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Pee Wee Ferris Interview
Ministry of Sound Top 25 Most Influencing People in Australia 2001, Juice Magazine 2000 - Top 25 DJ's in the World, 1993 - 1995 DJ Magazine: Top 100 DJ's in the World, Two tours of China, The first Australian DJ to play in South Africa. In his almost two decade spanning career he has played alongside the likes of Carl Cox, Paul Van Dyk, Paul Oakenfold, The Prodigy, Moby, Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, Sasha and Fatboy Slim. I'm talking about Peewee Ferris. And who says our local talent aren't as good as the international jetset crew?
Peewee started mixing at an early age inspired by the skills of his older brothers. The baby of his family, his never-ending search for obscure music has since become a life passion. “My brother [Stephen] used to DJ before me,” he explains. “But I didn’t like what he played! So I was more influenced by the more underground sounds at the time and no-one was playing it… I got involved because I couldn’t hear it anywhere!” I put to him that he must now be thankful that there is such a large audience for his ‘sound’ out there but he indicates that whilst he's happy about it he also finds it to be a problem. “The larger the audience gets, the more records there are, then the harder it is to find something ‘new’” he states. “I listen to everything that comes in, 200 – 300 records a week. You can only find so many that are new or exciting or whatever…you’re limited. If you find that one that’s the ‘one’ then because there’s such a big market, they’ll [the record store] have a few of them!”
Peewee.com is the latest release from Peewee Ferris. The Cd which is released on the Down Underground label, is what Peewee describes as ‘upfront techno’ . “It’s really current,” Peewee tells me. “We get it out really quickly… a lot of the tracks on there are what I’ve been playing [lately] and am still playing, so that’s really good… Rarely that happens, but the turn around time is so fast…it works really well and [the sound] is just ‘me’ in a big club”. I ask Peewee how he chose the tracks that appear on the compilation. “[There’s] more of my underground big hits… tracks that are big to me,” he responds indicating that he tends to go for tracks that no-one else is playing and that sound best on a really loud sound system. “Luckily I tend to play on really big [sound] systems,” he says wryly.
I ask Peewee what it is about his sublime@home residency that keeps him challenged. Peewee has been with the club night since the mid 90’s and when one thinks of ‘Voodoo’ they immediately think of Peewee, Nik Fish and Jumping Jack – their names are synonymous with the brand. “The challenge is always new music and not necessarily the gig, “ he tells me. “I work with music a lot but I don’t “listen” [to it]. I listen when I work. So that is the challenge”. He then goes onto to tell me that as you never know how a track will be received you are constantly testing your instincts and natural reaction and taste in music. “You don’t know what it’s [a track] gonna do or if it’s gonna work, so you do go ‘should I do that?’” Cheekily I ask whether he often drops a track that just doesn’t go over that well. ‘Not that often and if it is then I get out [of the situation] very quickly!” he laughs.
His heightened profile in the last few years has seen Peewee become well known outside of just dance music circles. I quiz him on how he copes with the superstar DJ status imposed on him by fans. He laughs and is quite careful in his response. “I don’t really take it seriously, you know, I just do my job…I don’t take it the wrong way and I don’t look down on people for being idiotic. Which sometimes they can be because they’re having too much fun and they say things that they normally wouldn’t say…They obviously respect what I do even if they say it in funny ways”. He then tells me a story about how on a recent trip to Wollongong an over zealous fan got down on his knees and bowed down to him. “I was like ‘Get up will you!” he says laughing obviously still slightly embarrassed by the experience.
The past twelve months have seen Peewee tour extensively both nationally and internationally. His travelling has taken in South Africa, China, Hong Kong and New Zealand. This is in addition to the 50 plus national gigs he has performed in the last year. I ask if he enjoys all the travelling that he does. “Yeah mostly, but sometimes it’s hard,” he replies indicating that finding time to sleep can sometimes prove difficult. “I can’t complain, I go to Cairns for two nights this week and I get to go to the [Great Barrier] Reef for a day”. He’s even been asked to play in Kalgoorlie, but scheduling conflicts have prevented him from doing so to date. “It’s a big wild town… like a Wild West town… I’d probably get wrecked or something, “ he laughs.
