what is so great about all this is what you pick up from one another. Ollie does his thing one way, I do mine another, but in order to become a better producer, you need to pick things up from each other, and that’s exactly what I was able to do.
8: Awesome man, so we obviously got to ask. Tell me about what’s in the works? Or what you can tell me about what’s in the works, don’t want to get you in trouble!
The vocal version of “Money Maker” is just about finished as well as the Music Video. And to be perfectly honest, I’ve never really done music videos before, but this one just seems right and I am so excited to release it. There is a lot of nudity in it, and I do make a few cameos within it, so that’s pretty cool. I’ve got a new track with Niko the Kid, who just played a little while ago and a lot of new music!
9: Give me one fun fact your fans don’t know about you?
I actually sing, not singing on any of my tracks just yet, but that is definitely in the works over the next few years!
