Diplo reveals why Australia rules the dance music world as Major Lazer booked for Stereosonic

ROCK star DJ Diplo sings the praises of our Iggy Azalea and Ruby Rose and defends Justin Bieber ahead of his return to headline Stereosonic.

FOR SUNDAY JULY 12. Major Lazer founder and rock star DJ Diplo. Picture: Supplied

HE is the rock star DJ and producer who was Madonna’s date to the Grammys, allegedly enjoyed some dates with Katy Perry and scored a date with social media destiny with a questionable tweet about Taylor Swift.

Diplo is the dance man with the pop Midas touch, an artist who juggles his own projects including Major Lazer and Jack Ü with remixing and producing music for Her Madgesty, Usher, Bruno Mars, Britney Spears, Rita Ora, Iggy Azalea and Justin Bieber.

He was also Public Enemy No. 1 for a few months after sledging Swift on Twitter as she released her 1989 record but the pair made up with a selfie at the Grammys in February.

Born Thomas Wesley Pentz, and known as Wes to his mates, the multi-tasking musician Diplo is dropping his sons Lockett and Lazer off at their grandmother’s house while chatting about all things Australia.

Major Lazer will be one of the headliners for Stereosonic 2015, the biggest national festival still running in Australia, with Diplo acting as one of its unofficial ambassadors thanks to having played the event five times previously both with Major Lazer and as a DJ.

The electronic dancehall trio, which also features Jillionaire and Walshy Fire, scored a No. 1 smash here with Lean On, featuring MØ and DJ Snake, and followed up with the top 10 hit Powerful, featuring Ellie Goulding and Tarrus Riley.

That success has catapulted their third record Peace Is The Mission to a top 5 peak.

Diplo jokes that he has to chase up the overdue platinum records for all these pop hits in Australia.

“In Australia, we have had a bunch of pop records that have gone platinum there before anywhere else in the world,” he says.

“We are not going out of our way to be pop, it’s just working there for us. Even my publisher looks at the Australian charts first now.”

And then there is Jack U, his musical incarnation with mate Skrillex, another regular guest on the Australian charts.

Their Where Are U Now collaboration with Justin Bieber sought to share the pop brat’s vulnerable side as he attempted to rehabilitate his reputation with fans and the industry.

Diplo had worked with Bieber before on the Believe record.

The release of Where Are U Now just as they were also dropping the Major Lazer record was “awkward” but had more to do with the time it took to do the impressive video which featured fans “drawing” on a singing and dancing Biebs than bad label scheduling.

The plaintive pop lament with the dance drop soared up the charts as the 21-year-old superstar spent a week working on his spiritual side in Sydney at a Hillsong convention.

“In the overall process of the Jack U project, we wanted to do as many surprising things as we could and I think it is a job well done that Where Are U Now has people thinking different about (Justin),” Diplo says.

“That was a hard job to do with people. He is a young punk in a good way and bad way but he’s humble. He is also a real person and he could feel everybody hating on him and making fun of him.

“For all the kids who love him, he gets twice as many people hating him and we wanted to portray that, using his voice and image in a different way than you would expect.

“He was into that idea, we got him at a good time when he was vulnerable.

“I think it was a big step for him, taking charge of what he wants to do in a creative direction. No one wants to be stuck in what people expect you to do.”

Diplo is equally passionate in his defence of polarising Australian hip hop star Iggy Azalea. They have a track in the can which may appear on the next Major Lazer album and again, Diplo was working with her long before Fancy hit the charts.

“You guys don’t seem to support her that much, even though she is your biggest female export (to America) since Olivia Newton-John. I’ve always been a fan,” he says.

He also counts Sia as a collaborator, gives shout outs to our DJs Anna Lunoe and Alison Wonderland and has been social media chatting with Ruby Rose, who he discovered was a DJ after she exploded in America via Orange Is The New Black.

“She seems to be on fire right now,” he says.

And so is dance music, Diplo-style. While the genre and its many offshoots have enjoyed a strong command of the Australian and European charts for the past two decades, mainstream America has only welcomed its presence in the pop domain in recent years.

He said the lag between the early adopters in Australia and the late breakthrough in the US is our national approach to music on the airwaves and live.

“Radio is national there, there’s no Triple J in America. It takes months for a song to reach the top 10 in the US; in Australia, it takes two weeks. And your pop stations are more progressive in what they play,” he says.

A regular visitor to Australian stages — he was on tour with Stereosonic last year as then on-again, off-again girlfriend Katy Perry was in the middle of her mammoth Prismatic tour — he has charted the shift in dance music from underground raves and mega club shows to the festival main stages.

“It’s only been in the last four or five years that you have seen Skrillex headlining at Coachella or DJs on the main stages,” he said.

“It’s cool that everyone has caught up to what we are doing.”

His perpetual summer of DJing around the world sounds like the glamorous postmodern jetset life.

One day he is DJing in European dance hotspot Ibiza and all over Instagram enjoying a day on a boat and then next he is playing a festival in Switzerland. A couple of days later he is back home driving his sons to visit their grandmother.

The 36-year-old plays down the perception that his life is dominated by red carpets and selfies with the stars.

“As a DJ, when I finish I to go home or catch a flight or just work on music. I don't really have time to do anything fun except show up to the parties. And then leave. It’s not hard because my focus is to make as much music as I can before I get sick of it all,” he says.

Stereosonic will be a one-day festival in Sydney on November 28, Perth on November 29, Adelaide and Melbourne on December 5 and Brisbane on December 6. Tickets will go on sale on July 30 via Moshtix from $129.95, with full line-up announced on July 15.

Originally published as Diplo reveals why Australia rules the dance music world as Major Lazer booked for Stereosonic