Ninajirachi at Lollapalooza: A Q&A!
The Garnette Report’s Taylor Hawkins sits down with Australian DJ Ninajirachi between her Lollapalooza sets to find out what’s new!
Q: Can you tell me about your genre of music and where it tends to gravitate more towards?
A: “Yeah, I mean I guess in the broadest sense it’s electronic music. But within that, I guess I do a couple of different things. It’s mostly dance, electronic, with, like, pop sensibilities. A little bit of like EDM sensibilities. It’s also got a little bit of left field like experimental sort of sound as well. But I guess if you sort of consider some of my favorite artists or the artists I’m inspired by are, Porter Robinson, Sophie and A.G. Cook, Baauer, and Skrillex. So I guess if you like any of those artists, maybe it’s something that you’d be into”.
Q: Did you always know that music was something you wanted to do as a career?
A: “No, I kind of fell into it. So, I always knew I wanted to do something creative. Like, all of the aspiring jobs I had when I was little were always, like, creative things. I wanted to be a film director for a long time. That was always a thing. But, music was always a hobby, and it was something I did from when I was really young. It was always kind of a hobby. Like making beats was a hobby and stuff. I guess just because I was doing it so much I got good at it, and when I started putting songs online, they started getting traction and then I started getting shows. And I was making money, and I was like ‘Woah I guess this is a job now’. It just kind of happened but I mean it’s been cool so…”.
Q: What are some things that have influenced NINAJIRACHI ‘s sound?
A: “I guess one thing that’s always influenced me other than the artists that I mentioned, are the video games that I’ve played growing up. For me personally, I don’t know if every listener would hear it, but if I go back and listen to those, I really hear subconsciously how much they influenced me. And I think like, it’s kind of unavoidable because when you’re playing video games, you can’t passively play them. Like, you’re so engrossed in every way. It’s so immersive. For example Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Darkness, and a lot of, like, the generation four Pokemon games. Those were the first games I played and got really into so, those soundtracks”.
Q: Can you walk me through the creative process of making a NINAJIRACHI set for a show?
A: “I’m playing mostly my own music. And I’m really familiar with those songs, obviously, because I produce them. So I guess what I like to do is to have a little room for flexibility, but generally, I know exactly what I’m going to play. There might be a few forks in the road where I do this song instead of this song. But generally, I know what I’m going to open with and I know what I’m going to close with. And I always like to lay out the songs in Ableton so that I can see ‘ok, I’ve got 45 minutes, this is what 45 minutes looks like’. Because a few times, I didn’t prepare like that and I’ve played shows where I might have one of my biggest songs at the end. And then I run out of time because I haven’t laid it out. So it’s nice to at least have a visual of where I’ll be at. So that if I’m playing I can look at the clock and say ‘I’ve got 10 minutes left better skip to this’”.
Q: What’s one of your favorite NINAJIRACHI songs that you’ve released or NINAJIRACHI set that you’ve played that you remember?
A: “My favorite song to play in my sets is my song called “Dracodraco”. It’s especially fun playing that here because I released it on a U.S. label which is Sable Valley. And you know when I’m playing here I’m a very new artist, so sometimes people don’t know my music. But that I feel like a few people will know it a little more so that one is always really fun”.
Q: This is one of the biggest festivals in the country, how does it feel to have made it to Lollapalooza?
A: “It’s crazy! And you know what’s really crazy? I had booked the show a few months ago, and you know how you can search in your phone notes for a keyword? So right around the time I booked the show, I was looking for something, and I searched a word, but instead of finding what I was looking for, I found a sort of goals list from when I was like 19.”
Q: Don’t tell me it was Lolla?!
A: It wasn’t Lolla, but it was like ‘Play a large festival in the USA’, and it was just so crazy!
Q: What has been the biggest takeaway that from your time as a rising star in the music industry?
A: “I guess, the thing that I’m most happy to have grown into is my ability to be a bit more authoritative. And to be a little bit more firm about how I feel and what I want, and just be a little bit more demanding. And I think, you know because I released my first song when I was 17, and started touring Australia when I was 17. So, you know I had a lot of people telling me [what to do]. Because, you know, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have any family in entertainment. My dad’s a bus driver. You know what I mean? I didn’t know anything. So I would just listen to a lot of different people, and I didn’t really have my own opinions about a lot of things. And if I did I felt a bit, insecure to express them or say ‘I want this’, or ‘no, I don’t like that’. I just don’t care as much about what people think and I don’t care about hurting people’s feelings If I need to tell them [how I want things]”.
Ninajirachi also says to look out for new music coming this and following months for the rest of this year!
Featured Image VIA @ninajirachi Instagram