Goldfish – The Dynamic Fusion of Jazz and Electronic Music

What happens when two jazz musicians from Cape Town decide to electrify the world with their unique sound? In this episode we unravel the story of Goldfish, the South African electronic duo making waves from their base in San Diego.

Goldfish dialled in from Switzerland for this episode, the birds in the first half are the backing musicians we didn't know we needed! 

Discover how Goldfish seamlessly blend live jazz instruments with electronic beats, crafting a style that's both soulful and innovative. From their formative years at the University of Cape Town to their performances on renowned international stages, experience the vibrant cultural exchanges that have defined the Goldfish journey, drawing parallels between the South African braai and the Irish failte, and how these traditions foster deep connections among expatriates. 

We delve into the pride South Africans take in sharing their heritage through rugby, music, and more. Listen to touching anecdotes of camaraderie and support among South African abroad, and the memorable moments like concerts at Kirstenbosch that exemplify the strong sense of community and music appreciation.

Get an insider look at the creative processes behind Goldfish's animated music videos, including their collaboration with animator Mike Scott creating their iconic music videos and the spontaneous magic that birthed their beloved Goldfish Man character. 

The episode also covers their serendipitous career-defining moments in Ibiza, the strategy behind their tours, and an exciting announcement about their upcoming performance at the Roundhouse in Camden. Don't miss this captivating conversation with Goldfish, filled with stories of unplanned successes and creative triumphs.

Grab your ticket for the upcoming Goldfish Show on Sunday 7th September at the iconic Roundhouse in Camden here: https://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/goldfish-live 

Thanks for checking the podcast out! If you'd like to come and say hi on socials, you'll find more content and trailers for upcoming episodes below:|

https://instagram.com/thisisdisruptionpod/
https://www.tiktok.com/@thisisdisruptionpod

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello there. You are very welcome to. This is Disruption podcast, with me, your host Rua. This podcast brings you in-depth interviews with the fearless creatives in street art, graffiti, music, photography and beyond, who boldly challenge the status quo, break barriers for others and share their work unapologetically. Each episode is a deep dive into the lives of artistic risk takers, exploring their motivations, their inspirations and their reasons for their willingness to disrupt societal norms. Some of these stories involve revolutionizing their industries, while others are pushing the boundaries of legality with their art. Coming up on today's episode.

Speaker 2: 0:39

We were just these two jazz musicians from Cape Town who showed up at the world's most famous oldest club and suddenly were on the main stage and having to sort of drop bangers straight away. It was a definite trial by fire Showing up somewhere, having no plan, no idea what was going to happen. There's that saying when you get your shots, better be ready for it, and we were only just just what. We managed to pull it off.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Hello, today I have a really special interview for you. Joining us now are none other than Goldfish, a dynamic South African electronic duo who are known for their unique blend of live jazz instruments and electronic beats. These trailblazers have captivated worldwide audiences with their innovative sound and their daring approach to music. In today's episode, we talk about Goldfish's bold decision to step outside the conventional norms of the music industry and create something entirely fresh and different. So we're going to deep dive into their journey, their inspirations and the moments of bravery that have helped them get to where they are now. So get ready to be inspired by the story of Goldfish, a duo that proves the power of courage and creativity in making waves and setting new standards. So sit back, relax and let's dive into the world of Goldfish on.

Speaker 1: 2:00

This Is Disruption. This is Disruption. Hello everybody, I am so excited to be here today with Goldfish, who are a South African now residing in San Diego electronic music duo who incorporate live instruments into their show and have a truly unique sound and an overall incredible vibe. I am a huge fan of Goldfish. I couldn't be happier to have the opportunity to speak with them. Thank you so much, guys, for being here. How are you doing?

Speaker 3: 2:30

What an intro Wow, thank you so much, that was awesome. Yeah, thanks for having us.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Thank you so much for speaking with me. I know that you are in Switzerland right now and anybody listening back to this is going to be able to hear the sound of beautiful bird song in the background. Can you tell us what you're doing in Switzerland?

Speaker 3: 2:47

Yeah, we actually well to set the scene. We're actually sitting next to a little small lake and we just finished soundcheck for a festival called Festival Bordeaux, which means on the side of the lake. So it's a very, very well named festival Very literal, I know it's so cool. Very well named festival Very literal, I know so cool. It's a boutique music festival set in a small town in Switzerland Sierra. Yeah, like two hours train ride from Geneva. Beautiful setting, you know. We just happen to be here. Yeah, we're just out here in the world spreading the goldfish word.

Speaker 1: 3:20

Oh, I love it. Let's talk about the goldfish word. So you guys have a truly unique sound. Like I said, you've got a jazz background, which I'd love to talk a little bit more about, and you incorporate instruments into electronic music. Can you tell me a little bit more about how this all came about?

Speaker 2: 3:38

Okay, we'll start in the beginning. No, dave and I met at the University of Cape Town. We were both studying jazz degrees there. We did degrees in jazz Dave has a master's and I have a bachelor's. And Dave plays saxophone and flute. I play upright bass and piano. So the instruments we were kind of playing really lent themselves to jazz. That was kind of the only formal way we could continue with the scam of playing music to. Our parents Couldn't go and say, hey, I want to go rock school. So jazz it was and we fell in love with it. It's just an amazing genre. It's as deep as you want to go. We studied there and we played in a jazz band together multiple jazz bands but we always, you know, we'd try and get our friends to come to the show and they'd be like that was very interesting. We found that when we started the project goldfish they suddenly were asking us when the next show was. You know, this was the combination where we could kind of sneak jazz in.

