Since we are drinking here, the first questions are about drinks. So, what is your drink of choice?

I like good tequila. But good tequila doesn’t really like me.

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Like clean tequila? Shots?

Like brown tequila with lime. I can’t cope with bad tequila, but when it is good, I do enjoy it.

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It’s really dangerous drink.

Totally.

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Talking about dangerous drinks, do you remember the first time you got drunk?

Yes, I do. Actually, I was pretty young, maybe 13. I remember we bought a bottle of white martini cause it is sort of sweet and not too harsh but I drank the entire bottle, and I was with a few people, and I guess I wanted to impress everybody just like: “Yeah, I just gonna drink this straight from the bottle,” and I literally drank the whole bottle. And then, of course, it turned out so bad, like I passed out and I remember going home - big drama. I even remember calling one of my friends - that was ridiculous - I declared my love to her. That was my first experience with drinks at all. Pretty dramatic, you know. Since then, I’ve never drunk Martini.

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Can you remember any ridiculous stories you dropped yourself with alcohol?

So many! I have one story that my friend's experienced, but I want to tell it because it is a really fun drunk story. I can’t say his name out of respects, but anyway. I had this friend playing in Tokyo, and he got super drunk, and he was DJing, and at the end of the party, everybody missed him. They couldn't find him, and eventually, they found him on the streets waiting at the bus stop alone, and they were like: "What the hell are you doing?" And he said: “Yeah, I am waiting for the night bus to go home” and he had completely forgotten that he was in Tokyo and thought he was at home in Europe. The thing is that Tokyo is this sort of city you can barely feel like home. Yeah, I wasn’t involved in that story, but it's a funny drunk story.

You have a lot of different interviews on the Internet but can you say that you are an open person? Do you think you are an introvert or an extrovert?

It depends. For many years I was in the social bubble, and it had taken a lot of time to get out. I was really shy. For me, creating relationships of trust was a very long process. So that was always a challenge for me to have a small talk and everything. And I live in the world where this small talk is essential. The past three years I’ve been open a bit more to myself. Just allowing myself to live in the moment sometimes. But honestly, it is new for me. I hadn’t any brothers or sisters. I was the only child at home, so I created my own world, you know. I was a solo kid, like playing with my imagination and everything. I guess that's why I’m pretty much a shy person. And for me, something natural, like to interact very easily with people was not necessary. The beauty with music is that when you have a passion, it is something like a gate to talk very easily about something.

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Yeah, you talk pretty openly.

That is also because I feel pretty drunk from last night. And I'm wearing this sunglasses, so that also helps!

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That is why we are doing this "Drinking with" interview. That's the trick! OK, the next question might be a tricky one. Is there anything people think of you that is untrue?

Usually, when people are meeting me, they are like: “Oh, I thought you are a really tough guy because in pictures you always look like this :(” And it is sort of funny how people are usually surprised, because I’m totally the opposite. I guess it's because of the pictures that I have on the Internet, like press pics. I don't know, I sort of like playing with some fictional character like I do with my B-Ball Joints moniker, but in reality, I am always laughing and smiling.

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How does your usual day look like?

Usual days are really boring for me. I mostly work on the Editions Gravats label. It’s been five years now, and specifically this year we took it to a different level. We have a lot more things happening around the label; we have all those parties, we have all those tours, that we are organizing for our artists. Basically, I work on the label a lot, and it’s very boring stuff like counting, talking to the pressing plant, working on the design with the graphic designer.

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What makes you happy?

What makes me happy? Cheese.

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Cheese? I heard about this.

Yeah, cheese. But I guess, cheese has two definitions. The first one is literally cheese, like the breed, and also cheesy stuff. I think I have a certain taste for cheesy pulp and cheesy movies, teenage movies and, TV shows. So when I watch soap opera while eating cheese - it is like a heaven for me.

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If I am not mistaken, you've told that you would like to sell cheese.

Even more like making cheese. Or more like Cheesemonger - you sell cheese, but you also participate in the process. So you can directly influence the way it is going to taste.

