Rory Garton-Smith, better known as producer Elk Road is a man of simple tastes: classic Nintendo, Razor scooters and camembert cheese without crackers.
This weekend (1-2 September), Elk Road is hitting the slopes for the Snowtunes Festival at Jindabyne (NSW) alongside Gang Of Youths, Safia, Drapht, Nina Las Vegas and more.
When not filling dancefloors with banging remixes, Elk Road can be found indulging in some of life's more refined and exclusive pastimes such as online chess, Googling cross-breeds of dogs and trying to get Boost Juice added to Uber Eats (you're welcome).
You are playing Snowtunes… do you have a favourite memory of the snow? Or will this be your first encounter with snow?
No! I grew up in Europe haha, went to primary school in Paris. Have much experience with the snow! Very lucky. Good times. Also been to a few of the great Australian resorts (Thredbo, Buller etc). Can’t wait to get back. Having said that, it’ll be my first time in snow in five years, so it’s about time. Send off the winter in style.
What do you have planned for the Snowtunes weekend… aside from the rockin' the crowd with an epic Elk Road show?
I want to bring a Razor scooter out on stage and invite people to do tricks on it. I’m going to try to locally source a Razor. I want to learn to do that handlebar flip trick that looks sick. Scooters are back baby; let’s get itttttt.
What about off-stage, are you planning to hit the slopes at all?
You bet. I'm sticking around for a few days afterwards to shred it up like it’s '1080 Snowboarding' on N64. That game was so good haha, but it’s one of those ones where you come back to it now and it isn’t as good as you remembered, so I don’t like to play it anymore so I can preserve the memory of how good it seemed in 2001.
Same with 'GoldenEye'. I hate to say it, but 'GoldenEye' just doesn’t have that great replay value, not like the original 'Mario Kart' does. 'GoldenEye' feels a bit laggy and non-fluid now, the character dynamics didn’t age well and that sucks. But what a game it was for its time. Now, something more problem based like 'Elasto Mania', that HAS aged well 'cause it didn’t rely on movement and graphics but just pure gameplay.
Are there any artists on the line-up you're keen to see live? Or maybe you're keen to hit one of them with a snowball?
Aw man I actually love everyone who is playing. The Australian music community is so fun/ friendly. I want to party with Nina Las Vegas, who doesn’t; what an influential tastemaker she is and super lovely too. Enschway is the human personification of an air-horn. LDRU. Paces. Let’s get wild in the cold east. I’m not convinced Paces is a real person btw, never seen him outside of a music festival. I think he’s just a robot who materialises when the vibes are good. AI is getting pretty realistic, you never know.
Also I wanna meet Northeast Party House 'cause that’s a great band name and I bet it’s named after a house they party at and I want an invite. Safia are sick as well, big fans; was meant to write a track with Ben earlier in the year and there was a cock-up with flights, so it’ll be nice to say yo to him.
It's been a big year of live performances for you, including accompanying Madeon and Porter Robinson on their Shelter Love Tour; what's been the highlight for you?
Australian Open of surfing was super fun; a really unexpected show. A bunch of big Instagram lads got up on the stage with me with the surfers and did backflips and stuff, was so fun. Porter and Madeon were cool as well, quiet lads but lovely and good value; those two shows were pretty sick.
Do you enjoy life on the road or can it get lonely be a solo performer?
I don’t get too lonely because I don’t tour all that much. Been keeping the shows to a minimum lately and it’s normally festivals where I can see lots of people I know backstage anyway. So I’m fortunate to get a lot of time at home with friends and family. I can’t imagine how dudes like Bassnectar do 300 shows per year. Living on the road would be tough, it’s just not me I think… too homely. Love Perth too much.
What else are you working on at the moment?
I just auditioned for Season 2 of 'Australian Ninja Warrior' (it would be so fun hahaha), put in my video a few days ago; hoping to get on. What a blast that would be. My world might as well end after that 'cause that would be the highlight of it. It’s tough though. Apparently for the next round of auditions (physical) you need to be able to dead-hang for five minutes. Five minutes! Imagine that. I’ll probably get RSI in my wrist just attempting it.
Do you enjoy life (ie. working) in the studio?
I do. I keep busy outside. Still studying full time at uni trying to get degrees and stuff. Winter is a good time to knuckle down in Ableton and get some serious production done.
I’m fortunate to have a nice balcony next to the screen where I can go out and get some fresh air. More studios should have windows; they all feel like casinos. No clocks, no windows, just holes in the ground with million dollar sound systems that can drive you mad if you're down there for long enough. I think us producers are a weird breed 'cause you can sit in that room and keep yourself occupied for 12, 18 hours straight and not even realise it. I forget to eat sometimes.
Rest of 2017 for Elk Road... what do you have planned?
Working currently on a track with a girl who is easily one of the largest singers in Australia. Wish I could say who. It will be done soon, super excited to get it out. I think people are going to dig it. I certainly do.
I’ve also been trying to get Boost Juice added to Uber Eats. I tweet at them and they tweet back. One of my friends got a job at Uber Eats recently and I thought that now that I had a man on the inside I could get it done, but he has become distant and secretive. What is going on at that app, we gotta get to the bottom of this. Not enough fresh juice options available for delivery in the Burswood region.
Favourite app (and why)?
Right now? The Chess.Com app; nothing like a good game of chess. My Elo rating is terrible though. Gotta get a smurf account going to try some new openings, so I can keep a good rating growing. I only know how to open with a queen push; every time I king push, someone moves their queen onto the side of the board and I’m like haha what, how do I defend against this, and then suddenly I’m checkmated in like four moves. It’s not on! I need a tutor.
Tell us a guilty pleasure you like to indulge in, pewdy please?
Camembert with no crackers. You just buy it and eat it straight. Boom. It’s amazing. Also what is with this whole ;cheese isn’t healthy' thing going on. I swear I don’t understand basic nutrition hey; everything is apparently trying to kill you in one way or another. What is wrong with eating fat foods anyway, eating 'fat' doesn’t actually make you fat, we can’t keep perpetuating that myth. I will eat all the camembert I can.
My other guilty pleasure is googling cross-breeds of dogs. Pretty much anything crossed with a sausage dog is hysterical. Google 'poodle crossed with sausage dog', and check out what’s going on. They have long torsos like submarines.
