SHAKING THE FOUNDATION
Tour kicks up the bass, but DJ takes care not to literally bring the house down
The specific technical demands of his custom PK Sound Shaolin Bass rig and the Shogun Stage Production he’s travelling with on the Ninja tour present some challenges to mixing it up every night. But Datsik — a.k.a. Kelowna-born and raised Troy Beetles — doesn’t like to drop the same set on the crowd every night.
The DJ likes to push upwards of 100,000 watts of power pumping out jams specializing in the lower end and literally tests the capacity of each venue’s resonant frequency before a show to, literally, avoid bringing the house down.
“I’m constantly making changes and keeping my lighting guys on their toes to deliver something fresh every night,” said Datsik. “I honestly think that I’m very blessed to be able to tour for a living consistently year after year and ... the reason for that is each EP or release I am always pushing the envelope for myself and for the audiences.”
The latest recording is the Sensei EP out on Firepower Records. Continuing the Ninja Nation Tour concept first fired up in 2015, which showcased a stage setup called Vortex, he’s now pulled the bigger, brasher design, titled Shogun, together. Completely revising his stage ties right into his ever-evolving sound and survival in a business that is notoriously unforgiving.
“If I’m feeling bored with how something is sounding or looking, then I scrap it or completely redo it,” he said. “As genres come and go, it’s important to keep your own identity in the scene because otherwise you become nothing more than second best to someone else. You have to craft your vision to become a staple and consistently keep touring and drawing year after year.”
It didn’t happen overnight. Los Angeles-based since 2012, Datsik plied his trade on five continents and graced stages at such massive events as Coachella, the Ultra Music Festival, the Pemberton Music Festival and — his personal favourite — the Shambhala Music Festival.
“I still haven’t done Africa yet and the one place I’ve been dying to go, and really think it’s crazy that I haven’t yet, is Japan,” he said. “But I changed management for international bookings recently, so hopefully I’ll get to Japan and take some time to do some soulsearching.”
The whole Sensei EP came together as the big production stage was in development, too. He says that the music will often come together as a kind of synergy with the set design and development process. He always aims to create the “total experience” with his tours.
“I didn’t have the whole EP finished yet, didn’t know exactly what I was doing with the stage design or where I was going with it and then, in three days, I wrote the track Sensei,” he said. “Sharing it around, everyone came back and said it should be the Sensei EP and what if the set was this giant dojo-looking kind of thing and, doodling over breakfast, what if I became this character from a Mortal Kombat-type thing and we brought it all together.”
Considering that his professional name came from his original Xbox Live gamer tag, the concept is appropriate. He says that the kids are eating it up, too. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a recording of massive tracks such as Redemption, which features his old partner in beats and frequent collaborator from Kelowna, Excision. The two remain long-term collaborators.
“He’s a really great friend of mine and we have this kind of sibling rivalry over tours and stage designs — he’s ahead of me by one at nine and I’m on my eighth — where we compete, but also share and push each other,” he said. “It all dates back to the Shambhala Music Festival, where we both first had our minds blown with all of our friends. I would say that going to that event, hearing a PK Sound System in the perfect space perfectly dialed, genuinely made so much of Datsik, because Shambhala is the bass music mecca of North America and my own freakin’ backyard.”
As for Datsik’s martial-arts skills to match his obsession; not so much. He did a bit of jiu-jitsu as a kid. But his love of Wu-Tang Clan, Mortal Kombat and other forms of martial arts entertainment is forever.
In other words, his chops are strictly musical. “And I’m just liv- ing out my childhood fantasies tying it all in together and having a total blast,” said Datsik.
As genres come and go, it’s important to keep your own identity in the scene because otherwise you become nothing more than second best to someone else.