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Wow, that is interesting. Do you have any tips for our readers? Cheesy tips?

I’m so lazy. I keep telling people that I want to be a cheesemonger, but I'm not around yet. But it's a plan. I’ve always liked having this in my mind. I mean, I don't only like eating cheese, but I’m really interested in the products and how it's made and where and why it tastes this way, and what’s the recipes. So I’m always super curious about it. I like to think that at some point I’m just going to change the way I do completely. Music is going to have an important part in my life, that's for sure, but not necessarily forever as a professional level. Maybe, at some point, I will be bored or just won't be able to make a living anymore, but that's fine. I've never really thought that I'm going to do this for the rest of my life. So cheesemonger might be something that…

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One of option?

Yeah, yeah.

It seems that you like cooking, right?

Yeah, I love cooking.

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Any favorite dishes? What do you like cooking the most?

So many! Recently I've really enjoyed cooking vegetarian food, and I started looking at Asian food as well. I like to be a bit creative. For me, as a starter, it is more interesting to know which recipes they are using in Asian cuisine or Japanese cuisine, for instance. But I’m not going to try to replicate the Japanese cuisine, because I'm not a Japanese chef obviously. But I like to mix it up with French cuisine. I really like spicy cuisine, so I bought a lot of different spices. I like to shop and just try things. Sometimes it fails, but it is like music, you know. You try things that are complete garbage, but at least you are trying to do something new, and it is fun.

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Is there any recipe you came up with? Or a signature dish?

There is one I really love cooking. We call it “Gratin” in France. So, you use sweet potatoes and pumpkin, you boil them in coco milk, and then you mix it with this cheese from Netherland which is called Mimolette. I like it when it is really old and really mature and super salty. You don't wanna add salt because it is already salting with the cheese. Then I squash pistachios, and it's almost like a crumble. Then you put it in the oven and, yeah, of course, I use a bunch of spices as well, the Curcuma and stuff.

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What is your weirdest habit if you have one?

I used to have so many, but I slowly started forcing myself to stop because I had something like OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), I guess. At some point, they were driving me crazy as I had to do so many things before leaving the house and especially before going on a gig. I used to be very superstitious, and sometimes for very ridiculous stuff, you know. I had to take one glass of water before leaving and then pouring on a certain direction of the window, some really crazy stuff. And then, at some point, I had some sort of a mental break, so I was like: “Hey, you have to stop this shit. It is too much.” I slowly started stopping one thing after the other. Sometimes when you stop doing one thing, and you see that nothing is happening, you think, maybe now I can stop another thing. So yeah, I used to have so many, and still have some weird stuff.

You've been traveling and moving a lot; how do you think it's influenced you?

It is hard to tell. I guess, it is unconscious. Traveling is different because it’s mainly about the people I meet. I mean, of course when I go to a place, and I’m lucky enough to spend more than 24 hours because usually, it is only 24 hours in a place, so you don't really comprehend anything about the culture. You see a little, and you don't see the city. You see a bar, and a hotel room and a club. In these scenarios, it is more about the people you meet that leave some trace in yourself; more than you get from the city or the country. For instance, during the first time in Japan, I was with a crew of people, also artists, and we all ended up by coincidence there, and yeah, you spend an amazing time. You are far from home, and you do everything quickly. Relationships are growing more fast than usual, cause you are so far from home and you are experiencing something quite crazy and unusual. So that can create really interesting relationships with people.

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Let's move on to the music topics. Do you have any musical guilty pleasures?

When I was a teenager, yeah. I was literally feeling guilty of listening to it. I remember that I was buying those CDs and hiding them when friends were coming over to my house, and I was only showing, you know, death metal CDs and cool stuff, and Cannibal OX, and cool abstract hip-hop. And I had Craig David hidden behind my bed. I was buying these CDs, but I was feeling guilty about it. Right now not anymore. I don't have guilty pleasures, because I’m totally cool with listening to anything. I grew up with hip-hop, and then I became super grumpy about it. For many years I was complaining about what hip-hop became, and I felt really old about it. I was: “Oh, fuck!” Like, the golden ages were in the early 2000s with the Neptunes, Timbaland, and everything. And after that, I felt that everything was done. Recently this year I started listening to hip-hop again and some stuff that I would usually dis made me like: “Oh, this is actually pretty cool.” Right now I like listening to a lot of trap stuff - I really love it, but I used to hate on it so much. I guess, I just wasn’t really giving any chance to it and now I can see why there is such interest around it.

