Who Is Dillon Francis?

Growing Up

Dillon Francis: “I was born and raised in Los Angeles. My father is an alternative medicines doctor, so I guess he’s upper middle-class. But I came from the lower middle-class. When I was younger, my family lived in an apartment but now my dad has worked [his way up].

“I grew up in a really sheltered family. I didn’t know the f-work until I was like 13. [Growing up sheltered] helps with…I don’t know what it helps with but I know it helps with something. I feel like my work ethic is amazing because of my parents.

“Growing up, I couldn’t watch TV unless I watched two hours of Sesame Street a day to learn stuff. And then I had to go to study. I had Hooked on Phonics just so I could be ahead of the game. It’s weird. I’m happy with what my parents did for me and the type of work ethic I have.

“I don’t go out that often. When I’m at home, I’m constantly working on music. I’ve tried to have two relationships but I can’t even handle relationships.

“I’m single now because I don’t think about anyone else except for my music. I’m so addicted to it and I think that’s because my parents have sheltered me so much."

Art School

Dillon Francis: “I went to art school. I’ve always been into electronic music because I used to do graffiti. In high school, I was in the visual arts department and I would do a lot of graffiti and listen to Drum and Bass.

“I would tag stuff up while listening to Drum and Bass. Listening to the sounds, I was like, ‘Wow this is so awesome, I can’t believe I get this much of a rush.’ I mean, I know it’s from doing something wrong but adding it with the music, it was crazy."

Photography

Dillon Francis: “I was about 14 when I started doing photography. I did photography and printmaking and then graphic design for four years in high school.

“Then I started interning and I hated it. The guy that I was working with I didn’t like, he wasn’t nice to me at all. That really made me hate it.

“When I started photography, I was doing actual film. So in 12th grade, I’m doing actual film, getting ready to be able to print my own color prints in the dark room. I was going to do it myself instead of having to go and get it printed for me.

“Once digital came out, I felt like I wasted four years of my life learning how do film photography and all this [technical stuff]. I know digital is better but it’s kind of like what happened with Serato.

“There’s a lot of DJ’s that are like, ‘I fucking spent [money buying records], I know how to mix, I’ve spent this many years doing it, I learned to cut, and then some guy can come and be like, ‘Alright I’m going to line up these two lines, that’s all I’ve gotta learn, and now I can just learn how to cut.’

“I understand that feeling and it sucks, but that’s when you gotta be like, ‘Alright, I’ve got to find the next thing for myself.’ 

“Once I had graduated from high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I started doing photography and six months in I was like, ‘Wait a second, photography is way too saturated. I wanna be a DJ.’

“I don’t even know how I came up with thinking photography is saturated and wanting to be a DJ because that’s not saturated. I didn’t think being a DJ was so saturated. I didn’t even think about it at all."

Learning To DJ

Dillon Francis: “One of the benefits I’ve had throughout my career is that I never realized how hard it is to actually make it in the music industry until like two months ago.

“There’s so many other kids in the world right now that are trying to do the exact same thing that I was doing. They probably have the same mind set that I did. I got through some how.

“I never was in to electronic music. I was into it, but my brother told me I was gay. So when I did it, I didn’t actually show anybody I was into it. I got super into punk music like the Blood Brothers, The Germs, and The Descendents. I used to listen to a lot of that. I used to go to a lot of shows too.

“When I moved to Atlanta, that’s where I learned how to use Ableton. I moved to Atlanta and worked with Cory Nitta, his producer name is Cory Enemy. I worked with Cory Enemy for two months and just watched what everything he did. 

"I went back to my house after two months and I told my parents, ‘Look, this is what I really want to do. Please, let me try this for a year. If nothing happens, I swear to God I will go back to community college, then transfer to UCLA, and I’ll be out of your hair. But let me do this and I’ll try to pay you $500 bucks a month for rent.’

“For a year straight, I didn’t do anything except sit on my computer and plow away trying to figure out everything about Ableton.

“After a year, things started really moving. My parents saw that and they were like, ‘Okay, we’ll give you a couple [more months]. We’ll wait it out, let’s see what you’re doing. But now, you have to pay [rent].’

“Then I actually started being able to pay them rent from the money I was getting at gigs. A year and six months later, that’s when I played ‘Masterblaster’ to Diplo, and then boom, I was able to move out and be my own man.”

The EDM Movement

Dillon Francis: “It’s so weird to see our shows. You don’t get shows like the shows you see in our scene right now [in other genres]. It’s really weird how electronic music has taken over being the rock stars now.

