Hot Dub Time Machine Can’t Stop…

Ultimate party starter Hot Dub Time Machine is back for 2025 and he just can’t stop bringing the energy with a new headline tour around Australia, New Zealand and Bali. Across eight nights in three countries, Hot Dub’s brand new show will be celebrating some of the best in dance music from 1962-2025, delivering on his promise of the BEST. PARTY. EVER.

Kicking off in March, the Can’t Stop Tour will bring the good times to Adelaide, Bali, Melbourne, Auckland, Christchurch, Hobart,Brisbane and Sydney. Grab your best friends and get ready for a dancefloor that just won’t quit, in what will be an epic tour you won’t want to miss. Tom Lowndes talks to Hi Fi Way about kicking off the tour in Adelaide.

Another Australian tour, you must be excited and amazed with how big your tours continue to get?
Yes, you’re from Adelaide then you probably know how long I’ve been doing this and where it started from at the Fringe. I don’t think I even conceived back then that this would become my job and that I’d get to do it, but here I am and it’s bloody awesome.

Does it feel like playing the Fringe, almost feels like your spiritual home of sorts going full circle back to where it began?
Definitely, it’s Déjà vu when I come and do the Fringe. I’m making sure I’m coming down a couple of days earlier because I want to spend a few days there because I just love it. I’ve got so many friends still who are there, who are performing or who are in the crew and I just love walking around town, walking around Gluttony, walking around The Garden, just feeling that energy that the Fringe has. So yeah, it definitely feels like coming home. It is weird, there’s definitely a thing that happens for me in Edinburgh as well, it’s like the line from Dazed and Confused in that I get old, but all everyone else stays the same age, you know what I mean? Like, there’s not many people who are still there fifteen years later, so you’re still wandering around going, oh, okay, there’s all these young comedians and people who I don’t know, what happened to the time when I used to know everybody in this festival!

You’ve talked a bit about Fringe, but what is it that keeps you coming back? Is it just the comradery? Is it just the vibe of Adelaide that you don’t sort of normally see any other time of the year?
Um, a couple of things. The rest of Australia doesn’t understand how good the Adelaide Fringe is, like in how unique and wonderful it is. I don’t think anyone else understands how good it is. It is unique in Australia. There’s nothing like it. I go to Edinburgh a lot and that’s the only comparable thing. Edinburgh is enormous, but Adelaide is special. I really like how Daniel runs Gluttony. I really like the team there. They’re really great, there was a time when I just got too big for the Fringe. It was too big for the Spiegeltents and it wasn’t viable for me to do it anymore. But what he’s done in bringing more mainstream music acts and having that big outdoor venue there makes it a gig that you can do as a part of Fringe. So, you can do a big music show that has a scale and the production that I want and that gets enough people in to make it worth my while and it’s still a part of the fringe.

Absolutely, how much work actually goes into the set list and how it all hangs together?
So much it’s overwhelming, honestly, the amount of pressure that I feel and that I put on myself to make sure that every time it’s distinct and fresh. It’s a real narrow tightrope to walk that I think you have to do as a performer where you don’t want to change everything there. It’s like, I don’t think people like Hot Tub because they know what they’re going to get in a way. But one of the key things about what I do is that it surprises people that you’re going to hear something that you haven’t heard before or in a different way and finding those bits after fifteen years of it is hard. So, yeah, I spend a lot of time on it.

Is that the thing that keeps you awake at night knowing whether you have got it right?
Yeah, man, like I’m in love with the art of the DJ set. Obviously it’s become my life’s work at this point. Creating the perfect rise in energy, finding the songs I want to represent every genre as much as I can. I want to keep people dancing. I want to do all these things. There are all these conflicting things that I want to have happen by playing songs. I want it to be in chronological order. I want them to mix together. I want the DJing to be technical and interesting for nerds who appreciate that and because I’m one of those nerds because it satisfies me. So yeah, it is, it’s all those things. I think about it a lot. I try to make the energy rise in each decade and rise throughout the show and because I’ve done it so much, I have this image of the crowd in my mind.

There’s a lot of people in Adelaide who have seen me a lot of times, there’s some hardcore fans down there who would’ve seen me over thirty times and they’re going to be there in the front row. I have them in my mind as well, but also I know that they’re bringing their friends who have never seen me before. So, you’ve got to satisfy the person who’s seen me thirty times and the person who’s never seen me. It keeps me up at night, frankly.

Is there much room to sort of improvise depending on the vibe of the crowd?
Yeah, definitely. I spend a lot of time making a set list that has all this stuff, and then when I’m up there, I chuck it out the window and do what I think is right. Generally, I try to find new things and then when I’m up there, depending on the vibe of the night or the crowd, what the energy is like, I’ll chuck in some favourites and try to ride that energy. That’s the art of DJing is, two aspects of DJing and I love both of them. I’m a big fan of DJ Shadow, his sets are works of art. Everything is intricate and it’s the same every time. Same with seeing Daft Punk or the Chemical Brothers. That set doesn’t change. It’s a work of art that they create and then you have DJs who totally react to the crowd and improvise and that’s someone like Carl Cox.

Are you focusing on a particular time period or certain types of artists on this tour?
The last couple tours I’ve done have had a musical focus. I did a Boogie tour that was really trying to be a cohesive message going from disco to dance music. Then I did A Hundred Percent Bangers last year, which was trying to get rock back into the set. This time I’m just trying to do the best Hot Tub show I can. There’s not a particular musical focus, it’s just about finding the best songs, the best music and creating the best party I can.

What makes a banger in a live sense, and does it surprise you with the reaction to certain songs?
Totally, that’s what I love because to me the fun of it is not playing Backbone by Chase & Status. That is a banger! We all know it is. You play it people and it goes off. If you can get away with playing Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game, which to me is a banger, and if you can make people sing to that or if you can play like Don’t Let Go (Love) by En Vogue, which doesn’t fit the normal definition of a banger, but to me they are and that to me you’re in a pretty good spot as a DJ, if you can get away with that.

Do you get nervous before these big shows?
Yeah, and honestly the anxiety kind of peaks about now as I’m trying to work on the set and trying to find these new things and plan it. Once all that work is done and once I’m down in Adelaide and about to go on the stage, it is just a fun thing to get on that stage and look out at everybody. You feel some nerves because it’s always an intense thing to stand in front of people and to not fuck up.

Leaving people in a better state than when they arrive, that’s got to be a sign of success, doesn’t it?
That’s always been the thing, my wife articulated that the other day as I was moaning about making a set and that regardless of the type of show I’m doing, I think people walk out of my shows feeling better than they went in, you’re just trying to create an uplifting experience and making people happy. It’s a great thing.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Hot Dub Time Machine on the following dates, tickets HERE…