Steve Lind, better known as Spenda C, talks to JAI CHOUHAN ahead of his date with the Father Villa Takeover this Friday, May 1, alongside Just A Gent.
Now nearly halfway through the Totally Awesome Autumn Tour, Spenda C is amped for the remaining dates, bringing his experience as the resident at Sydney’s Chinese Laundry across Australia and NZ this month. The NSW native has also recently collaborated with legendary DJ Funk on the single, Pop’n Champagne and friend, Nemo on the Rinselife EP out on Klub Kids.
Holding residency at Sydney institutions, Chinese Laundry and Pacha for nearly 10 years, Lind has been able to hone his skill on the ones and twos, moving through genres towards his now grounding in Trap.
“It’s really good having residencies. It’s good to have that regular spot because of the people. You see regular crew, so you really build what a nightclub should be, having the same sort of people come down and hang out and yeah, you get the opportunities at the residencies to try different stuff and try different records that I might not necessarily try somewhere else because I don’t know the crowd as well.
“I started off playing more hip hop stuff, I was doing all vinyl back then about 10 years ago. Then I sort of moved into breakbeat, into more Baltimore club and ghetto house, then into a lot of moombahton and now trap.”
Although now known for his trap sets, the producer notes the influence of his formative years in allowing himself to be more versatile on the stage.
“I like to play everything.” Spenda C begins, “That’s the really good thing about trap, it’s pretty versatile. There’s a lot of bass stuff that fits into the trap genre and it’s all about the different tempos, you know? It gives you opportunity to bounce in between a lot of different tempos and a lot of different sounds.”
Just ahead of the tour, Lind released Pop’n Champagne alongside legendary Chicago producer, DJ Funk who supplied vocals over a bona fide body mover.
“We originally sent it to him to see if he wanted to do a remix and we didn’t know he was looking for beats. He just released his 20th year anniversary Gold album, so was looking for beats for that. He was like ‘can I rap over it?’ and I said ‘sure! You can rap over it’! He sent me his vocals, I chopped it up, put it over top, it was pretty quick and easy actually. And to have someone like that on the record, I was pretty stoked with it because he’s a bit of a legend.”
On top of his international collaboration, Spenda C has also recently released the Rinselife EP with fellow Sydney-sider, Nemo.
“Nemo’s great because we both live in Sydney so it’s easy for us to catch up. We shared a studio in the city but we let that go, so we just do stuff at home in some quick sessions. He comes over, I cook him a barbecue.
“It’s more of a barbecue/drinking session than a studio session,” he chuckles. “It was kind of like an hour of work and four hours of playing around, but it got done. It’s great to have that out there, it’s all good things. Even got some support from Fatboy Slim on one of the tracks, which was nice.”