“It’s a show but the thing is, we don’t do anything. We stand behind a computer and we get the same reaction that The Strokes would get if they played ‘Reptilia.’ You’d get the same reaction as every single song that we drop. It’s so bizarre.

“When I got into it, I was DJing at a lot of Top 40’s clubs because I couldn’t DJ at electro places. To be able to transfer to electronic music and have this type of reaction [is crazy]. I always thought that when I got into electronic music and was DJing, it was just going to be people shuffling and dancing like with disco music.

“Everyone moves in nano seconds nowadays. It's like, ‘Oh I like this song. That’s my favorite artist right now. Oh the new song came out, that’s my favorite artist right now.’

“The one thing that sucks is, there’s no loyalty. I mean, there is but there isn’t. There’s the couple of people that are like, ‘Yeah this is fucking awesome, I found out about it first. Alright, now the general population likes it, I hate it now, that sucks.’

“The general population are your fans until you fuck up, then once you fuck up, you’re not gonna have any fans. Then you gotta make another side project [to get fans] all over again.”

Meeting Diplo

Dillon Francis: “I met Diplo because I had heard about Moombahton through Stretch Armstrong—Stretch was my manager at the time. Stretch told me Dave Nada and Matt Nordstrom were moving to L.A. to work with Switch and Diplo to work on Moombahton stuff.

“When I heard Diplo’s name I was like, ‘Dude, if Diplo’s working on Moombahton, this is going to be the next thing because he’s always been the guy that knows what’s gonna happen.’ So I was like, ‘I’m gonna go study this right now and I’ll come back to you in a second.’

“I remember I was going to San Diego in my car with my friend. I was listening to music. My friend has good ears for stuff that’s popular with the pop community, so I always trust his opinion on electronic music because he’s very particular about what he plays.

“I was like, ‘Hey man listen to this, this is this new thing called Moombahton, let me know what you think. Do you think that this can go anywhere?” So I played him [some records] and he was like, ‘Holy shit man, that’s fucking beautiful.’ I trusted his opinion.

“I was like cool. So secretly I took one of my tracks, ‘Masta Blasta,’ which was 130BPM and I slowed it down to 110 and I exported it. I was like, ‘Hey here’s this other producer, let me know what you think of this.’ I played it for him and he fucking flipped out. He was like, ‘This is fucking crazy, who’s this guy?’

“I was like, ‘I just wanted to get a truthful answer from you, but this is actually my track and I’m really happy that you fucking flipped out about it.’

“He’s like, ‘That’s amazing dude, that’s fucking amazing, you need to put it out like that.’ I played the original and he was like, ‘Dude, do not put out the original like that, you need to put it out slowed down, like that sounds so groovy.’

“So I sent it immediately to Stretch, like, ‘Stretch send this to Diplo, I swear to God he will love this.’ He did and Diplo hit up Stretch immediately like, ‘Yo this is fucking awesome, who is this kid?’

“I hit Diplo up on Twitter and I was like, ‘Yo thanks, I’m glad you liked the track.’ He immediately followed me. Then I sent him a direct message on Twitter and I was like, ‘Yo man, let’s kick it some time.’ He was like, ‘I’m in L.A. are you?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And he’s told me to come by the studio.

“I go to the studio and then he’s like, ‘Oh I’m in the bar downstairs watching the Phillies game, come and hang out.’ So I get a beer with Diplo—one of my fucking idols—and he’s just like, ‘Yeah man, that tracks awesome, we should make some stuff.’ And then that’s how we made ‘Que Que.’ Then he was like ‘Let’s put out your record.’

“We put out the four songs that I did. Diplo has really good connections with the people in the UK. So he sent it over to Annie Mac and MistaJam and then they started playing it. And then that helped me be able to tour in the UK.

“From touring in the UK, the US catches on a little bit afterwards, and then it was a snowball effect. It’s like, ‘Oh that. Oh that’s happening…oh that’s happening. Whoa that’s happening? Whoa!’ And now I’m here. It’s crazy.”

Meeting Skrillex

Dillon Francis: “That happened because of Dave Nada. Dave is really good friends with him and sent him my tracks. I was like, ‘Wow man, I never thought that Skrillex would ever give me a nod. That guys one of my biggest inspirations.’ He’s just the nicest person alive, he’s the fucking package of all people.

“When I found out that he was playing, I immediately hit him up on Twitter. So I hit him up and he started following me, and he was like, ‘Dude send me more stuff.’ I kept sending him stuff. Stuff that he liked, he’d play. Stuff that he didn’t like, he wouldn’t play. But that’s with any DJ.

