CREATIVE CONVERSATIONS 150: HOT DUB TIME MACHINE ON HIS CAN'T STOP TOUR

Interview by Angela Croudace.

Ultimate party starter, Hot Dub Time Machine, is back for 2025 and he just can’t stop bringing the energy with a new headline tour around Australia, New Zealand and Bali. Across 8 nights in 3 countries, Hot Dub’s brand-new show will be celebrating some of the best in dance music from 1962-2025, delivering on his promise of the BEST. PARTY. EVER.

FMM: Your Can't Stop tour promises an epic time-traveling dance party with music from 1962 to 2025. What's the creative process behind selecting the tracks for a show that spans so many decades?

HDTM: It starts a long time away from the gigs. I always have a note in my phone of just songs I like, songs I hear, songs I heard other DJs play and that have done something. This list is just massive. I go through that and then I put a year next to every song. I need to find out what year that song was from. Then, I chuck them all into Serato, sort them by year, and then I'm looking for combinations of songs. I'm looking for songs that have a similar BPM that would mix really well together.

I'm trying to represent every genre, and I'm also trying to make an energy build throughout the whole set and through each decade. I find those little songs and then I combine them with the songs that I know work because I've been doing this for 15 years and there's a Hot Dub set that people love and there's some moments that I do that if I don't do, people get upset.

FMM: So it’s about including those moments with the new ones?

HDTM: Mate, it's an anxiety nightmare of a couple of months of prep doing that kind of stuff. I find it really, really difficult sometimes. You'll be like for days just trying to find something and then all of a sudden, like last year on the tour, I really wanted to play Born Slippy. I just couldn't find it interesting. It’s a really long song. I've always got my crowd in mind and they're not all Underworld fans, but I was sitting there, and I was like, Foo Fighters, how can I make that work? And I found an acapella of Learn to Fly and then put that in. There was like Days of Misery, and I came up with that moment and I was like, oh, this is great. Wow. A lot more goes into it than one would think.

FMM: You know what's funny about that Born Slippy song as well? I used it for an Instagram reel of mine and I had the same issue of the song's so long, but finding the best bit to select of where it starts in the middle. It was a bit of a mess.

HDTM: Yeah, that song is like all about the riff, isn't it? The opening riff is about the moment in Trainspotting when people first heard it. It's the moment at the rave because it's like a breakdown. That's it. Like dun dun dun dun dun. I have a theory that almost every song has like one good idea or two good ideas that the people who made it made like. I like to find those ideas within the song as well. I don't need to hear a second verse that sounds exactly like the first verse, but if the bridge is a great idea as well, then I want to hear those two things. It’s getting that right snippet of the best of it and finding what makes the song awesome.

FMM: What's your personal favourite era or genre you enjoy?

HDTM: I guess, like all DJs, the 70s is kind of the heart of the music we love. It’s so fun to DJ the 70s because obviously disco and dance music, but also the disco that time wasn't gridded. It's really quite hard and a challenge to make those songs sit together. But also 70s rock, I love. I listen to a lot of Australian rock from that ACDC, obviously, but also Stevie Wright. There's a sound that Australian rock had in the 70s by a couple of producers and it just sounds like butter to me. I love it.

FMM: Oh, awesome. After performing at iconic festivals like Coachella and Tomorrowland, what keeps you excited about taking your one-of-a-kind-show to a smaller, more intimate venue such as cities like Hobart or Christchurch?

HDTM: I love the travel, honestly. I love that as a part of this job. It is just so fun. I didn't become a professional DJ till I was 35, so I don't take it for granted. It's so rad going to a place like Christchurch, where I do know I have some friends there and stuff, but I haven't played many shows there. It's such an interesting place. And Hobart's awesome. It's fun breaking new ground, because there's some in places like Sydney, Adelaide, Edinburgh, London, there's people there who've seen me over 30 times. Navigating that is hard because I've always got to give them something new In New Zealand. They don't know who the hell I am. It's wonderful. It's like a two-hour flight away and they've never heard of me, so people keep coming to my shows and it’s like fresh meat.

FMM: If you could have any celebrity past or present join you on stage for a Hot Dub Time Machine show, who would you choose and why?

HDTM: Wow, that's an interesting question. I've never been asked that before. Nice one. Well, obviously they have to be a singer. I love singers, so on my bigger shows, I'm always bringing my favourite singers with me because there's something about the goosebumps on your arm when you hear someone who can really shred, someone who's got an incredible voice. I've always loved female singers. I have a mix on SoundCloud that I made before Hot Dub, like 15 years ago called Divas, where I listed all of them. It starts with Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, then goes Aretha Franklin. It was just after Amy Winehouse died, who I was really obsessed with, so I was trying to draw a line between Ella Fitzgerald and Amy Winehouse through these singers. It's a long answer to a simple question, but it'd be like some combination of Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse and Sia.

FMM: Oh, that'd be a lineup, indeed. That's crazy.

HDTM: Well, that's the joy of DJing, though. I can play all those songs. That can happen at Hot Dub Time Machine that I do play Aretha Franklin, Sia and Amy Winehouse and you get to hear it on a massive sound system.