Speaker 3: 4:34

but um, yeah, I think you know the, the, you know we, we also discovered that we both had a mutual like love for interesting electronic music and at the time there was time, there were some releases came out, like Saint-Germain and Moby releases his seminal album Play as well, which just incorporated all these live elements into electronic music, and we were like, wow, this is awesome, we could do something like this because we, like you know, we have all the live instruments and and that kind of really like sparked the initial kind of goldfish concept.

Speaker 3: 5:14

Um, so you know, we can becoming from like such a different background of jazz and then having a love for electronic music and then also being from south africa. Really I think we it's such a melting pot of culture and there's such a melting for electronic music and then also being from South Africa. Really I think it's such a melting pot of culture and there's such a melting pot of music in South Africa and from South Africa that you know, I think that's definitely led to the. You know, the uniqueness and the goldfish sound is having such a like diverse background and diverse inspiration.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Really, it really comes across the fact that you started out in South. Really, it really comes across the fact that you started out in south africa. It really comes across in your music. It's super unique. Like I said, unique's the only words that I can give. So something I'd love to hear about is this podcast is called this is disruption, because what I do is I do graffiti and I do music, mostly drum and bass or house music. I love electronic music. I am all about breaking the rules, basically doing something different, doing something that people tell you that you can't do, disrupting the limitations that people place upon you. And I was wondering when you emerged with a totally unique sound, something that people probably hadn't heard before, did you experience anybody limiting or not believing in what you were doing? Did you have to create the disruption yourself?

Speaker 3: 6:32

For sure. I mean, I think the biggest challenge with doing something that doesn't fit into a specific lane or a specific genre is that the industry people need to be convinced by what you're doing, because especially the electronic music industry works very much within lanes. The booking agents work like that, the record labels work like that, the management work like that. They all come together and I understand why it makes sense to them. If they've got a drum and bass artist who's done well, they bring in a young drum and bass artist and they slipstream them onto that and then that's a very easy business model for them. And if you're doing something completely different and you don't fit into any of those lanes, it's really tough at first and we definitely found that it was very difficult at first. But what we also found was, if we could get in the door, it became a lot easier because we weren't doing something that everyone else was doing.

Speaker 2: 7:41

So, although it was definitely more difficult at first, once you could make that breakthrough, things definitely did become a lot easier due to the fact that you weren't Bringing calls to new calls.

Speaker 3: 7:43

Yeah, exactly, and my theory is that you're not competing with a million people because you've done something different and something interesting. And and that's kind of like always our advice to young up and coming artists, musicians, producers you know we've done a fair amount of conferences and you know, speaking at places and that's generally like the number one kind of advice to people is like, if you do something interesting, you do something different. You're not competing with the entire world. You know, if you do something that's just a carbon copy of someone else, fine, good for you, that's okay. There's nothing, there's nothing, let's say, wrong with that. However, you compete against everyone. You're also competing against that original artist, who's probably huge and you know people.

Speaker 3: 8:28

You like them in the first and people probably like rather listen to them than you most of the time, unless you prove them otherwise. I mean, a case in point is like fred again he's come along and really like blown it all out the water, being so unique and so disruptive. Thankfully he came along and really tossed everything in the air, because everything was getting once again a little bit stagnant. I think this is what happens with electronic music specifically, is things do stagnate and then someone comes along and just cleans house with a new concept, a new sound, a new idea. It's very important because there's no, you know, there's no development, there's no advancement in genres and sounds.

Speaker 2: 9:10

If it wasn't for those kind of people, I would also just like to add that I think that what's happening today, which is very unique to this time, is that because social media is such a massive part of our lives and it's so dominant, we don't realize how much it's actually dominating our taste and dominating like you think.

Speaker 2: 9:28

You're being original but everyone's cold plunging and you're not necessarily actually becoming a unique free thinker. I think some of the hardest things to do right now is to be yourself, truly yourself, because we're just getting so many social cues the whole time. That comes with art as well, where you're able to actually just find your own unique sound and find your true artistry. So, in a way, like for Dave and I, we're almost lucky in that we grew up somewhere different and with a kind of a diverse background in Japanese, because it's easy in some ways, but that's just sort of half a factor, Whereas now it feels like we're all watching the same TV programs. So that can also sneak in. If you're a young artist. It can be almost it can be tricky to just stay your own course, and we find that with ourselves.

Speaker 1: 10:25

That's excellent advice and it's what people always say be yourself, and if you're just being true to that and you're not copying somebody else, you're going to have something unique, because we all have such unique experiences, and especially you guys coming from somewhere very different, somewhere so beautiful like cape town, with such a different background and all these different influences and cultures and sound, and it means that you can create something that people haven't heard before.

Speaker 3: 10:51

and what a gift you know it is, it is a gift, but it also, you know, like, as I mentioned before, it does give its own set of challenges. But we don't just, we don't just fit into, you know, like those channels and when it, when it works, it works amazingly, and when it doesn't work, it doesn't work at all. So it's, you know, it can be frustrating, but at the end of the day, you know it's what we wanted to do. We always wanted to do something interesting and you know something true to our experience. And so we live by the sword and we die by the sword.

Speaker 1: 11:22

I would love to chat to you a little bit more about your hometown of Cape Town, which is somewhere that I love. So I would love to tell you actually how did I find out about Goldfish. I moved to London and on one of my first nights out in London I was on a dance floor. I bumped into this fella. He was South African, his wife came over and then their housemate came over. Story short, they were the loveliest people.

