Goldfish Interview

Jazz, jamming and jet lag with South Africa's unstoppable live duo

South African duo Goldfish have come in their own words, from 'impromptu jams at a tiny beach club in Cape Town to headlining Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium'. With plenty of gigs in Ibiza in-between, the duo of Dom and Dave – who started off with 2006's debut album 'Caught In The Loop' - are now firmly at home in arena sized venue, thanks to their blend of up-to-the-minute electronic beats and live, feel good instrumentation.

So it's a rare occasion to catch them in the relatively intimate surrounding of Egg London this Friday 14th October alongside Watermät. Ahead of this show, put on by Cake, we caught up with the pair for a potted history of how they broke out of South Africa's remote club scene...

More info and tickets for the party here.

Can you tell us a little about how you started out? How and why did those initial jams together start?

Dave and I were actually studying music degrees at the University of Cape Town. We were playing in a jazz band together originally, you know, playing hotel lobbies, weddings, restaurants and jazz clubs to make some cash as students. We loved jazz and the freeform spirit and expression it allowed us, but it’s not really something you can just walk into unless you’ve spent some time developing your musical palette. Sort of like wine. It takes a while to learn to appreciate the subtleties. We’d always invite our friends to come watch us and they were like ‘this is cool guys but not really our thing.’ But when we started Goldfish it was a totally different story. We wanted to combine those jazzy samples and sounds with the beats we also loved, because we felt like people were missing out on a whole vibe. So we made a track in Dave’s bedroom and gave it to a DJ friend to play out. He came back saying that everyone had gone mental when he dropped it and did we have anymore? That’s when we knew we’d touched a nerve.

It's a long way from there to Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium! What was it that made you realise that what you were doing was ready for a bigger audience? Or did you not until 'Caught In The Loop' came out?

We ended up in Ibiza by accident really. We were playing a beach party in Cannes that we’d been invited to perform at as part of an advertising awards party at and it seemed criminal to be so close to Ibiza and not go. So we just kind of went. A year or so before a guy had said that if we were ever in Ibiza we should hit him up - and he could hook us up with some accommodation in exchange for playing a resort he managed. It was a kind of a spring break resort for German students who had just left school. So we flew over. It was absolute mayhem. We played the show for the kids who were completely wasted.. as you do. The night after that, we somehow managed to blag a 30 minute sunset slot before Pete Tong at Café Mambo. If you know Café Mambo you know the DJ booth isn’t really set up for live acts…We arrived with all our gear and instruments and ended up setting up on two dining tables out front. Haha. We somehow got everything connected to the system with one mono RCA cable Dave found in their equipment room and just made it happen. We must have done something right because the MD of Pacha was there and asked if we’d like to come do a set at Pacha later? We checked our diaries and saw that we were, in fact, completely free that evening. We ended up having a smashing set there and agreed to a residency and an album deal right after the show on the terrace. If we hadn’t managed to get that once RCA cable to work, things would probably be very different now.

Is it true that you recorded your debut album at home? What limitations did you have to deal with and how did you manage to get it into the right hands?

We have had amazing support along the way from so many people. Pete was definitely one of the first, just like he so often is. The first album 'Caught In The Loop' really was recorded in Dave’s bedroom and for many people it’s still their favourite Goldfish album. Just goes to show that it’s ideas, not gear, that stand the test of time. After being in this industry for a while you have to get comfortable being constantly out of your comfort zone. You have less and less time to do something twice as good each time you do it. Also, originally being from Cape Town definitely made things hard both geographically and financially because, let’s face it, South African passports and currency are pretty useless overseas. Lots of visas and balancing the books are very real problems for any artist wanting to make it out of SA. You just have to be resourceful and hungry because you have a lot of hurdles to overcome just to show up compared to a lot of Northern Hemisphere artists. Not that we are complaining, it makes any success you have that much sweeter. Everyone has their own journey and challenges. But ours definitely made us grateful for what we have achieved so far.

It must be hard travelling around with some much gear. Do you ever wish you could just turned up with a USB?

All. The Time. USB DJs have it so easy… maybe too easy! Honestly though, we’d get bored without getting creative with the instruments and gear. So the positives outweigh the hassle for sure. We strip back a little for the club type setups like Egg, but it never compromises on how we do our show.

According to Discogs, you hold a record at the South African Music Awards record for most nominations, which was for 8 in 2009! Does that record still stand? How many did you win that year and have you added anymore awards since then?

I think it has gotten broken since, but we held it for a good few years. We won four and an MTV award I think. We don’t really get too into the awards thing really. Music is the reward.

Can you tell us about what you've been up to this year so far? Have you been back in Ibiza?

We actually just moved to San Diego. We were touring like crazy and spending so much time flying back and forth from America back to Cape Town it actually just got to the point of ‘Why don’t we just live here?’ Our management and agents are here too. Who knows, we’ll be here for a while and even though we miss Cape Town we are back there a couple times a year, and the move has definitely been a good thing for our circadian rhythms. We were in Ibiza for a bit this year. We played Amnesia and just got to enjoy being back on the island. We spent seven summers living in Ibiza and it’s definitely a huge part of who we are today so we’ll always go back.

We hear that there's a new album on the way? What can you tell us about it?

We're working on it right now, actually. This interview is interrupting us! Haha.

The new album will be called 'Tipping The Scales' and it’s a story of where we are at both musically and in life. It’s about finding that balance between everything, be it music, surfing, travelling, moving, and the crazy journey we have been on together since Goldfish began. We are really excited about how it’s sounding so and we have some amazing collabs and features on it. We might even tease a few at the show on Saturday.

Do you actually have a three second goldfish memory? Do you actually have a three second goldfish memory? Do you actually have a three second goldfish memory? Do you actually have a three second goldfish memory? Do you actually have a three second goldfish memory? Etc.

What was the question? Touché.