Canadian DJ duo Adventure Club still might be pretty new to the EDM scene, but they’re quickly making an impact on the industry. Christian Srigley and Leighton James grew up in Montreal and originally started as a punk act, before making the transition to Dubstep, which is the genre that most of their music falls under these days.
Having really been put on the map thanks to huge remixes like Lullabies, Crave You and Youth, Christian and Leighton are currently hard at work trying to pump out their first studio album, in between all of their touring, of course. They also just released an absolutely beautiful remix of Shadow of the Sun the other week, which you NEED to check out if you haven’t already.
Recently, while at the RBC Bluesfest in Ottawa, I had the chance to sit down with Adventure Club for an exclusive interview. The duo was a pleasure to talk to, as we spoke about what it means to be a Canadian musician, the huge success they’ve seen so far, what their plans for the future are and more.
Check it out below, and enjoy!
Being Canadian DJs, how does it feel to be back home? And is it important for you guys to play Canadian shows?
Adventure Club: It’s pretty rewarding to play anything close to home, it just feels closer to the heart. So we always love when we get booked to play in Canada. Obviously the market isn’t as big as the U.S., so there’s not as many cities to hit. We’ll play Canada maybe 15 times a year though.
Are most of your fans Canadian would you say?
Adventure Club: No, most of them are in the States now actually. But I guess that’s just because the U.S. is way bigger.
Tell us a bit about your roots in Montreal, where did you get your start and where was your first gig?
Adventure Club: We played Le Belmont a lot, but that wasn’t our first concert. That was our initial stomping ground though. They had the Wednesday Dubstep shows and we would open for a couple different acts back then. I think for one of our first shows, we were right at the bottom of the flyer. It was us, then Construct and then the Killabits, who are from Montreal.
You started as a punk duo, right?
Adventure Club: Yup.
So why did you switch to Dubstep?
Adventure Club: Short answer is people liked it more. [laughs] It was kind of a natural progression though. We had heard a couple remixes of some hardcore tracks that we really liked and so we started making some Dubstep on the side. Growing up we were into punk hardcore though, that’s all we listened to.