Speaker 1: 11:47

We all went back to their table, me and my other friend, my Irish friend. We were chatting and they said you must come to a braai and I was like we will when tell us we'll be there. So we went to their braai, which was a new experience for us. We don't have very good weather in Ireland, so we don't barbecue outdoors very much. Basically, what happened was they became our best friends and they adopted us.

Speaker 1: 12:08

What South African people seem to do is very similar to what Irish people do. When we go abroad, we find our community and you have lots of other Irish friends or, in this case, south African friends. So my Irish friend and I, we were both brought into London. We got adopted by this huge group of South Africans and it was amazing. They're such such good friends. I'd just been traveling in Vietnam with a big bunch of South Africans, but last year I went to Cape Town. One of the guys moved back to Cape Town and I went out to see him and they love your music. We went to Kirstenbosch, oh that's a good one.

Speaker 1: 12:41

They were telling me that you played Kirstenb and Brush and they'd gone and it was sellout and it was absolutely incredible. So you know, when you sit around with your friends and people are putting on their favorite songs or on YouTube their favorite music videos, your music videos, which are so unique, always come up and I was like who is this? And that's how I got introduced to you. You have your South Africans around the world introducing and converting people to your sound and I loved it. So different. Your music videos are something that I would love to talk about, but I've just gone over a lot of things. So what I would love to hear about, firstly, your representatives around the world telling everybody of how proud they are of you. Do you know about that?

Speaker 3: 13:23

You know, of course we do, we 100% know it, we appreciate it, we love it. You know, and it happens like, obviously, london there's a huge amount of South Africans, but the crazy thing is is that there's actually South Africans all over the world in little pockets, and it's truly amazing to go into all sorts of varied places and we'll see flags in the crowd and you know, we always hear stories like you telling us there's a huge South African community in the yachty, like working on yachts all over the world, and you know, we've had so many people come up to us, you know, in America and wherever, oh my gosh, we were introduced to a South African crew or we're introduced to you by. You know, we met some South Africans. So it's truly amazing having these ambassadors all over the world spreading the word on our behalf. It's, it's honestly why we have a career and so we absolutely love it. We thank them every time.

Speaker 2: 14:20

We yeah it's a true honor, just very. You know we're a very fiercely patriotic country. We've been through so much so when whether it's our rugby team or our musicians or whatever it may be we're sort of very proud of sharing that with the world and it's honestly an honor to have fellow countrymen stick up for us and introduce us to so many people around the world.

Speaker 3: 14:46

Huge honor.

Speaker 2: 14:47

We're the soundtrack to many braai's and in case you don't know what a braai is.

Speaker 3: 14:51

It's a South African barbecue. It's all grilled, depending on where, and there's a specific grill. Normally it's like a fire is made with wood. You can't always do that all over the world, but in the true sense of it, it you're making a fire with wood. You're grilling a bunch of meats. Special sausage from south africa called a burabos, so like it translates to a farmer sausage, which is fantastic. Everyone should try that. And uh, yeah, that's the very short version of what a bri is and it's a very like, uh, sociable thing, and like sociable thing and and and. In your experience it's also. It's a. It's something that you, that South Africans, are very proud of. So they want to invite people from around the world and they want to include people and they want to share what they've shared experience. So your story is the exact thing that I would expect from awesome South Africans all over the world, but they are truly awesome.

Speaker 1: 15:43

In Ireland we have something called a falchion, which means it's the that I would expect from also South Africans all over the world. They are truly awesome. In Ireland we have something called a falcha, which means it's the Irish word for welcome, and it's where you welcome somebody either into your home or to an environment or an event or whatever. But we would say you show them a falcha, like you show them a welcome and you want to feed them. You can't let someone leave hungry. You want to make them feel part of the family, basically, and feed them. You can't let someone leave hungry. You want to make them feel part of the family, basically, and feel really included and welcome and just happy to be there and having a great time. And obviously there's often lots of drinks, but that's exactly the same. That's the same feeling that I have when I hang out with my South African friends and they're amazing. I think when you are from somewhere else, you really advocate for the people that you're proud of. You were advocated for.

Speaker 3: 16:23

That's amazing. Please tell them that we say thank you very much.

Speaker 1: 16:27

They're very excited that I'll be talking to you, so I'll play this to them. Awesome, but I would love to go back to what I mentioned. When you sit around and you put on your favorite YouTube videos, as we all do, your videos were the videos that I was introduced to and I was like what is this? Your videos are pure art, and I would just love to hear where did the ideas come from? How did you get the animators to create your videos? Tell me everything everything again.

Speaker 3: 16:56

Everything it kind of like fell on our left to a degree. We, you know, we made a song years ago called soundtracks and Comebacks and it's got a big chanting kind of chorus. It really spread like wildfire around South Africa. One day we were actually living in Ibiza in Spain and we got an email from a fellow South African and he was an animator. He said hey guys, I love your song so much that I made this little 20 second animated clip and it was a clip of a goldfish bowl with a little fish swimming in it. And as the beat started to kick in, the fish was like whoa, what's that? And the fish jumps out the bowl and starts walking, which we saw that first clip, and we were like, oh my goodness, this is incredible. And it just happened to be that that was mike scott, the animator, who had emailed us, and we immediately emailed him back and we were like this is incredible, you have to make a whole video of this for us. And so we jumped on a call with him and just we discovered that mike is an absolute mega talent, just like an ultimate mega talent animator. And that was the beginning of an amazing collaboration with him and you know, and a whole bunch of other animators that he brought in and really coming up.

