Interview: The Phantom's Revenge

Hey everyone - welcome back at the discotheque!

Today, we have an extremely special person in the blog's virtual hot seat - French master and house music legend The Phantom's Revenge - a pioneer of the late 2000s filter house scene who has influenced pretty much everyone in the modern filter house scene - and has since released for legendary labels such as Nervous, La Valigetta, Happiness Therapy and Montaime, remixed the likes of Peking Duk, Grum, Calvin Harris and Moullinex amongst many others, released several epic mixtapes which have received acclaim, he has millions of streams across various platforms - and he has played in over forty cities in a career that spans almost two decades and counting.

It is an absolute honor, to have him on the blog - and without further ado, I'll let him do the talking!

For those who don’t know you – who are you, where are you from, and what music do you make?

Hi, I’m Anthony, I’m from Nîmes in the south of France - I have been making music as The Phantom’s Revenge for a while now, I’m also DJ DVD RIP and now NS DAYZ, I make different types of music that usually involve samples.

To kick this off strong, you have your next EP dropping extremely soon under the name NS DAYZ – can you give us some backstory on the alias, and who’s inspired you the most for this upcoming release?

Well, this new EP is a Phantom thing, not a full on NS DAYZ thing yet, that will be for the next one that might actually be done soon. I would say this new EP basically covers all angles, some vintage phantom type tracks but also a hint of DJ DVD RIP and a track or 2 that are more in line with the new alias.

I have always been into the whole aliases thing, when i started getting into DJing, I’d see all those dudes with sometimes 4 or 5 different projects. I thought about this new alias when I started my residency on Piñata radio in Montpellier, I felt like i needed a new thing to reflect what I’d mostly want to play, which is, to make it simple - mostly disco, house and a bit of fusion. My favorite DJs do what I think some people would call open format, longer DJ sets with a wider range of music but mostly based on those 3 things. It’s nothing new - I have been doing this in my mixtapes for years but I guess I needed something fresh. 

The name is straight out of a WhatsApp conversation, means different things but let’s stick to No Sad Days for now. 

What DAWs and equipment did you use at the start of your music journey, and what do you use now? Is it mostly in the box, or do you use some hardware here and there? 

I started on Fruity Loops on a messed up PC and switched to Ableton when I got my first MacBook Pro in 2011 or 2012. It’s all in the box, I have never owned any hardware. 

Going way back, you started making music in late 2007 during the peak of the ‘bloghouse’ and MySpace era, and I’d like to ask – to you, what’s changed about releasing and promoting music since then? 

Basically everything. Now personally I haven’t changed much about the way I release and promote music. I don’t care much about the algorithm, now it’s all strategies and tricks to improve the reach, posting on every platform available and I can’t be bothered, I just don’t have the energy. It’s like I know what I have to do but I definitely don’t have the strength to do it. (shout out Kylo Ren). 

Building onto that, during that era you released a huge amount of original material, including some for labels such as La Valigetta, Discotexas, Idiot House and Nervous. How did those opportunities arise? 

They pretty much all contacted me via email or MySpace directly. I don’t think I have had even one release that came from me submitting tracks to record labels because I have barely done it, probably did reach out to some labels I liked once or twice and never heard from anyone. 

You were played a ton by former Radio 1 residents Jaymo and Andy George when they had a monthly slot, and I’m curious to know, how did that happen? Did they reach out to you via MySpace, or did it just generally come as a surprise?

Oh man! I don’t think I remember, but both scenarios probably happened. Probably a few times I have heard of it from other people but it was always a great feeling either way. 

Keeping on the topic of radio, you now hold a monthly residency at Pinata Radio, based in Montpellier under your new alias. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, and what’s planned in the coming months?

Last summer while i was in Sete in the south of France for Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Festival with my best friend, I’d just play him stuff out of my laptop and I realized that I had a ridiculous amount of good and weird music and thought it was a shame that it was just rotting on my hard drive. 