“We had a dialogue going and then I met him face to face and we kind of felt like we had been friends forever. I think it was because we both live in L.A. and we both kind of have the same mentality. Then The Mothership Tour came around and it [took off from there].”

The Cats In Hats Series

Dillon Francis: “My manager is really good at doing Internet merchandising. We know that it’s gotta be a nice brand or a weird brand that we have to start doing. That’s how the whole cat thing came about.

“I remember I was just looking at my phone one day and I was like, ‘I wanna do a series on cats called ‘Cats in Hats.’’ So I googled ‘Cats in Hats’ and started posting photos.

“My manager called me up and was like, ‘Dude, this fucking cat photo shit is going crazy, you need to keep doing it.’ I kept doing it; I turned into the cat guy. But it’s been great.

“The Asian demographic for cats is incredible and I want to be a part of that because they buy music.

“One thing about being a cat guy that’s awesome is on Twitter, I get so many tweets that are like, ‘Hey man, I saw this and thought of you,’ and it’s all cat stuff. I saw the cat breading thing and I didn’t believe it was real. I’m gonna start cat breading everything."

His Love of '50s Culture

Dillon Francis: “I’m really into the ‘50s and how they used to wear suits and comb their hair regularly. Instead of it being like, ‘Alright we’re gonna go out tonight, let’s get our suits on,’ it’s ‘Alright I’m gonna go to the store, let me get my day time store suit.’

“I remember my dad used to tell me that his grandfather would have a suit that he had for work, a suit for when he came home and was relaxing in his chair smoking his pipe, and a suit for going to the store, a suit for everything. I was always really into that. Looking really proper is a good thing.

“I always told my parents, ‘When I grow up, I want to have a career that I have to have a suit in.’ And this is my career so I feel I have to do that. And even though I’m not in one right now…suits are expensive right now. I’m gonna be honest."

Style

Dillon Francis: “It’s hard to [wear a suit] every day. The one thing that I really liked about the ‘50s is that it was about dressing fitted, not just tight fitted. Right now, I don’t think in America it’s really about fitted. It is, but that’s only for really expensive clothes. Normal clothes are like ‘Let’s just chill.’

“I went shopping for a suit recently, the suit didn’t even fit me correctly, and it was a $1,400. I was like are you guys serious? You’re gonna make me buy a $1,400 suit that doesn’t actually even fit me perfectly to my body? That doesn’t even make sense.

“I used to work at J. Lindenbeg when I was I think 18. J. Lindenberg is the greatest company but they stopped making suits that are really fitted. They actually makes suits that fit you and they cost $800, and you’re like, ‘Dude, this is a good buy.’”

Twitter

Dillon Francis: “Twitter makes everyone normal. I’m a normal person regardless, I make music that got popular and that’s it. I’m not a fucking dick, I don’t want to be a dick. I want to talk to as many people as I can.

“I don’t want to try to alienate anybody and make them feel bad. I want my fans to know that I’m just a guy and that’s it. I think that’s what is so awesome about Twitter, it makes people think that I’m just a normal dude.

“I want to be a part of the people because that’s where I came from. I never want to be a person that’s like, ‘I don’t talk to you because you don’t make music and you’re not a celebrity and you have nothing to give me.’

“I think everyone has something to give me. Especially fans, they always send me like some of the smartest, coolest, funniest things I’ve ever read. The Internet is the coolest place ever.

“The Internet it’s a great place for people to be comedians. That’s one of my passions. I love comedy so much, and I think it’s like, it’s one of the coolest things about Twitter is that I can finally get my outlet of comedy out.

“Twitter has been the biggest help for being able to promote myself and be able to talk to other DJ’s and get remixes from people I really look up to. That’s why Twitters is the greatest thing ever created, because it’s so easy to access people that are far away from you."

Future

Dillon Francis: “I want to go back to making the rootsy, tribal Moombahton stuff that I was doing with Diplo. My EP, Something, Something Awesome has a very pop oriented sound. There’s total pop progressions in that.

"I want to start doing more of a pop that’s slow music and keep trying to see what I can do. I wanna just go outside the box. I wanna try to do what Diplo does, I want to try and make a mixtape and see what happens.

“It’s hard but I feel like I’ve done it pretty well. I obsessed over Rusko for so long. Look at it now, it’s huge. I feel like I’m on know like, ‘Alright, that sounds fucking cool, I want to be a part of that.’ So we’ll see what happens.

“I really never thought that I was going to be making the type of music I’m making, getting the type of reactions that I’m getting. The thing that it really makes me think about is what’s next?

“I'm so excited for what’s next after this. This isn’t even the fully what electronic music is gonna be in five years. I think It’s gonna move even faster than that probably because of the Internet."