Peewee Ferris comes from a large family - 5 brothers and one sister. Although with their presence in the musical arena you'd be forgiven for thinking there was more of them! I ask if when growing up whether he was surrounded by music? "There was always music around us," he replies, then laughingly tells me. "Steve was a sucker for rap you know?… I lived in America for a while and I'd be seeing B52's and XTC live. They didn't tour here until much later and New Wave was never really big here. In America we used to go to all the college gigs as they were underage (no alcohol) and I'd get dragged along to those as an 11 year old!"
Influenced more by sounds than by other artists, Peewee's work 'Arrivals' for the Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Olympics is the kind of work for which he will always be remembered. I ask what he used as his inspiration. "The percussion in Indonesia and China…. Do you have any idea how many instruments they use? My god! Where do you start?" he replies his astonishment clear. "I had too many influences and it all had to gel together. It was [really] difficult at first!" I ask what kind of brief he received from the Committee responsible for his hiring. "They just wanted influence from everything, all together!," he laughs. "A seamless gel of all of the influences…It was good though because it made me really think more about where [specific] sounds came from". He likens the experience to the difference between working for percussion group Synergy where percussion and percussion instruments are your life and you know them intrinsically to a DJ whose job it is to samples sounds rather than know their entire cultural history. He concludes that he found the whole learning curve really enjoyable and gained a lot from it. "I had to listen to a helluva lot of CD's," he laughs.
Although he's just moved into his new studio Peewee indicates to me that he's not yet entirely settled. He's having some teething problems with getting computer parts to recognise each other and work how they are supposed to. "I'm getting conflicting issues with sound cards and Microsoft and it all seems to be ongoing… but I'll get there!" His favourite piece of work to date is his remix of Jocelyn Brown - a track called 'Free'. "I always wanted to work with Jocelyn," he explains. I ask what he looks for in a track that he's remixing. "Something different. I have a lot of varied tastes so it's always good to try something new and not get caught up in 'I should only do this or that'," he replies. "I even did music for Las Vagas Casino which is nothing remotely like what I do as a DJ but it's me as a musician". I liken the decision making process to a general gut instinct and Peewee agrees.
Peewee is in the process of recording his second album of original work. I bring up whether he is happy with its progress so far. "Not that happy," he says wryly. "If I was I'd have finished it by now". The moving of his studio, the technical issues associated with this move and his constant touring have made it difficult for him to proceed with recording at the pace which he would have liked. "I haven't been very serious really… when you move you get distracted and now when I listen to some [of the tracks] I don't really like them". He likens it to a wardrobe of clothes where you might immensely dislike a piece of clothing one month and love it when you revisit that piece a couple of months later. However he indicates to me soon after that if he had to be recognised or remembered for one piece of work then he'd like it to be the fact that he was the first DJ in Australia to release an album of original work. It's a body of work he obviously holds close to him - both on a personal level and for the boundaries it pushed in Australian Dance at the time of it's release.
We chat a little bit about the upcoming ski season and some of the gigs that Peewee has on down there over the winter months before moving onto talking about the launch of his website Peewee.com. "Tell me a little bit about it," I say. "For starters… what took you so long?" "I know!," Peewee laughs agreeing. "That's what I've thought!" He indicates to me that it's launch has been held up due to his creative aspirations for the site and also his touring - which has made it difficult to collate the information required for it. "I like a lot of moving stuff, a lot of flash and noise and stuff," he states. "It'll have the obvious things like gigs and charts, photos. I want to get to the stage where I can put music on it but it's a bit of nightmare with APRA if you only want to put it on for a little while… it's not worth the paperwork!"
And finally we get down to the nitty gritty. "Your 30, 000 plus records," I say. "How do you catalogue them?" "I don't," he replies and then laughs. "How do you find them then?" I say. "I don't!" he says and we both laugh this time. "At one stage I knew where they were but since I've moved I don't… I am gonna do it [soon]," he says indicating that he'd like to give the arduous task to someone else to complete. Cataloguing 30,000 records? No thank you very much, but Trainspotters the queue forms to the left.
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Published / Monday, 10 June 2002
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