Super smooth Los Angeles synthesizer champs Classixx are about to hit the country for a run of tasty club dates. ITM’s Dave Ruby Howe caught up with the duo of Tyler Blake and Michael David to talk shop, how they’ve tweaked and twisted their sound over the years and the changing attitudes towards dance music in America.

Hey guys it’s Dave from inthemix, how’s it going?

Hey dude, yeah everything is good, we’re just in Los Angeles having some downtown before we head over to Australia.

Oh okay, so you’ve got a couple of days off? Have you been on the road much recently?

Yeah we were playing a few shows just over the weekend but today we’re just doing all these interviews and maybe some stuff later on.

This isn’t the first time you’ll be playing in Australia, you were out here last year and before that you came out a few times. That was when you were still going under the name Young Americans. Is there something about the Australian crowds that you both really like to play to?

We’ve always loved coming out to Australia, there’s just a really great vibe there. Especially in Melbourne, we love it there; we’re actually going to stay there for a couple of weeks after the shows just because we like it so much. But I think there’s just a really great vibe there. People seem to really embrace dance music in Australia and that’s really great. Over here in the States it’s still so marginal, we get ignored a lot, really.

I’ve heard that from a lot of American DJs, but at least from an outsider’s perspective that seems to be changing a little bit what with David Guetta winning Grammys and rappers like Lil Jon and Pitbull rapping over club beats.

That’s definitely true, and somebody like Lady Gaga is doing big stuff for electro, but there’s still a long way to go until it’s accepted by wider audiences I think.

Do you think you two would ever get involved in a more mainstream project like those I mentioned? Like if Lady Gaga asked you to make her some beats do you think you would?

I’m not sure, maybe we would consider it but for us the situation has to be right. If it’s just business and they’re coming to us just to look cool then we wouldn’t do it. But if there’s something interesting behind it and we feel that too then I think we’d be into it. I remember when they were releasing that Kelis single, Bossy and there were all these really amazing remixes on the back, like two from Alan Braxe and Fred Falke and one from SebastiAn, whoever was putting that package together at the label clearly had an idea in their head about how they could evolve those tracks with some interesting remixes and it worked great.

One thing I wanted to ask you guys about is how your style has changed over the last year or so. I remember some of your Young Americans remixes were very straight-up electro and banging, but after you changed your name to Classixx you’ve been gradually developing this smoother, softer sound. What was the process behind that?

I think everyone’s been moving away from that hard electro sound and we just got tired of it. We wanted to do something different, but something that also reflected us and our influences. We basically wanted to stop doing what everyone else was doing and what we thought we were supposed to be doing too.

Your remixes have proved really popular recently, was there a moment when you realised that the decision to switch your style up was successful?

That’s an interesting question, I think it was probably when we released the remix for Phoenix and it started appearing all over the internet, it showed us that we could do this stuff that we loved and felt natural to us.

With all the remixes you’ve done lately, is now the time to slow down and focus on doing original stuff for an album?

Yeah, exactly. We’re working on the record right now. It’s in early stages at the moment.

What can we expect with it? Will it be like I’ll Get You that you did with Jeppe from Junior Senior?

I’ll Get You is probably one of the more pop tracks that we’ve done, and I think whilst there will be some of that on the record, we’re aiming to do some stuff that doesn’t immediately jump out of you. We want to make an album that’s more than just singles and club hits, you know? Something that you can listen to the whole way through and find little things that surprise you each time you hear it.

Classixx kick off their national tour this weekend, beginning at Future Classic’s label night in Sydney, followed by four more dates around the country. Check the information below for tickets and get warmed up for the sets with their new mix on ITM-FM.