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Do you remember the cheesiest record you ever played?

That's a good question! Let me think… Probably so many. Especially right now. I'm totally comfortable with playing very obvious cheesy reggaeton record with this big autotune next to Japanese noise record. Yeah, there are many examples. Close friends of mine who based in Brussels and run their own label PRR! PRR!, and also responsible for the whole visual aesthetic of my label, they really like playing with cheesy stuff, like super cheesy stuff. So I would say when I play something from their label, it’s when I really cross the edge of cheesiness.

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What can it be?

They've released that gabber record - it is this French guy called Evil Grimace, the name of the track is 3 Litres. So it is a gabber track, and the guys sampled an acapella of a French rapper, this guy called Lim. It is like this super French gangsta rap guy, and they sampled a shortcut of one of his acapella, and he is just saying “3 liters de vodka,” and it is super ridiculous and it sort of became a hit. It is so funny; they released it, and it became a hit in art schools in France. Sometimes I play venues that are run by art people and if you play that track people are singing it as a hit you know. It is so funny, and this is a very very cheesy track. I only played it once or two because I was completely out of my mind and allowed myself to do it. Also, I’m not really sure I like that track that much.

Is there a track that makes you cry?

Yes. I guess so, many. I mean this also about the context. Sometimes anything could make me cry. Maybe even "3 litres de vodka" track or even specifically this one, there are so many examples. I remember there was this Stargate thing. It is three songs that came on the Italian label, my friend Simone is running - Hundebiss. You can cry to that music, it is amazing. And also I shouldn’t say that I probably will regret saying it but the new PNL song called A l'ammoniaque. They are this French trap band I hated for months, and now I can see why it is interesting. They released a new song called A l'ammoniaque at the beginning of the summer, and they are really popular in France right now. I mean, not only in France. They are popular pretty much everywhere now, and they released that track, and it’s 6 min long. You don't really have a beat or anything and it is this sort of country beat for guitar, but it is still trap, and it's like: "WTF?" They did something different and new, and there is something moving about the track, and the lyrics are actually really crying. So yeah, I was listening to it a lot this summer. My girlfriend hated that track which made me cry more.

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So if your life were a Dj set, whose set would it be?

Wow. I don’t know. Yeah, I’m going to say something, it doesn't reflect me as a person, but more as an artist, as a DJ. One mix that was a breakthrough for me was Hollertronix. They were two DJs from Philadelphia in the early 2000s, and one of them actually became very famous, it's Diplo. At that time he was super young, and he was playing this project in bars with another friend of him called Low Budget. They released one mix CD called "Never Scared," and that was completely underground stuff. It was a proper mix CD like a Fabric mix or something. They were pressing them themselves. It was a CDr, and they were selling it on the Internet. When that mix came out I was super young; I was 17 or something. I started having an internet connection, as I was living in Brittany in a very small city and that mix really changed my life. They were playing everything that is important for me right now - Italo disco, freestyle, Baltimore club music, reggaeton, dancehall, techno, new wave.

Since you came with a bit hungover today, have you got any advice on a hangover remedy? 

Squeezed lemon. Just in general. It is really good for your liver, so if you drink one squeezed lemon every day that helps. It doesn't cure but helps.

Does it help to cure a hangover?

No. It helps the body and liver and doesn't cure a hangover, but it is a good thing to do. I also like eating pineapples, but I feel that it’s doing something when I’m hungover. I just like fresh fruits in general but the thing is you know you do healthy shit, and you convince yourself that I am feeling better now.

Yeah.

Actually it’s not all the cliche, but the most commonly known way is to drink again, and honestly, I tried several times and sadly it works.