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Tunes to rock a party

Team Canada DJs keys to success at the decks
1542djs
All Out Team Canada Djs, Grandtheft and D.R. One, don't discriminate -- they use all genres of music to get the dance floor jumping and fists pumping

Who: Team Canada DJs

When: Tuesday, Oct. 21

Where: Moe Joe’s

DJs Grandtheft and D.R. One are the men of Team Canada. And, as their name suggests, these born and bred Canadian DJs know how to throw one hell of a party, dropping the hottest beats imaginable to get the dance floor at any club truly jumping.

But they didn’t always work as a team. Back in 2002, they were both doing their own thing on the Montreal music scene — D.R. One was big on battling, and Grandtheft was scratching and producing. They met up and played a few shows together at some of the smaller clubs they tended to frequent, and realized they shared a common vision and appreciation for the underground scene.

“They just kind of took off from there, we just kind of kept expanding,” said Grandtheft. “Both of us had the same goal, in terms of club DJing, and in terms of doing something different and not really doing the big clubs, because we’d rather run our own parties at little spots.”

They decided they wanted to maintain creative control over their performance, and didn’t want to be restricted by the management at the bigger clubs.

“We kind of had our own vision, and we knew what we were doing could be kind of popular, even though it wasn’t the main thing six or seven years ago — playing rock, with hip hop and house and all of that wasn’t a popular thing to do,” he said. “We kind of got that going.”

Turns out, they really knew how to throw a party — and that’s what it’s all about for these guys. They love to see the looks on people’s faces when they recognize a really hot track.

“We like to party and we just love to get the crowd wild, so we’re pretty technical with it. We do a lot of live remixing and creative stuff, but its all in the name of just getting the party live, so we’re putting an a capella over another kind of beat, just to get a reaction out of people. It’s all about the energy, you know?” Grandtheft said. “We’re not the kind of DJs that make people stand around and watch us do something cool — we more like to get the party going.”

By 2004, Grandtheft and D.R. One were playing almost all of their gigs as a team, so they decided to formalize things, forming the Team Canada DJs.

Now, almost four years later, the duo has blown up in Canada, and even in the States, playing alongside some very recognizable names south of the border, and at some very big gigs, like Paris Hilton’s exclusive birthday bash in Vegas and the LA Galaxy and FC Shanghai United event in Shanghai.

Oh, and let’s not forget their other business endeavours: last fall, they signed with DJ AM’s management team in Los Angeles, they’ve branched out into artist management, signing four big Canadian DJs — Jr. Flo, Illo, Pump and Hedspin — to create the Eh! Team, and back in January, they took over the Blue Dog Motel in Montreal.

Their growing success is due, in large part, to their innovative style. They accidentally kicked off a party rocking trend, creating a new style of DJing with the ultimate goal of simply getting the dance floor moving, using whatever music it takes. They clearly pride themselves on their versatility and scope of music, which is evident from a visit to their MySpace page, which features remixes of a little bit of everything — from the Sex and the City theme song to Ozzy Osborne, MIA and Johnny Cash.

“The sound has been really well received,” Grandtheft said. “When we started doing it, it was not popular, mainstream-wise, to play all kinds of music, and I think that we kind of popularized it back then, the way that (DJs) Z Trip and AM did in the States, we kind of popularized that in Canada. Now, it’s kind of the norm, almost, to go into a club and hear a rock song inside of a house song and a hip hop song.”

Their remix of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire was on their debut album, and it apparently made an impression on a lot of big-name DJs, who in turn began to include the song in their sets.

“We don’t even play it that much anymore, but a lot of these DJs, like AM and Travis Barker, play it right at the start of their remixes,” he added. “…We thought that was kind of the craziest, weirdest one on that CD, and it just goes to show that if you take a chance, people will get into it.”

But they’re not strictly set on remixing classic hits — everything has its place at a Team Canada party.

“The ideal thing is to be able to do everything in one night, but you can also approach a party in a different way and just try and get it live,” Grandtheft explained.

They recently played a show of solid uptempo with DJ Aoki for MTV and Lifestyles Lovefest.

“People were just going nuts! It was much more of a dance party, like we had more dance music and stuff.”

And the end goal is always the same.

“It’s really satisfying to be able to make a song, play it in the club and have people go nuts.”

They released their debut album, Classic Material Volume 1 , in 2004. A second album was released almost two years ago, but since then their focus seems to have been on creating an insane party atmosphere at all of their live shows, feeding off of the intensity from the dance floor.

“We vibe off that — people give us energy, we give it back, tenfold.”