Features
Jonti: ‘I Play The South African Card With Girls’
By Tim Scott
Currently living the dream in Los Angeles, Jonti Danilewitz – the artist formerly known as Danimals/Djanimals – talks to TIM SCOTT about Stones Throw Records, hanging out with Odd Future and using a foreign accent to his advantage.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Cliched as it may sound, Jonti is living the dream. His debut album Twirligig has just been released on his favourite label Stones Throw (Mistletone in Australia). He is currently based in Los Angeles where he's been recording with Odd Future’s Hodgy Beats, meeting idols such as Madlib and hanging out at Flying Lotus' place. ?uestlove tweets about him. It's a situation that the multi-instrumentalist, arranger, producer and vocalist explains, in a very LA way, as one that he’s “still trying to process”.
Flash back to 2008, and Jonti Danilewitz is a shy, awkward South African-born teenager playing in Sydney indie band Sherlock’s Daughter. He started recording and putting out wonky and broken beats as Danimals, playing live first with just a 404, and then as a band. Mark Ronson picked him out of a competition and next he’s recording music for a beer company. Then he’s changing his name for a yoghurt multinational.
He continued to work on various projects with Ronson, Santigold, Sean Lennon and the Dap-Kings, as well as producer John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Kurt Vile). For Twirligig though, Jonti produced, arranged and recorded it all himself. A huge task, but one that left an impression on Stones Throw honcho Mr Peanut Butter Wolf himself, who had this to say about his music: “I understand the pop references because his music is so catchy, but the arrangements blew me away. I couldn’t figure out how the hell he did what he did. That he did it all on his own at such an early age kinda scared me. I knew right away I needed to add him to the roster.”
I spoke to Jonti from Los Angeles on the day that he received the vinyl copies of Twirligig.
How is LA treating you? What have you been up to?
LA is fantastic. It’s surreal. I've been here for one month now and I’m still trying to process it all. I’ve been staying in Culver City, which is near West Hollywood, but I’ve been working at the Stones Throw offices. There is also a studio there, which I’ve been spending a lot of time in. It’s in a place called Highland Park, which is like a Mexican part, but they have their offices there.
How are you finding the nature of celebrity in LA?
I’m still getting used to it. I’m originally from a smaller town in South Africa, so even coming to Sydney tripped me out to begin with when I was meeting all these cool musical people. But now coming to Los Angles, it's just crazy. The other day I saw Elijah Wood, then I found out later that he's a huge Stones Throw fan. Los Angles has such a massive hip-hop culture and history.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
Coming from South Africa via Sydney, do you find that intimidating?
Well, yes and no. To tell you the truth, it still feels like a dream. All the music that I have been really interested in the past ever since I can remember has been LA stuff. Even as a child I liked stuff like the Beach Boys through to the Stones Throw catalogue and now the Low End Theory. It was all ever I’d ever think about. I love Odd Future stuff now too. I love the LA culture and I feel grateful to be part of it, just to be here.
Plus awesome Mexican food! Do you have a favourite taco place?
Oh my god, I’ve been eating it pretty much everyday! There is a place in Echo Park that I go to a lot and I’ve discovered these horchata drinks, which are Mexican rice drinks that are really good.
Have you been to any of the Low End Theory nights? Are they still going?
Yeah, I’ve been every week since I’ve been here. [Laughs] There’s a thing here called the Eagle Rock Music Festival which just happened, and Low End Theory had a stage where Teebs, Flying Lotus and Matthew David played. It’s their five-year anniversary next week as well, they’re going to be having a lot of big nights. Last week they had Amon Tobin, and one week it was James Blake and Flying Lotus and all these guys. And last night there was a hardcore band playing as well. There is a great community around it.
What is the reaction when they find out you that are you from South Africa via Sydney?
Yeah it’s definitely the same in the United States as it is in Australia. I definitely play the South African card with girls more. [Laughs]. But once they find out you are a foreigner it definitely adds a bit of curiosity.
What was your initial reaction to getting signed to Stones Throw?
