Poll 2012: Dada Life | DJMag.com Skip to main content
Dada Life
up 14


Aggressive noise with nice melodies
Best known for: 
Bananas and champagne
Tune of the year: 
Bongo Boys 'L'Amour'
Breakthrough DJ/Producer of 2012: 
If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be: 
"To see everything in slow motion and be able to duck stuff - Matrix-style. It could be really handy when people throw bananas at us. Yes, it has happened."
Should you play to the crowd or for yourself: 
"We feed the crowd and the crowd feed us."
What does EDM mean to you: 
"It used to be called dance music and now it's electronic too. Good to know. Banjos are apparently not OK."
Should celebrities be DJs: 
"Let them try..."
Have you ever been thrown off the decks: 
"No. We're six feet tall and full of adrenaline. You don't throw us off the decks."
Where's the next dance music capital: 
"Dada Land."

"Cooking a lot of hot chilli" is the answer that comes back when DJ Mag questions Dada Life's Olle about the highlights of his year. As fans will know, this Swedish house outfit place a high regard on having fun. Of course, though, without much hard work and many touring miles again in 2012, none of that would be possible.

"Playing Electric Daisy Carnival in Vegas, but also Electric Zoo in New York was insane: the amount of people, the vibe, all just amazing," says Olle before going on to explain the Rules of Dada by which the duo live.

"We came up with them after we invented the nation of Dada. In a nation you need rules. Some of them are more rule and law-like, and some of them are more specific just to us. Like not having a BBQ before a show. We tried it in San Francisco, but it was ugly and I don't want to talk about it!" 'The Rules of Dada' is also the name given to the pair's latest full length, due out imminently.

Receptions to the tracks so far have been great, Olle, reports, despite them being wholly different to previous Dada Life material. "What we wanted to do with the album was make 11 bangers. We just wanted it to sound like 42 minutes of smash and grab. We took the inspiration from '60s rock & roll, '70s punk - you know, whatever is high energy is what we're into. No ballads, slow tracks, no noodle tracks. Some are really far out there, we have really pushed ourselves to the limits."