Speaker 3: 18:12

What really drew us to animation was the fact that we could just come up with whatever wacky idea that we could think of. Like the wackier the better. And you know, and between us and Mike, we just we just went completely feral most of the time and then we were like we recorded all those Zoom calls, I know, and then it was like, okay, let's do that, you know, and that's kind of how an amazing friendship was made and a beautiful creative journey started. And you know, from there on that, just really it just snowballed, you know, into, I think it's.

Speaker 3: 18:48

It becomes like an arms race against yourself of like how much more wacky and crazy and zany can you go and that and and yeah, I think you know we haven't actually done one in a while because they're quite we also be quite precious about like the ideas need to be really like spot on. We have to really be inspired with those ideas to then go okay, this is, this is rad. We need to actually take this and run with it into an animated music video. I have the sense when I watch your videos and I love the fact that you said you just went a bit and run with it into an animated music video.

Speaker 1: 19:17

I have the sense when I watch your videos and I love the fact that you said you just went a bit feral with it all I have the sense of when I watched them that it was a bunch of friends that were sitting around laughing so hard.

Speaker 2: 19:30

Yeah that was pretty much what it was pretty much that.

Speaker 2: 19:33

That's it we pretty much let mike go. We let him go. This was allowed to go as far as he wanted. We would come up with the storylines and then he would make them infinitely more amazing than we could have ever possibly imagined. Yeah, he is the beauty of animation and he's got a very unique animation style which has kind of become synonymous with us. And he created the Goldfish man character in the first video. The evolution of goldfish man he's in a bowl, starts listening to music, jumps out of the bowl, goes through this sort of evolution, um, and that sort of has gone forward into a lot of the other music videos as well. All the adventures he goes on, the adventures of goldfish man yeah, it's a, it's been a very uh, rewarding, thankfully well-received part of our music.

Speaker 3: 20:18

If you want to check it out, it's all on our Goldfish YouTube channel, goldfish Live. There's actually a playlist with all the animated music videos in one. It's not too long. I mean, it's probably like half an hour's worth of music videos. If you go back-to-back with them all, we're glad you like them. So that's job well done.

Speaker 1: 20:37

I love them and I highly recommend anybody that's listening goes to YouTube after listening to the rest of this, of course, and they watch it all. I love the Vegas one. It's so good, it's just amazing.

Speaker 2: 20:50

It's my favorite. Do you recognize any of the characters in there?

Speaker 1: 20:52

Yes, yeah, and that was it. There were so many little Easter eggs in there, like the furry walls and all it's so the royal family.

Speaker 3: 21:00

Yeah, and you can poke fun at a whole lot of stuff in animation, because you can kind of like you know you can change it, you can also like change the characters to be something that's not exactly what they are.

Speaker 1: 21:14

So you're not completely just copying something, you're making it into a new joke or a new thing, or something that you've just mentioned is wanting to be really spot on with your ideas, to execute them the way that you would like. You know you've got a vision and you want to execute them because you have so many incredible songs. How do you narrow it down? How do you plan your sets?

Speaker 2: 21:34

I mean in some ways, you know, yes, we have six albums and so many songs, whatever it is. Now I don't even know how many songs. We have 70 songs or something, but that's actually not a lot when you think about what other electronic artists or DJs can pull from at any festival or set that they play. So what we try and do is reinvent our existing material, not only ourselves, but to try and also just depending on where we're playing. For instance, this weekend we're doing a set of all our original first album Tracks Caught in the Loop that came out in 2005. And it's been even just a soundcheck a moment ago.

Speaker 2: 22:12

It's such a trip playing those songs again. It's just kind of oh my goodness, this is who we were. It's like looking at Facebook photographs of yourself and just going oh my goodness, this is who we were. It's like looking at Facebook photographs of yourself. You're like, oh my goodness, that's what I was like with a middle party as a teenager. It sort of built like that with the music too.

Speaker 2: 22:26

So as far as choosing music Dave and I it's actually very awesome to have a music partner, because sometimes Dave will come up with a concept or a thought about a set list that I would never have considered, and vice versa, which is something that you're just playing as your own artist and that can be quite a common thing for electronic artists. A lot of them are solo projects, so it's really nice to go on an adventure with someone. Sometimes being in a band would almost be too tricky to come up with consensus, at least with two. It's a lot easier than arguing with drama. But yeah, we try and keep the sets open. We'll sometimes say what should we start with today, and then from there it's open season.

Speaker 3: 23:10

We also have like it really depends like what the vibe is of the venue or the crowd or whether it's like a goldfish standalone show or exactly exactly you know.

Speaker 3: 23:22

So I think it's really like that really kind of changes the way, um, a set can go. It's definitely also important, you know, the way you start a set. Obviously it sets the tone. I mean, it's all obvious stuff, but it sets the tone and, from a perspective of, like what you did last time you played in that venue, if you played there before, if you have played to this crowd before or not um, what the people were playing before you came into the room, what you know, and how the how the crowd is reacting. Are they like super energetic or are they kind of needing to be pumped up or are they needing to be calmed down a bit, or you know.

Speaker 3: 24:00

So I look at it like we're kind of like a painter and we have like a, you know, a palette of a whole lot of colors that we can throw down onto the, onto the canvas, and we have a framework of those colors, but we don't always have to put the colors in the same order.

Speaker 3: 24:13

And also, like you know, a lot of the time we'll be playing a lot of shows in a row friday, saturday, sunday and bryce. It's also kind of like nice to not always play the same music night in and night out and obviously, like, some of our songs are songs that people are coming specifically to hear, and we understand that as well. You know we've got songs that are well known and you know. So we kind of like have to play those songs. But, um, like dom says, we have different versions. We have, we try and like mix it up as well, you know, with different versions of different you know styles exactly, yeah, so I mean that's kind of a long answer to a short question, but you know it's quite a, it's quite an involved thing, you know you know, we're sort of halfway between a band and the dj.

