Q&A With "Savior of Australian Dance Music” Francis Inferno Orchestra

Kyle Mullin | Sep 12, 2018 2:30 pm | Add a comment | 2040 reads

How does a DJ and producer go about gaining such high praise that esteemed electronic music outlet Resident Advisor calls you one of the saviors of their scene? Well, for Francis Inferno Orchestra (FIO) AKA Griffin James from Melbourne, Australia, you draw on an eclectic repertoire of disco, house, acid and more during your late teens, and set dance floors ablaze with your varied yet melodic tracks.

Ahead of his Sep 15 set at Zhao Dai, the highly regarded producer tells us more about his ascent, his inspirations, and the craziest everyday noises that he samples for his tracks.

Resident Advisor has praised you extensively, calling you one of the “saviors of Australian dance music,” adding, “he and a small collective of artists have elevated Melbourne, his hometown, into the global spotlight by pushing club-ready deep house.” It must feel good to be described so positively, but that statement doesn’t cover the challenges you’ve overcome to achieve that. Tell us a bit about what the scene was like before you got involved, and the key hurdles you surmounted to attain such success.
Before I got deeply involved in the "Melbourne dance scene" there was still an array of people doing great things musically, but I suppose they just weren’t getting recognition beyond Australia. It wasn’t until my friend Lewie Day [Tornado Wallace] started getting music signed to international record labels that my peers and I were fans of, that made us realize it was possible to take our music to the same level. We had a really great little community of artists that was becoming established, where we’d bounce ideas off each other, play each other's music at parties and naturally, a following started to develop. I guess the distance of Australia to the rest of the world was always going to be a hurdle; however, the power of the internet and being able to get our music to reach all corners of the globe helped overcome this.

I read in Bolting Bits that you “recorded some crow noises whilst in Australia a while back and used them in a remix, I won’t say which one because that ruins the surprise.” What inspired you to do that, and were there any funny reactions from other people who listened?
I always want to have a feeling of home within my music, even if it's a small sound or feeling, but it’s done with the intention of being a little nod or something that my friends can hear and get a chuckle from. It’s also somewhat therapeutic if I’m feeling a bit homesick.

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What offbeat thing might you sample next?
If I could sample any crazy noise imaginable in the future, it would have to be a HyperLoop ... if it ever gets built. I can imagine some of the sounds coming from that thing would be seriously interesting.

What is one of your go-to tracks to get a crowd really amped and moving?
I don’t have a single one I always go to, but a particular song that’s doing it for me right now is Cos/Mes' "Hey Yah" because it has such an empowering feeling. The childish chanting that progresses in such a way on it really gets everyone, including myself, very excited.

What was one of the first DJ sets you’ve ever heard or one of the first instrumentals you heard that got you into this type of music, and inspired you to become a DJ and producer yourself?
Daft Punk Alive 2007. I was 17 and underage in Melbourne, using a fake ID to get into the concert. I had been a Daft Punk fan since I was quite young, but that whole evening blew my mind and was really inspiring. I believe that was truly the start of wanting to produce dance music.