Inner Vision: The Cosmos According to Seth Troxler

Seth Troxler was born to play music, or so he would have you believe. It’d be difficult to disagree with him. Born in the mid 80s and a kid on the outskirts of Detroit, he grew up amid the steady decline of a once thriving motor industry, and yet, from an early age, managed to harness some of the creative energy the city was best known for. Troxler has DJed since his teens, mainly at underground warehouse parties in neighbourhoods that local suburban youths probably shouldn't be hanging around in. Given that his dad was a locally known funk and house DJ with his own long-running club night, Troxler likely faced few repercussions for staying out late, which he did, a lot.

Quitting his job at a sports arena at 16, where he steadfastly denied a managerial request to remove his dreadlocks, he took some time to focus on some of the new music-making software that was emerging. Shortly afterwards, he graduated from high school, and was flown to Berlin, where he played Panorama Bar with Omar S. Soon after, his teenage friend Ryan Crosson joined him in the German capital and house music mecca, waving goodbye to the Midwest and to luminaries such as friend and future collaborator Matthew Dear, who was a few years older while Troxler was at school. The same school, that is.

It’s a mythology beyond anything a PR could conjure, and yet Troxler’s good fortune is, if anything, downplayed. Briefly speaking on the phone to The Skinny while gathering “old records that sound good in the desert” in preparation for a whole week’s stay at the notoriously out-there Burning Man festival, where he’ll play simply “a bunch of times,” Troxler is as chatty and excitable as he appears in all his press appearances, though perhaps less so than when he infamously agreed to a video interview in Miami while wearing his girlfriend’s shorts and completely off his tits (since 2010, footage of Troxler ducking imaginary bats has been viewed more than 300,000 times. He was last year voted Resident Advisor’s #1 DJ of the year by readers internationally).

“I mean, some people say coincidence, but I say luck or fate. I came from a middle class family and have been in the right place at the right time, with people who have been on the same sort of dream path,” says Troxler, whose influential Visionquest label – the name of which is derived from a Native American ritual – is co-run with aforementioned pal Crosson as well as Shaun Reeves and Lee Curtiss. The background of Troxler’s popular Twitter feed is adorned with a sort of gap year snap of the four of them in tribal make-up, grinning impishly. “That's the thing, you have to be aware of opportunities; whoever you want to be, you already are, and if you grab the right opportunities, everything is truly possible if you get on the cosmic path. Just picking up the small details and conversations and conditions, recognising patterns in your life, and it almost becomes a sort of game.”

“Whoever you want to be, you already are” – Seth Troxler

To his detractors, Troxler can sound a little too spaced, arguably naïve – a fortunate recipient of incredible circumstance. He’s known to wear crystals around his neck. “I am a little bit interested in magic, the unexplainable, forces beyond our control,” he happily admits. But there’s a sincerely odd and exploratory streak to Troxler that belies his undeniable mass appeal. While his friend Jamie Jones and associated label Hot Creations push their ubiquitous deep house sound towards the charts, Troxler, a true believer in psychedelic, communal experiences, has spent much of the last year devising Visionquest Thirteen; the events began by filling rooms two and three at Manchester’s Warehouse Project in April. “We hired actors in robes for when people walked in and the main room had this strange light tunnel. We had mirrors and a chill-out room. We’ve attempted to create a one-night experience, something temporary,” Troxler explains. “If you experience music while something is happening, it tends to penetrate more; the whole experience sticks with you longer.”

His idealism is hardly synonymous with mainstream club culture. What motivates him into these projects? “I think it's giving people more to think about,” he says. “It's kind of doing something more and setting the tone for people to do projects and share things in their lives. If you're exposed to different experiences and ideas, you're encouraged to explore other ideals.”

Troxler returns to The Warehouse Project and plays Liverpool's legendary Circus club at East Village Arts Club on 28 September – two of three sessions DJing at as many events that day, suggesting that he is as aware of opportunities as he professes to be. Behind the decks, he plays with minimal fuss but an undeniable charisma, regularly indulging his more psychedelic sensibility with records that other DJs of his ilk would likely avoid. In 2012, he moved further away from [DJ software] Traktor and began playing all-wax sets again, creating weirder moments from his rich record collection of house and techno while pleasing even bigger crowds.

Earlier this year, the largely male community of dance music fans online individually declared themselves aroused, disgusted or nonplussed by a documentary clip of fellow DJ Nina Kraviz in a bubble bath, discussing her career. Four months later, and in perhaps history's strangest piece of festival promo, a portly, nude Seth Troxler stood in front of a fireplace, his genitals digitally blurred, holding a banana and a portrait of legendary director and convicted paedophile Roman Polanski. “Hi, I’m Roman Polanski, I like underage girls. Come to Eastern Electrics,” he whispered.

“I kind of don't care about a lot of things, like, almost anything,” he tells me. “I'm passionate about the things I do, but in terms of bullshit, I just don't care about it. I'm kind of a chilled guy, I like to smoke a joint, watch TV, listen to music. I hate the hype, and all that stuff, it's the worst.”

While there’s always time to sod about on the internet with his cock out, Troxler is one of the busiest DJs and producers in the business. “I love to work,” he stresses. “My girlfriend thinks I have some sort of pathological disorder.”

He is currently in the process of starting no fewer than three labels, including one focused on indie and folk. A huge fan of leftfield imprints such as Captured Tracks, he is currently working on a remix with feted dream-pop band Wild Nothing. He’s also just opened a pop-up restaurant and bar in Hackney Wick, Smokey Tails, in conjunction – as usual – with Crosson. The smoked meats are complimented by sauces and recipes passed down from relatives, and Troxler admits that it’s been “a dream.”

As usual, he’s getting stuck in. “The meat shop has really gone well. It's been open eight days, and I've been there for three.” Troxler is in fact a two-time champion of the Amsterdam Dance Event’s DJ Cook Off. (“If I win three times, I get to retire,” he explains with even more enthusiasm than usual. “I have to beat DJ Sneak.”)

True to form, a brief visit to Smokey Tails’ Facebook page reveals solid evidence of Troxler behind both the decks and the counter at his latest venture. Just the world’s foremost DJ, wearing a hairnet and a dress, grilling and serving meat to the public.