Speaker 2: 24:54

Sometimes we're wearing our dj, sometimes we're wearing our band hat, Exactly, and that also allows us to take a song that we've played for you know a decade or something like that and go okay, let's smash this in with something that we've heard on a dance floor somewhere else, or something someone else has done or inspired us to do a new version of that. That keeps it fresh for us in a way that I think can be tricky for a more traditional band to do. Like I can only imagine what U2 is playing where the streets have no name or the crowd wants to hear it how they know it. You've got to try and find new ways to make it interesting for U2. Electronic music allows you to have a little bit more creative lives.

Speaker 1: 25:38

A good example of this is one of my favorite songs of yours is Chasing Tomorrow. I love that, and that's a song with multiple versions, right, yes, it's whatever your vibe. If you want the club mix, you've got it. If you want something a bit more chill, you've got it. So you can have a really incredible concept but have different versions of it to suit whatever the vibe of the gig or whatever is and that's that's a great example, to be honest if you could tell me a little bit about your last album.

Speaker 1: 26:06

It's called if summer was a sound and when I was describing goldfish to my friends here I said I was meeting with you today and I said they have an album called if summer was a sound. But if goldfish if I could describe them to you and their music it's If Summer Was A Sound it would be Goldfish. You nailed that name. It is so perfect.

Speaker 3: 26:27

That is exactly?

Speaker 1: 26:28

Have people given you that feedback before? That's what you sound like, or did you realize it? Where did you get the name from?

Speaker 2: 26:33

I was actually surfing and I was sort of we've been going for almost pretty much 20 years now. Crazy how time flies. I was in the water and I was just kind of musing. Obviously we moved to America and we spent seven summers in Ibiza. We've sort of lived all over the world playing our music, touring. Yeah, it's been just such a journey and still to this day, you know you go to a new place like America. It's ginormous, even though we've been doing this 20 years, you sometimes feel like the new acts on the lineup, people are just discovering you and I was just sort of thinking to myself all the music we've made and the music we are making, how would I put that into one sentence?

Speaker 2: 27:10

How would I describe to someone who's never heard of us before? This is what we're about. And it was more about a feeling. And you know summer is such a. It's been used and abused as a cliche term in so many songs. So many artists use the summer tropical house thing. A lot of it can be almost kind of cliche. But I was sort of pondering that thought while I was surfing, but that just kind of came to me when I came back and I told Dave and I was like you know, if we were to say exactly what you said, which was what? How would you describe Goldfish in a sentence? And when I think back to all the music we've made, where we're from, the kind of people we are, it's a warm, welcoming, sunny, happy vibe. Yeah, so as a sentence, if you were to describe Goldfish's music, I would say if summer was a song.

Speaker 3: 27:50

So, which is, by the way you nailed it, yeah, in your intro to this question. You're absolutely like mission successful, like right there.

Speaker 2: 27:58

So we sort of began with that term for this album. It's like that was pretty much how we thought as we started writing all this music and we sort of had that phrase.

Speaker 3: 28:07

There's also, you know, a lot of dance. Music doesn't have a lot of lyrics in it, so it's kind of hard to make two. Like it's like a songwriter To make electronic music. It's really like it hinders the danceability of the song. So yeah, so quite a tricky balancing act to kind of like thread that needle between having a beautiful song, having a beautiful vocal, and also having a song that's kind of like rad on the dance floor. Less is more.

Speaker 1: 28:42

As a DJ, I love lyrics and I love vocals. I think it gives a song a lot of meaning and you know when a lyric hits you right and it just hits you in the belly.

Speaker 3: 28:49

For sure.

Speaker 1: 28:51

I love lyrics and songs. It's like poetry. It's really hard to mix as a DJ.

Speaker 2: 28:56

Sure with vocals yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:57

To the very end with vocals and the very beginning with vocals. I'm like damn.

Speaker 3: 29:02

Yes, no, there's nothing worse there. Yes, no, there's nothing worse.

Speaker 1: 29:11

There's nothing worse when there's too many lyrics and then you're like I need to make some notes in the wrong key. This is going to sound interesting. Yeah, I love.

Speaker 2: 29:19

Overclash, but I love it. I think it's really beautiful. Do you have a dream collaboration that hasn't happened yet? About that, actually, we were actually. One of our favorite songs of all time is Telepop Me 6'3". It's just been a track that we've loved for years. Angela McCluskey is the vocalist on that track and we've been chatting to her. She was up in LA, we were down in San Diego, we were trying to get a song together. She just popped away about six months ago.

Speaker 1: 29:41

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.

Speaker 3: 29:43

Honestly well, we met her during. We met her during covert and I think she was a little bit older and I think she was very like, I think she was a bit frail, so she was scared of getting you know of illness and all that stuff awesome lady um.

Speaker 3: 29:56

So we were really and we had many amazing chats with her. Actually, she was telling us a story about well, the story about when she wrote breathe with telepop music, and she was in a studio in paris and they were in this dark studio in the day and she was lying on the couch and all the french dudes were all smoking cigarettes and the studio was clouding with smoke. And then she had the mic and then she was just like sitting on the couch and she was like staring at the ceiling, just breathe, because I think she was struggling to breathe because there was so much smoke in the room. She was like just breathe, and that's how that massive mega hit was made, which is just such a cool story to kind of get that out of the horse's mouth. It's a beautiful thing for us. Honestly, just having met her and chatted with her, we didn't obviously get to do anything with her musically but we sent her a few songs and we were like how about this track, how about this?

