Contrary to everything you believed as a child, Candyland is not a land of marshmallow clouds, cotton candy walls and gingerbread houses.
Rather the Candyland that's headed to Australia next month is the electro house/ dubstep duo of Josie Martin and Ethan Davis — who came together for the first time at Ethan’s 17th birthday party. Since then it’s been all out suns-out-guns-out: parties, shows, festivals, a 72-stop bus tour with Krewella and a whole lot of empty packets of chewing gum. “Josie DJd for the first time at my 17th birthday… She didn’t know me at the time but we became friends after,” Ethan says.
"I didn’t know anything about electronic music, so Josie brought me into that and we just started making music together. I used to be a magician and a drummer so Josie wanted me to play drums while she DJd, so we started doing that and it started rolling from there.”
At the time of the interview, they’d just finished a photo shoot; the spontaneous enthusiasm for what they’re caught in is still very surprising for them. “It wasn't anything that we thought we were going to do with our whole lives,” Josie adds about the beginnings of Candyland. “It’s something we enjoy doing and it became a hobby and then it went to a career. It just happened naturally, it wasn't like something we thought up to do all of a sudden.”
It’s music they make very well too, according to the Beatport stats that matter. Their debut album, 2013’s ‘Bring The Rain’, made number one on the dubstep, electro house, drum & bass and glitch hop Top 100, and made enough noise to garner an appearance at the Orlando leg of the Electric Daisy Carnival in the US. “It was crazy, dude,” Josie says.
“For whatever reason we had the most people and the biggest crowd. I don’t know why but everyone came to our stage... There were way too many people. It was kind of scary but it was so cool.”
Having melted brains all across America for the last three years and racking up over five million plays on Soundcloud, Ethan and Josie are bringing their spontaneous energy and eccentric live show to Australia for the first time in August. “Ethan is kind of obsessed with Australia and Australian people so I think it is going to a blast ... I'm excited just to go and experience it and play for a whole new crowd,” Josie says. “It's going to be back to basics because we're going to have to learn the crowd first … The first couple of shows are going to be an overwhelming experience.”
“It's really the crowd that sets the show,” Ethan adds. “We do everything we can to be energetic and to be exciting. So if the crowd is really responsive and involved then it changes everything because you can build a relationship with them and there is a bond between the artist and the people at the show.”
Written by Benjamin Pratt
Candyland Tour Dates
Sat Aug 16 - Fampire (Brisbane)Sun Aug 17 - Club Liv (Gold Coast)
Wed Aug 20 - King St Hotel (Newcastle)
Thu Aug 21 - Mynt Lounge (Melbourne)
Fri Aug 22 - Electric Circus (Adelaide)
Sat Aug 23 - Marquee (Sydney)
