Q&A: meet Friendless, Aussie DJ providing nothing but banging beats

Ever listened to a song and thought to yourself, ‘this song slaps, this dude would totally be a vibe to hang out with’? Well we had that instant connection when first stumbled across Friendless and his music, the music he creates is just effortlessly fun. 

Lay Low, friendless’ most recent drop, features Xira and her light airy vocals. This track transports you to a summer day party, sipping on some drinks by the pool and scouting for your next snack. Lay Low showcases the craft of mixing and the importance of timing with each aspect of the song clearly thought through. 

Drip, another new track featuring Jannah, contrasts Lay Low with its more upbeat vibe that you’d be more likely to find playing in your favourite late night bar at about 2am. It reminds me of a Saturday night, cute and little dirty.  Friendless is majorly on the rise and you only have to listen to the music he is creating to see why. 

We caught up with Friendless to chat through Drip, his favourite gig and his selfless act of giving back.

Check out all the feels below:

If Drip was to appear in any movie ever, which one would it be and what scene would it be played in?

Ooh, this is hard. Either one of the epic fight sequences in The Raid or the clay pot scene from Ghost.

What would be the first song you’d play at a party for Rhianna?

Easy. If Loving You Is Wrong I Don’t Wanna Be Right by Luther Ingram 

How does thou right a track, what’s the process?

My compositional approach isn’t set in stone and is varied. With Drip, however, I had a pretty clear idea of what the overall vibe of the track was going to be. I wanted it to be energetic, bouncy and quite stripped back. Working with Jannah makes the songwriting elements easy as once we had the Drip hook in place her bars just fall out of her wonderful brain. 

What inspires your music? In particular, what was the inspiration behind your most recent song?

Inspiration often comes from quite abstract places, but with Drip it was a lot more pragmatic.  I really wanted to bring more elements of Hip Hop to the Friendless aural ecosystem. There’s unparalleled frenetic energy that comes from rapping at that tempo. I love it. 

Fave gig memory?

Playing my music to a packed crowd at Single Fin in Uluwatu as the sun went down over the Indian Ocean. 

I’ve gifted you a tuna sandwich, a shovel, 3m of wire and a walkie talkie, you can’t give them away or sell them because…gift, what do you do with them?

I’d have to give away the tuna sandwich as I have childhood trauma of finding a 42-degree sloppy mess in my lunch box during summer in primary school so that can feed someone else. The rest I’ll keep as I’m pretty sure. I’ll have to bust one of my friends out of gaol one day with the way some of them carry on.  

You do a lot of work with Heaps Decent, helping kids in Juvenile Justice Centres. This is amazing! How do you use your music to do this, and what makes you so passionate about this cause?

What a fantastic initiative that is. My time with Heaps Decent was transformational. It was heartbreaking to see the effects of generational poverty and mental illness manifest itself in children’s incarceration. To bring some joy and a sense of self-worth to those kids was mind-blowing and immensely rewarding. I want to start something similar myself one day working with at-risk youth to help reduce recidivism and give them something to work towards. If anyone wants to help, please reach out. 

What was it like collaborating with Jannah?

Amazing. As I touched on before, Jannah is a creative dynamo so working with her is effortless. Love her—much cool, very talent. 

What is on your bucket list? Music-wise and non-music related.

I want to eat at Jiro Ono’s sushi restaurant in Tokyo, stay on the ISS and one day own a house right on a beach. Any beach. Anywhere. Musically I’d love to produce an album in a rented mansion/castle somewhere in Europe in summer with a litany of artists ala. The Stones Exile On Mainstreet.

What can fans expect to see from Friendless in the future?

Hopefully, the unexpected! I love to do things differently, and I have some rather diverse things in the works. More practically I’d love to put together a headline tour ASAP and when the poor buggers have got the Covid back under control go and do some shows in the UK.

Put this guy on your festival watch list because he would absolutely shred a set and you wouldn’t want to miss it. 

Check out  their new track below or head to our Getting Thicc🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️playlist to hear more songs like these ones.

By Samuel Seedsman.