My friend was already involved with the radio so he introduced me. It’s also an opportunity for me to dig for new music every month because I have one of those messed up brains that need a reason to do things, I’ll admit before starting the residency I was at a point where i was spending time looking for new music maybe once a twice a year. 

I’m not much of a planner but I usually try to sometimes have kind of a theme, like an hour of mostly funk, playing hip hop songs I like and the original song they sampled for it, I might do a japan special soon, some days I play a lot of deep house, some other day I feel like disco house, anyway, there’s a playlist with every show so far on my SoundCloud.

Right now, what are some of your favourite releases that you’ve been bumping this summer?

I’ll give you a little playlist:

• Sparklmami - Penso En Voce
• Rhyu - Pity
• Hillari - How Does It Feel
• Biirthplace - Lost Faith
• Joy Rhodes - I Love Me
• Seaven - Pretty Pharaoh
• Naoto Koto - Yume ga Sametara
• Genesis Owusu - Runnin Outta Time

All of those are from this year but I’ve also been listening to a lot of Westside Gunn, Cosmic Collective, an unhealthy amount of Surf Curse, Dana & Alden, one of my fave bands of the past few years, and this summer specifically I have been listening to a lot of latin music like Bobby Pulido, Eddie Santiago, Adolescent’s Orquestra and also a lot of brazilian music like Tim Maia or Tania Maria. None of this is house music because you can just check the radio streams for those!

You’ve had the opportunity to play in over forty cities – so can you tell us what some of your favourite gigs have been, where they were played and why?

I’ve had the chance to travel a lot at some point for music and I enjoyed pretty much every one of those trips, but if I had to highlight some of them by how crazy the parties itself were, I would say playing Studio B in Brooklyn in 2009 I think, Tokyo in 2019 because those 2 cities were like the first on my dream list and also the 2 parties turned out to be amazing - the 2 times I played in Sao Paulo, this time I played La Cita in LA, my first time at Social Club in Paris on a packed Tuesday Petit Social event, my first time in Mexico in el DF and Ciudad Juarez (I have seen nothing of the city itself but the party was so good!)

Have you got any weird / wacky stories from any gigs over the last eighteen years?

Nothing too crazy I can think of, which is a good thing, apart from strange after parties maybe. 

I was left at the border in Tijuana once because my ride forgot about me and i had to get back to the US and San Diego airport on foot, missed my plane. Some promoter guy once told me to leave the DJ booth before the end of my set because apparently he didn’t like what I was playing and wanted to play instead, but he was then sent off and I got back on by public demand, that was weird enough.

This one time in France this promoter dude booked me, left me at the club by myself without drinks or anything, went straight back home, came back at the end of my set to pay me and left right away, that was about the weirdest interaction I’ve had with a promoter.

First random question of the interview – if you had to be in the world of one of your favourite films, what would it be, and why?

Well it could be in the world of Everything Everywhere All At Once, where I’ll feel right at home because I already spend my time wondering the impact of every tiny decision in my life. Or maybe Rocky 4! I’d be very curious to see the 80s as an adult. No social media, cheap sandwiches and no boxing events involving YouTubers. 

You’ve made a ton of amazing mixtapes since beginning that part of your career in 2008, and I’m sure some of the readers who are also DJs and producers are curious to know how you make them. Can you give the readers some tips?

I have made all of them on Ableton and i don’t know if i could give any tips as i don’t recommend this to anyone! It’s a ridiculous amount of work, I always appreciate anyone talking to me about specific mixtapes or parts of it they love because honestly those are both the dumbest and also the best things I have ever done - I mean the last one, the Michael Knight Leather Jacket part 2 took me almost 2 years on and off. 

But if I had a tip for anyone wanting to try this, is you need to pre-select more tracks than you need (not gonna expand on the process of warping tracks in Ableton but it’s not that complicated, it's just time consuming!) and try to organize (bpm, genre, key maybe) - It’s very easy to get lost in the sauce once you have 50+ tracks in the same project. Also pretty good to have like an idea of the different parts you want, like "Hey, maybe i could do 20 minutes of Eastern Europe footwork!" so you can narrow down the selection. 

What are your favourite video games?

Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, Final Fantasy 9, Final Fantasy 10, Dragon Quest 8, Baldur’s Gate 3, Persona 5, Cyberpunk 2077, RDR2, The Last of Us, GTA 5, Battlefield 1, Elden Ring!

Going back to your productions, you’ve done around eighty remixes across your career, and alongside remixing house artists, you’ve also remixed pop and R&B bands – so I’m curious to know, how did you end up working with the likes of Division Kent and The Score early on?

That’s a lot, going back to it I shouldn’t have done 75% of them! :) 

In those 2 cases their agent / manager contacted me. The Division Kent remix is part of the ones I’m glad I worked on, Stefan who was working with Division Kent reached out, super nice guy, haven’t talked to him in years, if he ever reads this, shout out to you Stefan.

You also perform under the name DJ DVD RIP for faster, harder, Baltimore-club styled outings, and I’m curious to know what artists influence you the most under that name, alongside some production tips for people that want to follow in your footsteps in that path!

Mostly Chicago ghetto house type stuff, DJ Nehpets, P.J. Project, Dancemania, DJ Milton, baltimore stuff, DJ Class, DJ Technics, and at the time probably to some extent stuff like Chambray, Nightslugs, Hudson Mohawke and Jimmy Edgar. It also has a lot to do with growing up in the 90s in terms of influences or samples.

Seeing as you’re a pretty huge disco aficionado, do you prefer a lot of the late 70s stuff, or are you more into the post-disco movement? Which ever side you’re on, I’m curious to know what some of your favourite disco records are.

I don’t really have a preference, everything is good! Some of my favourites are:

• Instant Funk - Crying
• Billy Preston & Syreeta - Go For It
• Coffee - Casanova
• The J’s - When Did You Stop
• Shalamar - Girl
• Stephen Encinas - Lypso Illusion
• Skip Mahoney - Janice
• Curtis Mayfield - Over The Hump
• Lax - All My Love
• Kenix - There’s Never Been (No One Like You)
• Celi Bee - One Love

If you had the opportunity to play a string of shows with four of your heroes, living or dead, who would they be, why have you picked them, and where would you want to go?

So, first of all Paul Johnson - because he always has been my main guy, anywhere in Chicago where I still have never played (SAD AF) - then Danilo Plessow aka MCDE because he’s probably my favourite DJ, I think I have seen him play maybe 7 or 8 times, I’m not sure, on a league of its own to be honest, last time was at this festival on the beach in Lisbon called Suncébeat, amazing experience, best festival ever so I’d like it to be there, then I wouldn’t mind a b2b in Tokyo with Ge-ology one of the greatest vinyl DJs I have ever seen, finally I’ll just pick my BFF Blackhouse aka Christian Diop aka Jean Coutu, also a great DJ, for a b2b in New York because we deserve it.

Here’s another random question – what food could you live off of for the rest of your life, if you had to pick?

If I pick Italian food, the rest of my life would only be a few years maybe, so realistically I’d say Japanese food, like any variation of marinated stuff on white rice i could easily eat everyday. But if you meant like a specific ingredient instead of a whole cuisine, there are so many ways to cook potatoes, every meal could feel like something new. 

Out of all of your music, what release are you most proud of currently, new or old?

Usually the DJ DVD RIP stuff is my favourite, but I think I could also pick either the vinyl release of All You Can Eat with Charlie on it - or the 39 tracks All At Once release on Bandcamp. I don’t know if proud is the right word but generally speaking finishing tracks has gotten harder over the years so everything I have released over the last 10 years I consider an achievement.

You made your US debut at the legendary New York based club Studio B in April 2009, where Rusko and Black Holes were also on the bill. Judging by a very low quality video which is still up on YouTube – that night seemed pretty awesome. Do you have any particular memories from that night? 

I remember pretty much everything - from hitting the toilets a few times before my set because I was nervous to most of the tracks I have played. It was a dream to play in New York and I couldn’t have hoped for a better scenario, great club, crazy line up, I thought I was supposed to play for an hour but they told me I’d play for an hour and a half, so I played stuff that I didn’t usually play and it felt very good. I played right before Rusko live. I didn’t know much about dubstep at this point. The last song of the night was the Skream remix of In For The Kill by La Roux - perfect ending.