I still can’t believe it. It was a dream. They have legacy that is amazing. Even today I got the hard copy of the vinyl and just to think that two years ago from when I made the record in my bedroom I never dreamt that I would be putting it out on Stones Throw.
It must be a thrill to see the Stones Throw logo on the record knowing that it’s the same logo that was on J Dilla records...
It’s crazy. I mean the other day J Dilla's brother Illa J was in the studio, and we hit if off. We were recording and he talks the same as Dilla, and it was really tripping me out. [Laughs] It’s weird, and Madlibs studio is across the street and he is awesome. If I could do stuff with anyone in the world it would be Madlib. He said that he had heard my stuff on the radio and liked it.
The new song up on your Soundcloud ‘Love Guitar’ is quite different to the album.
Yeah, it's a new track. It’s an instrumental that I wanted to put up. I was trying to make something that sounded like two guitars in a relationship, with me in the middle. I don’t know. It seems pretty silly now that I just said it out loud. [Laughs] It was just an experiment and I thought it sounded nice, so I wanted to put it up on Soundcloud.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Love Guitar by Jonti Danimals
I read a Twitter post earlier this week that said “terrible news/great news/unfortunate news/exciting news”. Is that an average day for you nowadays?
Yes. [Laughs] Today, for example, I started off by getting pulled over by a cop at 3am when I was coming home from the studio, and he found out that I didn’t have a Californian driver’s licence. He put me in this weird position where he made me park in a tow-away zone and then said, “You have until 6am to find an American driver to remove your car.” It was awful. I hadn’t even made it a block from the studio before they pulled me over. Then I go from that to later in the day, when I get the LP version of the album and get to meet Madlib. That part was awesome. Then I have my own studio where I can make my own beats, which is like a dream come true. So yeah, everything is really up and down and surreal!
Is that the same studio that you recorded with Hodgy Beats to do the ‘Nagoya’ track?
I made the beat there. I went to his studio to make his vocals and my vocals.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Hodgy Beats & Jonti - Nagoya by stonesthrow
What’s he and the Odd Future crew like to hang out with? Do you just hang out front of the Supreme store on Fairfax?
Totally they hang out there. They are on tour now but when I was in studio with Hodgy, Tony Yayo from G-Unit dropped by. It was weird I was doing my vocal part and I look up at the booth and I’m like, “Oh, there’s Tony Yayo” [Laughs]. But Hodgy is really humble and cool. They all have a million projects but they’re all into talking about music and stuff.
“Everyone is just dancing. There’s no one standing there with their arms folded saying, ‘Oh, it’s not live.’”
A new album means more touring, including Laneway festival next year. Is this something that you are excited about? How is your live show?
I'm looking forward to it. To me it’s a whole process. Playing live is not something I really intended to do when I first started, but now I’ve kind of figured it out and it’s been really fun recently. A lot is changing. I started this long before people like Flying Lotus were big in Australia, but now I find the whole electronic scene very inspiring, and the community around Astral People and those artists there is very supportive. Even a lot of the people involved in the Low End Theory, they have a little [Roland] SP-404 sampler and they just DJ and mess with beats and have everyone enjoying themselves and dancing. Everyone is just dancing. There’s no one standing there with their arms folded saying, “Oh, it’s not live.” [Laughs]
What about the video for ‘Firework Spraying Moon’ with Henry DeMaio? He seems to be the Stones Throw in-house video dude, having worked with Mayer Hawthorne, Dâm-FunK...
I was just at his house. I’ve been staying on his couch! He is a really cool guy. He was one of the first people I met when I got here, and I've been staying on his couch pretty much ever since. He has this night called Funkmosphere every Monday night and just hangs out with funk DJs including Dâm-FunK. I met him there. We ended up making the video. I can’t remember how, but we just decided we wanted to do a video for that song. He had an idea involving chemicals and mirrors, which I really liked, and that’s how he created a lot of the effects.
Your ‘Sine & Moon’ mix went up on the Stones Throw podcast. That must be a great way to reach a bigger audience...
Totally. That was really the first mix I made before Twirligig. It was one of those albums in my personal discography and it was probably the most recent one before Twirligig. And this is a mix based around most of those songs.
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