Speaker 2: 30:52

And she was like no, no, lads that one, not that one, and we were like, oh okay, so it wasn't meant to be, but maybe in the next lap.

Speaker 3: 31:00

Maybe we'll find one of her songs and remix it or something. She'll be on the other side going no lads, no lads, that's terrible.

Speaker 1: 31:12

In memory of her. Yeah, something to honour her. I would love to hear a little bit about your incredible residency in Ibiza. That is the dream for so many electronic artists. You spent many years there, with a residency in one of the world's most famous superclubs. Please tell me what was that experience like? How did it feel playing there for the first time?

Speaker 3: 31:35

The only way we can really describe it is it was like electronic music university for us, because we had just finished studying jazz and so we basically we were kind of wet behind the ears, we were a little green, as they would say.

Speaker 2: 31:53

Which was the weird thing that made us unique. Yeah, we accidentally made something very fresh because we didn't know what the hell we were doing.

Speaker 3: 32:00

Exactly. So we got there and we got a couple of amazing opportunities opportunities and credit to the people there. They were like oh wow, these guys are interesting, let's get them on board, and you know. So we ended up playing at Pascha and we ended up playing in the main room at Pascha and that was truly a huge learning experience for us on how to deal with a dance floor and how to, um, you know, deal with a big room and like an enormous room, and playing before people like freddy legrand and david getter and eric morillo and all these legends. It was a huge learning experience for us and I think we came out the other side with a degree in electronic physics, a degree in how to handle sheer terror and death.

Speaker 2: 32:53

Basically, what happened and it was basically the start of our whole career in Ibiza was we just showed up there, we flew over there. We were in Cannes for the Lions, which is an advertising awards party that they have every year. Yeah, we decided to go, to go to BIFA. We didn't have any shows. We only knew a couple people who said to us if we ever showed up there, we'd see what they could do for us. We had a connection named Mark Neto, who was a friend of our manager, raymond Bloom, and said come and play a set at Cafe Mamba for P-Tong at sunset. So we showed up there, all our equipment. We obviously play live, so we're not like DJs as such.

Speaker 2: 33:32

Anyone who's been to Cafe Mambo knows it's a beautiful little tiny bar with a small DJ booth overlooking the sunset in Viva. Of course, we couldn't fit into the DJ booth with all our gear, so we set up amongst all the people having dinner on a couple of restaurant tables, set up all our gear and had to run some cables from our setup to the DJ booth. And so, while I was setting up, dave went inside and went upstairs and was rifling through a huge box of cables that looked like spaghetti, trying to find an RCA cable to join our setup to the DJ booth. He found one mono cable. So we had a left. We didn't have stereo, we had literally one mono cable. That was kind of a turning point in our career, because if we hadn't found that cable we wouldn't have been able to play.

Speaker 2: 34:16

And it just so happened that the MD of Pasha was there, danny Whittle, I think Pete was kind of happy to take a break from playing and have some dinner while we played. So we did our little set the sunset and Danny Whittle said that was great, lads, what are you doing? Later, and we checked our diaries, turns out of course we were doing nothing. And he said how about you come and play a quick set at Pasha? Wow, and yeah, the rest was we played our sets. We went up to the terrace at Pasha. They said what do you think about coming and doing an album for us as part of their Perceptions of Pascha series? And we said pretty much agreed straight away. And yeah, that began our residency. So it all started off just basically showing up somewhere, having no plan, no idea what was going to happen. There's that saying, when you get your shot, you better be ready for it. And we were Only just Just one minute after the ACA came. We managed to pull it off.

Speaker 1: 35:14

That is such an incredible story. I love that. I love that you just went there and you're like, let's just try.

Speaker 3: 35:21

Well, you've got to be in it to win it.

Speaker 1: 35:23

What an incredible story, and I kind of believe that there are no coincidences, that the right people will show up when you need them to and you'll find your way. What's meant to be will be. It's a very Irish outlook on life. We have a saying that says what's for you won't pass. You Like. If it's meant to be, it will come, and maybe in a strange way, but I love that. That's incredible. How did it feel going from there? I've being like we don't have a plan, but we're going to give it a go to being like, oh my God, we're playing in literally one of the world's most famous superclubs.

Speaker 3: 35:57

I don't think we actually really grasped it at first. I think we were just like oh cool, we're going to go play in this club later and we played in the Global Room and it was cool and I think afterwards we were walking around the club and we're like whoa, this place because pasha is the most incredible club, like it's. You know, it's like the ideal place to go have a party, because it's got all these different areas, it's got, obviously, the enormous main room and then it's got just all these little nooks and crannies where you can just go and have an amazing like evening of exploring and just. And then, you know, we got up on the, on the, you know, on the terrace, and the terrace is just like you never know who's going to be up there exactly that's, and then, like you, after many years of hanging, you're hanging out there.

Speaker 3: 36:42

Just the who's who of dance music would pitch up there at any given point, I think. After that we were like, well, this is wild. We went off and finished our album and then they released it. And then the following summer came, and then we came on board with Pure Pasha on the Friday nights and we played like it was a Santa Kleinberg and Fedele Grand and a whole bunch of people over the summer and it was amazing. Like I said earlier, it was just this incredible dance music university that we'd never really had before.

Speaker 2: 37:13

Like Dave says, we didn't fully grasp it. It was almost like we were just these two jazz musicians from Cape Town who showed up at the world's most famous, oldest club and suddenly were on the main stage and having to sort of drop bangers straight away. It was a definite trial by fire.

Speaker 1: 37:30

What an incredible learning opportunity.

