DJ/producer Tyler Martens (Stickybuds) is known as an all-round nice guy and it’s true. The BRAG talks to him from his home in Kelowna on Canada’s west coast and finds he’s downright adorable. Martens is preparing for a trip to Australia to appear at this year’s Rainbow Serpent Festival, and summer festivalgoers can expect a right-on time. “I’m just bringing out a whole bunch of good music,” says Martens. “I’m doing a tour of ten shows – this is my fifth tour to Australia.”
Stickybuds’ increasing popularity means Martens is kept incredibly busy. “My life is pretty full-on. I had only one month off last year. I don’t get a lot of downtime to kick around ideas. I have to find time to let myself breathe and recuperate. You have to learn your boundaries and that only comes with experience. Both performing and producing are really important.”
Martens reckons he comes from a unique musical scene, and it’s one he’s been influential in creating. “I’m bringing out some west coast Canadian vibes. A lot of my friends and I have helped to sculpt a multi-genre sound, which sets it apart. The difference is in how we deal with those genres. We make strong, interesting hybrids. For example, I mix a cappellas with funk songs, with other drums and bass, stuff like that.”
Despite his moniker, Stickybuds does a lot more than reggae, although reggae features along with Junglist tunes in his glitch hop tracks mixed with heavy bass, funk and breaks. “It’s a good groove,” he says. “Ghetto-funk. I do mid-tempo funk music with horn lines; tonnes of horns.”
Martens has been at it now for 11 years. “I’m 30 now. I started playing when I was 20. I’d been going to raves since I was 14. Then I bought a record thinking, ‘I’ll play this at a rave one day.’ I made a mixtape, listened to people doing nu skool breaks. Then I went to audio school and learnt how to become a producer and make music. I made melodies. As a producer, you’re the whole band – drummer, bassline, leads and keyboard player. My goal is to make original content that you can put out there. I’ve just recorded a new song, ‘Easy’, with vocals by Greg Blackman – one of my funky mid-tempo songs. Over the last six or seven years I’ve been involved with 25 independent labels; small, rad labels – some are bigger than others. They’re all cool, underground music labels.
“I taught myself,” Martens adds. “It’s been getting bigger and going uphill. It’s a crazy natural progression; a nice, steady uphill progression.”
That crazy progression led Martens to a residency at Canada’s Shambhala Music Festival from 2005-13. He was nominated for Best New DJ at the International BreaksPoll 2012 Awards and has performed at Glastonbury, Burning Man and New Zealand’s Splore Festival, as well as Ibiza’s iconic Space Club. Plenty of preparation goes into a Stickybuds set.
“There’s a complete set of stuff I like to put together. I prepare, sequence everything. Mix things harmonically. Create transitions. The vocals are one segment – mix them into the next song. Keep layering about the set, figuring out transitions, all the different options. This tour will be my first time with this set of music so I’m not sure what to expect.
“I’m a vinyl DJ. 12-inch records. I used two turntables for the first five years but it’s all on Serato now – it’s not really practical to travel with three or four crates of records! I like to edit, sample, change things – you can’t really edit a vinyl record.”
These days, DJs can ascend to rock-god status with massive international careers. Martens offers his view on the phenomenon. “The media is so heavily involved in electronic music, so DJs are exposed to a lot more people. There’s Skrillex winning Grammy Awards … there’s a whole bunch of new people, and the thing gets sculpted into pop. It can be a total cash cow, and that’s where you get the cookie-cutter festivals that become public companies, with investors who are only in it for the money. They couldn’t give a shit about music, they just want their 25,000 festivalgoers to book tickets so they get a return.”
Stickybuds’ music fits in somewhere different. “There’s always an antihero to the mega mainstream festival,” Martens says. “What I’m part of is the underground scene that doesn’t much care about trends or who’s the biggest or the best. We’re all just working hard and supporting each other. It’s not like I’m super-famous, not like I’m number one or anything. I just keep pushing things.
“I’ve got really good friends in all continents. At the moment I’m totally happy with what I’m doing. It’s hands-on, it’s challenging. How I like things to be. There’s nothing missing DJ-wise at the moment.”
Catch him at Rainbow Serpent Festival 2015alongsideBeats Antique, Desert Dwellers, Christopher Lawrence, Opiuo, Spoonbill and many more atLexton, Victoria fromFriday January 23 – Monday January 26.Also appearing alongside JPOD at The UFO Club on Saturday February 21.
