A Conversation with Bass, Trap and Dubstep Maestro Bro Safari

This weekend, Austin-based producer and DJ, Nicholas Weiller, better known as Bro Safari, will join a electrifying lineup of EDM royalty at EDC Vegas June 17-19. This industry veteran has been shredding music lovers’ eardrums with independently released drum and bass, trap and dubstep tracks for over 15 years. And he isn’t done yet. BEATSELECTOR Magazine was lucky to catch Weiller in a moment of rare calm to discuss his thoughts on inspiration, “Bro”-troversy and how YOU could win a lifetime of free Bro Safari shows.

Hey thanks for joining us. First up, can you describe your music?

BS: I can go from being offensively in-your-face and aggressive to balancing a more melodic [sound]. I like to think I can handle the two: a pretty intro to a song that drops into something really hard and heavy and shocking.

Who is your biggest electronic music influence?

BS: I can’t get out of the Radiohead thing because their producer Nigel Godrich is a god to me. To the EDM side of things, when I was doing drum and bass primarily, a couple acts really shaped how I viewed production of electronic music. Noisia and Pendulum, who went on to be Knife Party, reshaped dance music more than people give them credit for now. The way they produced and engineered their tracks, their drums, everything about it was just heavy in a way that we hadn’t heard before them. And to this day, people are still emulating the way that they make their tracks sound, their mix-downs, their sound design. They were a really big influence on me—and everybody. But currently in dance music, I’m not really inspired by anyone.

Why is the electronic scene uninspiring to you at the moment?

BS: I’m personally very picky about what I find to be innovative and I haven’t heard anything innovative in a while in this scene. I think its natural to become kind of numb to everything you’ve been hearing on the road. If I go on tour for three months, I hear the same song every night for three months. Obviously you’re going to get kind of bored with it and its going to take something pretty drastic to catch your attention. It’s not that I’m not inspired in my studio, I’m just not inspired by other EDM artists necessarily.

Can you talk about your name, Bro Safari, and audience response to it?

BS: Lately I’ve been dealing with a little bit of a backlash over the name for the first time in five years. No one cared until I started playing shows like Lollapalooza and Coachella. Now people have a problem with my name and, coincidentally, it’s people who don’t know anything about the genre or more importantly don’t know anything about me. I think they hear the name “Bro Safari” and think that I’m just some guy in a neon shirt that says “Rage” on it, acting like an asshole. That’s not me. The name is tongue and cheek, it shouldn’t be taken seriously. I mean there’s nothing I can do now. What am I gonna do, change my name to, like, “Dad Safari?” There’s just no point in thinking about that stuff.

I noticed on Twitter, you posted a picture of your son at Hang Out Fest.

BS: That was his first show! At Hang Out Fest, we were like, “Its on the beach, I have the weekend off. Let’s just go for the whole weekend and bring Elliot, my son.” We were going to take him to shows earlier on, but a nightclub is no place for a five-year-old. [At Hang Out] my set was at 1:30 in the afternoon so it all just lined up. Now he’s older, easier to look after, but I still try to plan my tours with that in mind.

Speaking of touring, what’s your favorite part?

BS: The actual performance for like the hour I’m playing is always fun. Aside from that, if you are on a tour bus, that type of tour, those are just so much fun. You are hanging out with your friends in a bus traveling the country, if you can complain about that, there’s something wrong with you. Aside from maybe the “Omg it smells like socks on here,” or something like that.

Any interesting stories?

BS: The craziest story I have from being on the road. Period. One night I was on tour with Skrillex and Dave Chapelle showed up at the club. We went and hung out with Dave Chapelle for four or five hours at a private club and it was awesome.

What music do you have in the works?

BS: I had been sitting on a lot of songs for about two years, from around 2014, but I just got so caught up in touring that I just didn’t finish it. I never felt like the songs were good enough so I just stopped releasing stuff at that point, but I feel like I’ve finally tapped back into it. My most recent single, “Follow,” is more melodic. A deeper intro than some of my older material; a little more emotional, I guess. The album I’m working on right now for my next single is a vocal tune, also very melodic, heavy on the dreamy synth work and then it goes into crushing dubstep. And I may start a record label up this year, I’m just trying to come up with a name. Literally I’ve been thinking of starting this label for two years but cannot come up with a name…so if anybody’s reading this, send me name ideas for a record label. If it gets picked,  you’ll get into shows for free for the rest of your life.

What’s the future of Bro Safari?

BS: I’m going to continue Bro Safari until I just don’t feel like I have a place in the scene, I don’t wanna be the guy that fades out, I’d rather go out when I’m on top so to speak. Right now I need an outlet for that type of music and I don’t plan on stopping making that type of music, but I’m definitely interested in starting something new in 2017— I’ve been working with UFO! on a new project, its in its infant stage right now. And I do see some new projects on the horizon that are not dance music. I’m trying to push to a whole new level, appeal to a whole new audience. I’d like to slowly evolve and move into the next phase, whatever that may be.

—Chloe Aiello

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