Fancy some cheesy 80s horror?

Feeling like things have been a bit quiet on the Touch Sensitive front lately? The funkified electro lord and bass aficionado has had his hands quite literally full. Hanging out with six-month-old, Mariella, and working on his new EP has taken up the bulk of his time, so I suppose we can give him a free pass…

Naturally, that means it’s a pretty special occasion when he can pull some pals together for a movie night and a couple of drinks at his Sydney apartment. When we dropped in, the 80s Italian horror film Wild Beasts and Smirnoff’s new passionfruit seltzer were on the menu, and let’s just say one of them was incredibly cheesy, one of them was incredibly delicious (that was the seltzer, duh).

We also had a little chat with Touchy about music, soundtracks, house parties and bangers. Check it out below and head here to peep the Smirnoff Aus IG page:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atVAFICSzzI

Tough one to start, but what’s your go-to dancefloor banger?

In the past, when I’ve had parties and I’ve put music on, it usually clears the floor [laughs]. So I leave that to someone else. It’s weird because what I listen for or appreciate in my spare time is very different to what I think maybe other people do. When you do music full-time for a living it can be hard to listen to something without deconstructing it.

So when it comes to that time, I’m not really interested in hearing things I’ve heard a thousand times before, but at the same time I might hear something that I haven’t listened to for a long time and hear it out somewhere in a different context and you’re like “Oh wow. That’s actually amazing.” Or “I would have never thought to put that on. I would’ve never thought to play that.” So it just depends. But yeah. As far as party starters go, I’m not the guy that…

But at the same time, if it’s with the right people, then it kind of doesn’t matter or it might not be, you might not get the response you want, but you also might get a few people who are just like “Oh, whoa, what’s that?” And that might trigger another path because someone else’s says, “Oh, well, you really like that. Oh man, check this out.” And then before you know it, you’re in a rabbit hole.

You play bass often at your shows, why is live music still an important element to your music? Why bass out of all the instruments (I’m assuming you can play)?

Probably because it’s my first instrument. Actually, it’s not, the keyboard was my first instrument, but bass was the thing that I gravitated towards. And also as far as in a live context, there’s a bit more feedback. So if I was just playing a keyboard, no one can really see what you’re doing, but at least with the bass, I can be active. I can move around. It’s my favourite thing.

What are the key ingredients for a successful movie night?

Well, obviously comfort, food and the right people and something great to watch. But unfortunately, the movie that we’re watching tonight is only 24% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s called Wild Beasts, but the soundtrack is by Daniele Patucchi, and it’s been described as having weak characters, weak plot, weak theme, all that stuff. I’ve never seen it, so… But I have the score, I have the record and the record has a couple of cool tracks on it, so I’m kind of interested just to see how bad it actually is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbJ5IgkSdAA

Do you ever read a bad review of a movie you want to see and it turns you off?

It all just depends on who’s reviewing it and when they’re reviewing it and what happened in their life before they reviewed it. Maybe they hate it today, but they might kind of like it tomorrow. It’s really easy to criticize a movie, I can’t make a movie, I can’t direct a movie, so why am I going to say that something’s shit? I can’t do it. And anyone that creates something, you know how hard it is to finish something, the challenges, so at least it deserves some kind of respect, no matter what the endeavor is.

Obviously you haven’t been able to tour much of the past year. What has filled that gap in your life?

The gap was filled by having a baby and moving, escaping the belly of the beast, which was Los Angeles, and then coming back to Australia after having sold everything, it was a bit of a mission, but I think… compared to a lot of other people… that’s just life. I know some people went crazy and were in the studio every day and making the most of the time, but I actually just was like, “you know what, I’m just not going to do anything.”

I also kind of lost a bit of steam. I did one EP [The 36th Level] that had my uncle on the cover and then the new EP was another uncle on the cover. And then while I was overseas and I was working on that EP, he died and then the world shut down and all my gigs got canceled, so I kind of lost steam and stopped. But I’m picking that up now and finishing that shit.

What else can you tell us about the upcoming EP?

So the first EP, The 36th Level, which had one of my uncle’s with the gold suit on the cover, was more of an eighties tip. And this one is my other uncle, the one that passed away in a delicatessen in the nineties with all the salamis and stuff around him. So the sound of that is more like Italy reliving, the nineties, nineties house kind of vibe. It’s almost done.