FMM: I've got to give props to you too, because you're showing that female representation in the music industry and we just need so much more of it, so good on you for doing that. It's funny, I looked at my own music tastes recently and I found that unfortunately a lot of the bands and artists that I like were male-fronted, so I've been really trying to get into more females. There are some amazing female singers, obviously, and performers, so good on you for showing more of that.

HDTM: It's interesting. I mean, you like what you like in the end, but generally, female singers are my thing, and always have been.

FMM: Good to hear. You've built a reputation for hosting the best party ever. What does that title mean to you? And how do you maintain that high energy atmosphere every night?

HDTM: Yeah, the Best Party Ever was a tagline that was given to me back in my first year in Edinburgh at the Edinburgh Fringe, which is where I kind of started off doing these fringe festivals. I was doing four days a week, three-hour shows for the month and it was really hard going. No one came initially, but gradually it built up and then on the last week, it was just sold out in this little 200 capacity venue and sweat dripping from the ceiling and there were kids who made their own merch and sold it from the crepe van next door. It was just this unique vibe.

I used to have these power up buttons that I would hit, you know, the company with the visuals. And one of them was ‘Best Party Ever.’ I was hitting that last night and on the last day of the run, everyone chanted ‘Best Party Ever.’ It was a real transformational moment in my life and going, oh, this can work. This could be my life. This is the best party ever. And so, from then on, I try to not take a night off I never want to hear that the singer or band I'm singing is tired or that they feel like the crowd isn't good.

I hate it when you see a band and you can tell that they think they're too good for it. That's never fucking happening with me. Every show is the best party ever, and I think that it's kind of your job as the performer to say that you are the most beautiful crowd I've ever had. That's what I want to feel on a night out, and so that's what I do.

FMM: How do you unwind after a big set?

HTDM: Well, I don't drink anymore, so it's been almost four and a half years off the booze. It used to be that I would get sideways drunk and go to an after party and just kick on, and I don't regret those days. I had a lot of fun, but it's certainly very different now. These days I just like to talk to people. I like to talk to friends. I love having close friends at a show and. After every show, I'll go down to the front row and there's always some people who've seen me heaps of times and I love having those chats and then I just sit in my hotel room, play computer games till I pass out. It’s timeless.

FMM: That’s awesome, and I think it helps you to put on the best show if you’ve got another show the next night. That really does help you if you’re not getting wasted.

HDTM: I used to do it though, I used to just kick on. I was complaining to my GP the other day about some mild ailment and explaining my lifestyle. I said I’m used to it. I used to do five or sex shows a week. He said, yes, but you were also 36, you’re now 46.

FMM: As someone who's taken the party across the globe, what's one place or city you haven't performed in yet that's on your bucket list? And why?

HDTM: Oh, there's so many I like and I think I'm coming to terms with the fact that perhaps that time in my life and career might be behind me. Because my kids are older, they need me around a lot more. I'm not willing to go somewhere and not be paid for it if I'm away from home. It needs to be worthwhile. So, you know, it's pretty bloody unlikely I'm going to go to Brazil and play over there, but I gave it a good shot. I toured America and stuff like that. Places I'd like to play but haven't; I got offered a gig in the Orkney Islands, which is like, way north of the UK, so it's like, there's Scotland and then there's the Orkneys and then there's the Hebrides and they actually have a festival in the Orkneys. I got offered it in like, 2017 and at the time I was like, get me gigs further south.

I'm already big in Scotland, I don't want to go further north. Where are you going to end up? I'm going to be in freaking Greenland, but now I'm like, you idiot, you should have taken the gig in the Orkneys because what an incredible place to visit.

Yeah, I can imagine. Well, I can't, actually. I've never heard of it. Is it some rural sort of seaside island?

HTDM: Oh, they're spectacular. Like, Scotland is unbelievable. So Isle of Skye, all that crazy scenery. The Orkneys is just even further north, so it's even wild, but actually quite a big oil industry. People live up there.

FMM: Yeah, that’d be rad! What's one track or moment in your show that you know, is guaranteed to get the crowd hyped, no matter what city or country you're in?

HTDM: Oh, that's kind of my job, to find those moments. I have hours of them on my computer. I like finding the songs that will unify a crowd anywhere. Main differences between places are, you know, Americans like hip hop way more than English people do. Australians are kind of in the middle. New Zealanders, there's a whole world that they like. Things that unite them all, you know, September, Earth, Wind and Fire, Jump Around, House of Pain, Sandstorm. These songs transcend boundaries.

FMM: There certainly do. Lastly, this tour is spanning across three countries; Australia, New Zealand and Bali. What's different about the energy and vibe you're experienced from crowds in these regions?

HDTM: Yeah, as I say, there's a slightly different musical knowledge and musical history between all those places, and I love that. That's a fun challenge. It's so fun turning up to somewhere and trying to work out what to play.

FMM: Beautiful. Tom, it's been such a pleasure speaking to such an Aussie legend. We can't wait for the tour. Thank you so much for your time.

HTDM: Oh, that's awesome. I appreciate it. Have a great day.