Speaker 2: 37:34

Yeah, single swim.

Speaker 1: 37:35

Absolutely yeah, and you're goldfish, so you were born to swim.

Speaker 3: 37:38

There we go.

Speaker 1: 37:41

Have you ever had a real oh my God. I've made it moment, and that's a question to each of you. It might be different moments, but you know that moment where you're like, okay, that you just have a realization, I'm living the dream. Have you ever had moments like that?

Speaker 3: 37:55

I mean I think we early on realized that we were living the dream. I don't think we've ever really had the sort of the realization of, oh, I've made it, because it's really like a subjective thing. Mean, I don't particularly think we've made it. I think we've been very fortunate to have a successful career in music for many years.

Speaker 2: 38:13

There's been definitely a lot of surreal things that have happened. Over the years met a lot of people who you'd never think were Goldfish fans.

Speaker 3: 38:19

Yeah, exactly yeah. There's a lot of crazy stuff like that, but I think you know you're constantly striving for bigger gigs, better gigs, writing a better song, creating a bigger track, creating a more amazing song, like. I don't think it's. It's not really about that. I think, though, if you're kind of saying oh, I've made it, and I'm flying around in a private jet and I've, you know, handing out hundred dollar balls to everyone you know, maybe that's in one sense you could say you've made it. Then we definitely haven't made it, because we're not doing any of that.

Speaker 2: 38:53

We've had some strange things happen over the years where you just you can't believe that an artist, I mean. One strange thing had happened. We were in Ibiza pretty early on in our career and Pete Tong had asked us to come play a pool party at some villa I was setting up and this blonde guy kind of sauntered over in a speedo and started chatting to us and he was like, oh, you know, I really love your album. And I was like, wow, that's so cool, thank you so much. And what are you doing? He's like I'm in a band too and I said, oh, that's cool, what band's that? And he's like this is my wife.

Speaker 2: 39:28

Yeah, there's just surreal moments like that meeting Nelson Mandela, you know, meeting people from Pink Floyd who said they were listening to our music. It was just like strange things like that that happened over the years. Ibiza is just such a melting pot and it's just artists and creators from, you know, not necessarily just dance music. You just you know not necessarily just dance music. You just, you know, if you're two dudes from Cape Town, it's kind of strange when James Blunt's a regular jumping around in the front row at the Blue Marlin. For many, for many shows, things like that, where you just you're like whoa, so yeah, when you say, have we made it? It's like I think our definition of making it would be having a happy and successful career and being proud of the music we made and still feels like there's more in the tank.

Speaker 1: 40:10

You know the fact that you had a dream, essentially, and you were brave enough to take the steps that led you to all of the different things that connected, to be able to do what you love doing. That's really amazing, and it all starts with a little bit of bravery. Did either of you ever have any doubts about what you were doing, or did you always believe this was going to be something really special?

Speaker 3: 40:29

I think you know, I think, having grown up in bands, you always are planning for the best and and the worst at the same time. You know you're kind of like you're striving for world domination.

Speaker 3: 40:41

This is the number one thing every single band has said in their first six months of of around, and you know, you're always striving for that and I think when you're young and dumb and, just you know, ready to take on the world, that's a good time to be doing it. Whether we would be as gung-ho now, I don't know. I hope we would be.

Speaker 2: 40:59

So priority changes from like well domination to probably more self-awareness and writing the best music you can, which is quite a.

Speaker 3: 41:07

you know, you have that youthful sort of ego and adventurous spirit, I think the one thing about us that was always very solid is that we were always 100% into music. There was never a day where we were like, oh, we're going to go get a real job. I think if you have that realization up front, it's a lot easier to go fully committed. And when we started Goldfish, we just started causing waves straight away, like doors started opening really quickly when people saw us play and I think that really led us to, you know, push to go all in really quickly because we were like, oh, wow, something's happening here, you know.

Speaker 1: 41:44

And just being open to the possibilities as well.

Speaker 1: 41:46

Of course, I think it was John Rivers, I believe. I don't want to misquote it, but I think it was Joan Rivers, who has a quote that I love, whoever it was, and it says I was smart enough to walk through any door that opened for me. And I just love that. Yep, and sometimes it's scary to walk through that door, but if you do it, you just never know where you're going to end up. Of course, it's that same thing of regretting. You generally don't regret what you thought. Yeah, that's it exactly. So you made the bike move from cape town to san diego. I have my suspicions it's because you are avid surfers, but there probably was another reason for that. What took you to san diego?

Speaker 3: 42:23

so, you know, we started touring in the us and being based out of cape town it's so far away. Eventually, we were like, well, if we really want to give the US a proper go, we actually need to move there. And it just so happened that the visa this crazy visa that we had to get in order just to play shows there actually allowed us to live there as well. So, you know, as soon as we found that out, we were like well, do we want to give it a go in the US? Our experience in the US was really amazing because the live music scene there is just so vibrant. The fan support is just on another level. There's such a history.

Speaker 3: 42:59

Obviously, they invented the music industry.

Speaker 3: 43:01

They basically invented popular music, as it is.

Speaker 3: 43:05

They were kind of behind the eight ball on the dance music side of things and you know, we kind of entered as dance music was really relaunching there and I think we just felt like it was a good place for us to really continue our career and, you know, just push things to the next level and then, when we're looking for a place to actually move to, uh, you know, we had some friends who were living there and we went over to san diego, we'd actually played there once or twice and you know we had seen that it was very similar to cape town in many ways.

