They’re about to fly Down Under to headline the Good Vibrations festival, so we called Sister Bliss, also one of the world’s top female DJs in her own right…
So, excited about Good Vibes? Ah of course. It’s going to be the middle of our bitter winter and it’s just going to be the most wonderful thing to come and enjoy the sunshine and of course the amazing crowds. It’s colder in Manchester right now than you’ll ever be in Oz. We take it so you don’t have to! Also, it’s the first time we’ve played Good Vibes, but the lineup’s amazing and we’re headlining so it all bodes well. Good music, good weather and good vibrations all round.
The touring festivals must be great fun, travelling Oz with the other acts? Yeah, I loved it the last time [I played Summerdayz] and I was hanging out with Swedish House Mafia. They kept getting kicked out of hotels so I had to pretend I wasn’t actually with them so I didn’t get tarred with the same rebellious brush!
What were they up to? You know, partying hard, being naughty in the bar, Perth particularly I remember. It was brilliant fun. I feel there’s a global dance community, there’s people like me who started back in the day and there’s young guns coming through. There’s just this energy, that we’re all there for the same reason, we want to make great music and make people dance the world over and give them something special to remember. It’s a slightly different vibe from pop music I think. A lot of older DJs are almost like patrons to younger ones. Even though the older generation won’t stop raving! They still show the younger ones how it’s done.
Are the young guns in awe of you? Ha, so far nobody’s fallen over in a feint! It’s kind of a mutual respect. It’s an equal playing field, it just takes one great tune to have a breakthrough.
Are you ever like, “Ah, I can’t be bothered to play ‘Insomnia’ tonight”? Never. We’ve got six albums of material to move through so I never feel like I’m stuck. But really these are the tracks that put us on the map. There’s no way we could do a gig and not play “Insomnia”. Number one it opened up the doors to the rest of my life. That track enabled us to put the rest of the band together. I feel that song was a complete blessing, people wait all their lives to have a hit as big as that. It did sort of flummox us because it came really early on and we still felt like we were this little underground house act. “Insomnia” went ballistic pretty much everywhere. It opened the doors for us to tour all over the world and make more albums and to experiment and be ourselves.
Does it feel like 15 years has flown by or gone slow? Bloody hell, it did when I had a hangover yesterday, it felt more like 100 years! I find it it very hard to measure time. I still remember those very early days, when we sold 16 albums a week and we’d be like, “that’s amazing, who are they!”
Are you a bit calmer on tour nowadays? Yeah, but I’m pretty chilled anyway. We’re not all in our 20s, plus I’ve got a son.
You’ve got some time between the shows. Will you see much of Oz? I know, it’s going to be fantastic. I’ve got family in Melbourne so I’ll probably chill out and see them, in Adelaide as well. So I might take days off to hang out with my folks as I don’t see them nearly enough. And of course eating the finest seafood known to man, it’s always the best in Oz. I maybe chilling out on a couple of beaches, maybe Clovelly in Sydney and various other places I’ve got a soft spot for. Once we’re over there with you guys the world will feel like our oyster. Faithless headline Good Vibrations, which visits Sydney (Feb12), Melbourne (Feb 13), Gold Coast (Feb 19) and Perth (Feb 20). For tix, see http://www.goodvibrationsfestival.com.au
