WHO For DJ Grandtheft, the best part of DJing is simply when the crowd explodes on the dancefloor to one of his live remixes. Along with former battle DJ D.R. one, Grandtheft is one half of Team Canada DJs. The duo met in Montreal, jumped on four turntables together and formed TC in 2004, releasing their all-remix white-label debut called Classic Material Volume 1. Best-known for their remix of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire,” which first caught the attention of DJ AM (recently in the news for unfortunate circumstances), Z-Trip and Jazzy Jeff, and continues to be the reason for their worldwide bookings, Team Canada are hard at work since recently signing with DJ AM’s management team in LA.

They’ve also started their own Canadian crew and management agency called The Eh! Team and just opened their own dance club, The Blue Dog Motel, on St. Laurent in Montreal — a former bar where they used to DJ years ago. In the meantime, Grandtheft is launching a new label called Tremendous with friends this fall, which will feature an official Team Canada DJs LP in early 2009.

WHAT “Everything. I love all kinds of music,” says Grandtheft. “I play parties of all different crowds and music formats, so I rock party jams of all genres. I really just like to get that energy going on the dancefloor, so I approach different types of parties with extremely different sets of music. I play a lot of my own club remixes of pop songs.” 

WHERE Sept. 26 with D.R. one at the third anniversary of the Shuffle Party at Revival (783 College).

FAVOURITE RECORD OF ALL TIME “What What (In The Butt),” by Samwell.

FAVOURITE RECORD RIGHT NOW “Time to Pretend,” by MGMT. 

FAVOURITE WEBSITE RIGHT NOW “There are, like, 100 blogs that I check a few times a week. Too many to name one.”

WHAT IS YOUR WEIRDEST DJING EXPERIENCE? “It would have to be a toss-up between DJing Paris Hilton's birthday at Pure in Vegas and playing some of the random cities on our last tour in China. Hangzhou and Chengdu were pretty out-there.”

DIGITAL OR ANALOG? “Everyone loves the quality of analog warmth. But these days, I am a huge supporter of the enabling qualities of digital. I lugged around heavy-ass crates of records for years. The way I travel, thank god for Serato, Scratch Live and computers. Also, I used to cut dub plate acetate records of my original productions for $80 a pop just so I could spin them live (they would wear out after 40-50 spins). Now, I literally can make a song on the airplane, mix it down in my hotel room when I land and test it in the club that night. That is so amazing to me!” 

WHAT IS VITAL TO YOUR DAILY ROUTINE? “A few hours of sleep on the airplane.”

WHAT GLOBAL ISSUE CONCERNS YOU MOST RIGHT NOW? “American foreign policy.”

WHAT IS THE LAST GREAT FILM YOU SAW? Tropic Thunder. 

WHAT ACTOR WOULD PLAY YOU IN A BIOPIC? “I like to think of myself as a cool guy so, Johnny Depp. But that wouldn’t be the way it would go down. Realistically, more like Michael Cera. I know, I am a dork.” 

WHAT ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW? “Conversational Japanese in 7 Days because I [often] fly to Tokyo. And Songwriters on Songwriting because I find the interviews inspiring.”

Email us at: LETTERS@EYEWEEKLY.COM or send your questions to EYEWEEKLY.COM
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1