Speaker 3: 43:40

And you know, moving country later, you know, after living somewhere else for most of your life, it's kind kind of like a tough, it's a tough decision, and going somewhere which is more similar to where you were makes it a lot easier, you know, especially when you have family and all that kind of stuff. So that's kind of like. And then obviously it's like music, it's a big pie and like there were many little things that all added to this decision. And then, of course, the cherry on the top was that you can surf there.

Speaker 1: 44:09

Yes, san Diego is amazing and the food is so good.

Speaker 2: 44:14

Yeah, right by the border of Mexico, right by Mexico. It's a lot. It's Mexico and I've surfed there and just experienced the cuisine and yeah, it's a beautiful part of the world. It's just the perfect sort of sister city to a place like Cape Town.

Speaker 1: 44:29

So you obviously travel a lot. You've been all over the world, you've lived in multiple countries, you've been on the road a lot. A question about that lifestyle, about touring for you. Do you find it hard touring, do you embrace the constant change or do you like having a little bit of routine? I know during lockdown, when we were all in one place, you were doing a lot of lives and you were doing a lot of live streaming and connecting with your audience that way. So that's one way to do it. But do you like being on the road or do you find it challenging?

Speaker 3: 45:02

I mean it's it's both of those. It is challenging, but you know, being able to play to different people in different parts of the world is a it's a huge honor. You know, having promoters take a chance on you with their money, you know, because they're the ones putting the money on the line, and you know it's really, it's really an honor. So I think you know when you're touring and it's tough, you, you know you're always, you're always doing it for the fans and the people who come out to watch the show and no matter how tired you are or how hectic it's been, you know you've got to go, give it your all. And I think as times pass, we also become. You know we've dealt with touring better and figuring out how to do it in less of a crazy way.

Speaker 3: 45:43

You know, when we were were young, we just went like hell for leather, and that's obviously. You know, late nights, early mornings. You know flying, taking early flights. You know now we don't take early flights, we take later flights if we can. And, uh, you know, yeah, certain things can definitely be planned better and easier. Make things simpler and, uh, not take on everything. You know, because I think we also. Sometimes we'll be like, oh, you're gonna take on everything. And sometimes you have to also just be like listen, it's gonna kill us if we get to go from here to there, to there, to there, to there, to there. You know we have to like just, you know, do it as best we can. And you know, obviously we, I the main thing is we want to do the best possible show we can.

Speaker 2: 46:27

Also being a musician, it really feels like a calling for me. It's not a career move as such, it's something you, it's like we, must do. This, we have to do this, as opposed to just making a decision. That would be a more pragmatic or smart decision. So, as far as touring goes, it's the same thing. It just feels like you can't have one without the other touring if you're making music, playing it to people, like Dave said, it's such a huge honor. And to connect the people all over the world and just to speak different languages to you in different parts of the planet and just go like, wow, this is the universal language you also um, I sometimes find when I'm on tour, get off tour and then it's almost like you get like post-traumatic tour syndrome, where you sort of wake up and you're just thinking I need to get to an airport.

Speaker 2: 47:14

You feel like you have somewhere you need to be and obviously during lockdown it was amazing to put that down for a moment and go. I know what I'm having for dinner tonight. I'm sleeping in my own bed there are other terrorists of like.

Speaker 3: 47:25

Will we ever play another gig again, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:28

But it makes you realise how precious it is to do this life and to be grateful for it, even despite its challenges.

Speaker 1: 47:36

So delighted to say that you're going to be coming to London. Can you please tell us a bit more about that? When can we see you and how do people go about getting tickets?

Speaker 3: 47:44

Well, very exciting. We are coming to play the Roundhouse in Camden on September 7th. We've been wanting to play the Roundhouse for ages. We love playing really unique, amazing venues and the Roundhouse is definitely one of those. So we've been trying to line this up for so long and it's finally here.

Speaker 2: 48:04

We have our fellow South African, carl Watson, joining us. He's an incredible producer and DJ from our home country, dropping absolute bangers smashing it all over the world. So it's going to be an amazing evening.

Speaker 3: 48:16

Amazing, yeah, and you can get tickets on our website. I think it's just goldfishlivelondon Pretty easy.

Speaker 1: 48:22

I will also link it when I share this show, so anybody that wants to get their hands on a ticket, we'll make sure that you have the link to go and find those. Excellent. Yeah, and where can people find you on socials, because I know everyone's going to want to go and follow you after this.

Speaker 2: 48:36

It's everything at Goldfish Live. So Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, all at Goldfish Live.

Speaker 3: 48:44

I would say if you've never heard of us or if you've never seen us, the best place to go is probably our YouTube channel. There's a bunch of like full live sets. You can go and watch us playing at Red Rocks in Colorado or Printwork before it closed. We also had an amazing concert in Brooklyn last year that we put up there from the Brooklyn Mirage, which is this crazy venue, and, yeah, I would say that's a good place to go.

Speaker 1: 49:10

Dave and Dominic. I'm so delighted that I had the chance to catch up with you. Thank you so much for your time and I cannot wait to see what's next for you, and I can't wait. I'm coming to see you in London, obviously, and I can't wait to see you there. It's going to be a vibe, thanks so much for having us Thanks.

Speaker 1: 49:24

Ruth. There you have it. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of this Is Disruption. If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to follow the podcast and never miss an episode. You can find us on all major podcast platforms Apple Podcasts, spotify, etc. Also on YouTube. Stay connected with us on social media. You can find the podcast at thisisdisruptionpod on Instagram and TikTok and you will find updates and snippets of upcoming shows. Until next time, keep challenging the status quo, embracing your creative spirit and be brave. Go and create. Thank you, and see you in the next episode.