What’s your favourite Star Wars character? 

If we’re talking about the OG movies, I’d say Han Solo or Mace Windu, but considering Andor is by far my favorite Star Wars content I’d say Cassian Andor.

In general, what would you consider to be some of the defining moments across your music journey?

Considering the best thing about it has always been the travel part - it’d tie into your best parties question. 

Going to New York and Tokyo definitely, playing in New York in itself opened many doors because I wasn’t getting booked a ton in France before that happened, for example. All the time I have spent in the US between 2011 and 2012 was pretty significant, that’s also when I fully switched to Ableton. 

Getting a DM from Skream in 2018 about getting something on his label I think would be considering defining as I was going through it at the time and I think it did bring me back up all the way until COVID hit. 

Seeing artists I like play my stuff is always impactful, like you know you make a track you think it’s pretty good but you don’t hear much about it, and then boom! Salute plays the track in his BBC Radio 1 essential mix, I would call this some unexpected HP recovery. Fortunately it happened enough at different times to keep me from falling into a bottomless pit of despair, so shout out to the people who send me love. 

What are your plans for the rest of the year? Is there anything readers can look forward to?

Well, there is this EP due in a few days, then I already have tracks lined up to finish, it’s just a matter of how long it’s gonna take me, could be days, weeks or months, whatever my brain allows me! (shout out my ADHD people)

I’d like to sort a full on NS DAYZ EP, disco house type thing and stuff like Sunset 3 Hundred if you know it - I would also love to get some new DJ DVD RIP going. There is still the hour on Piñata radio every month, I’d really like to DJ a lot more and travel again, I need to update my press kit and start hitting people up.

What advice would you give to music producers and DJs that want to follow in your footsteps?

I don’t have good advice if you want to succeed but make music that makes you happy (or sad if that’s what you are into) - If you’re in it for the money or fame definitely don’t do anything I do. 

YouTube is an amazing resource for both finding samples and good music even if the website itself is getting worse. Of course do whatever you want but please stay away from generative AI, if you can’t play an instrument - make things that don’t require extensive music knowledge, I know a lot of people are gonna be tempted to just let AI generate chords for them, but that won’t be you unless you consider typing a prompt art. 

You can go out there and put a micro piano sample you took from a random old song through a MIDI keyboard and create something entirely new. That being said, do not listen to the music snobs out there telling you to learn how to play a real instrument, not even everyone could afford piano lessons as a kid and even if you start playing everyday as an adult you will still sound like ass anyway. 

Finally, I would say do not obsess over YouTube tutorials, get the basics of mixing like properly EQing tracks and then just mess up with things, if you just stick to those tutorials you’ll end up with something clean maybe but also potentially dull AF, some of my favourite tracks I couldn’t even explain how I got there! You just try stuff again and again until it clicks. 

Do you want to give any shoutouts to anyone, and some words of wisdom?

Shout out to anyone who has been listening to my stuff, doesn’t matter if you heard about it 18 years ago or 2 weeks ago, shout out to every single person who has booked me for an event! 

Drink 6 to 8 glasses of water everyday, and the most efficient and safest way to lose weight is through a calorie deficit. I think that’s it. Thanks for having me. Haven’t done these in a long while!

There you have it, everyone!

I would like to take this time to say the biggest thank you to Anthony for agreeing to be interviewed on the blog - it has been such an incredible honor, and I am unbelievably grateful to have had this opportunity - especially as, without his music, I wouldn't have gotten into house music, met some of my best friends and this blog wouldn't even exist - so, thank you so much, Anthony!

You can find The Phantom's Revenge / NS DAYZ on various platforms. His Linktree, where you can find all of his links, has been provided below!

The Phantom's Revenge on Linktree   

I sincerely hope you've enjoyed reading today's post, and as always - keep enjoying your stay at the discotheque.