Five years ago, dirtybird emerged out of San Francisco with one mission: to bring the fun back to dancefloors. The label has since become synonymous with quirky bass-driven house, making international stars out of its chief flag-bearers Claude VonStroke and Justin Martin. To mark the half-decade milestone, the dirtybirders have put together a bumper three-disc retrospective five years of dirtybird. ITM chats to Martin about his bumping mix for the compilation and the birthday tour to Australia.

Have you done a hometown anniversary party yet?
We had our first dirtybird BBQ for the year on Sunday. It was insane. We lucked out with the weather – not a cloud in the sky, and a crazy turnout. Over 2000 people came. It was a blast.

Do these parties take you back to when you first started dirtybird?
Every single time we’ve had a party at this meadow, it gets crazier and crazier to see how far we’ve come. When we first started off, there were only a handful of friends who stopped by. Now the meadow almost isn’t big enough to hold all the people that come through. It takes us back and makes us realise how lucky we now are.

Going back to the start, how did you want dirtybird to stand apart from the other labels out there?
When we started the label, we wanted to make music that was bass-heavy but still really fun. That’s the main word to describe what we were going for: fun. We always wanted to put a smile on people’s faces. After all, that’s what it’s about. People want to have a good time when they go out. Aside from that, we all had our background in drum ‘n bass and there seemed to be a giant, empty hole just waiting to be filled with this new tech-house sound. No one was really making tech-house that had drum ‘n bass style basslines. We wanted to create new stuff that was fun to dance to, and we felt no one else was doing.

What was the dominant sound in America when dirtybird began?
In San Francisco, the dominant sound was Naked Music and Om Records. Very laidback, loungey, vocal house. The type of stuff you imagine a bunch of bikini-clad women listening to around a pool with their Miami sunglasses on. Just kinda bobbing their heads, sipping their martinis. That was not really our scene at all, so we wanted to make something dirty.

Do you think that sense of fun has carried through until now for the label?
Yeah, definitely. It’s something that with each release within the crew we’ve challenged each other to push the limits. It’s all about making tracks that are surprising and fun for each of us to play in our DJ sets. Tracks that really stand out and make people smile.

What about when the time comes that you suddenly feel like making a dark and moody track?
Yeah, I mean, I’ve done stuff on different labels like that. For me, I definitely don’t want to make the same song twice. Every time I make a track, I try to do something different. In a lot of ways, the dirtybird sound has grown over the years. We haven’t just stuck to a gimmick.

Do you find the ‘scene’ in America is quite disparate from city to city?
Definitely! I think that in the last few years it hasn’t been as bad as most of the last decade. We’ve always been extremely lucky in San Francisco. It has an amazing electronic music scene, and the fans here are super open-minded. In other cities, it can be hard. There are little pockets of good scenes, but some places you go to it feels like there are only a few real house heads in the crowd. Whereas if you go to somewhere like Europe, people are actual fans and they come up asking for tracks in your discography. You don’t really get that too much in the US.

Within the dirtybird camp, are there certain shared influences or points of reference, or does everyone sort of come from different angles?
Yeah, everyone has their own unique take on what we do. Barclay [Claude Von Stroke] has always had more of a European minimal techno sound, but still very quirky and funky. My brother Christian Martin has got more of a hip hop and dubstep take on tech-house, whereas Worthy is definitely more on the tribal, big-room sound. Then we have J Phlip, the newest member of the dirtybird crew, and she is all about the ghetto, Detroit booty-bass sound. People have described my sound as being tender and tough. I like rough basslines and grimy low-end, with beautiful serene melodies over the top.

There’s certainly that deep house strain to what you do – and on that point, The Sad Piano on Buzzin’ Fly is one of those tracks that has endured. Do you get an inkling in the studio that a track is going to have that impact?
You know, that was one of the first tracks I made after getting my computer and diving into the world of production. It’s just something I wrote from my heart after a pretty bad break-up with a girlfriend. Ironically, I wrote it because my girlfriend wasn’t giving me enough time to work on music and that’s why we broke up. At the time, I didn’t really have a ‘vision’, it was just from my heart – and that’s why I think it was successful.

Putting together the five years of dirtybird mix must’ve made you think about the musical shifts that have happened in those five years.
Definitely. A lot of our early releases were right before electro-house took off, and I think we then steered away from that in later releases. We really didn’t want to be pigeonholed into being an electro-house label. We wanted to keep our sound moving, and the releases became more melodic.

Finally, you’re coming down for the birthday tour with Worthy. Do you guys make a good team?
Yeah, we’ve been roommates for almost ten years. Since college! We’re really in tune with each other’s sound. His studio is just done the hall from me so I hear his beats pounding all day and he hears mine. So he’s certainly a great guy to play with.

five years of dirtybird is out Friday 30 April. Justin Martin and Worthy tour dates:

Fri 30 April – Monastery, Brisbane
Sat 1 May – Chinese Laundry, Sydney
Sun 2 May – Customs House, Newcastle
Thurs 6 May – Roxanne Parlour, Melbourne
Fri 7 May – Lot 33, Canberra
Sat 8 May – Shape Bar, Perth