Scraggly-haired and scraggly-bearded, with the sun in your eyes, it’s like witnessing the next resurrection of Jesus. But DJ Pube$ doesn’t have a messianic complex. Unless of course, you were talking about the second coming of disco.
Originally from New Jersey, Steve Ternoski aka DJ Pube$ is catching fire on his adopted left coast. Playing everything from old-school hip hop to eighties to dance rock to nouveau disco, Pube$ journeys deep into distant genres, mincing up beats and spoonfeeding them to sweat-soaked Angelenos on a weekly basis. The hair man himself sat with CP to discuss his 20,000+ record collection, ex-raver hipsters and how he got that crotch carpet moniker in the first place.
Clubplanet: You’re originally from New Jersey. What made you move from the armpit of America to the silicon bosom that is Los Angeles?
DJ Pube$: (laughing) Yeah, I’m originally from southern New Jersey. I got hooked up with somebody at Warner Brothers while reviewing and finding unsigned and indie artists from the Northeast—kind of like a junior A&R position. I came out to LA for Coachella and met with Warner Brothers who offered me a job like the one I was working in, but it was more like an internship. So it was enough for me to move out here. That was in 2002.
Listening to different sets, I’ve heard you play everything from disco to gritty electro to hip hop and then some. What kind of DJ would you classify yourself as?
DJ Pube$: I wouldn’t. I pride myself in not only being able to play multiple genres, but being able to get pretty deep within those genres. I think that’s what a lot of kids are lacking nowadays with the advent of Serato—they haven’t dug through records like I had to. I love playing disco, so I just started a disco night. For my Thursday night, it’s a little more mainstream so I have to play more of that electro style. I’ll play whatever as long as it’s good.
Even hip hop?
DJ Pube$: I love playing classic hip hop and that kind of stuff. Take for instance Firecracker downtown—I love playing there because they still have a crowd that appreciates that classic hip hop feel. I try to surround myself with people or get booked places where I can play genre-specific things, or mix it up and play multiple genres within a night.
Do you take requests?
DJ Pube$: (laughing) 99% of the time, no. Unless someone comes up with something that really does make sense, which is rare. Usually people that make requests are people I don’t really care about.
Where did you get the name DJ Pube$?
DJ Pube$: Ummm, it started at puberty. When I was growing up, I played drums in a band. I was probably 13 while the rest of the band was 21 to 25. They used to call me “Puberty” because I was young and over time, it just got shortened to “Pubes.” By the time I started DJing, I didn’t have much of a choice.
Speaking of pubes, is it a jungle down there? Or do you groom?
DJ Pube$: (laughing) I don’t know… that’s for my girlfriend to know.
Okay, how about the rest of you? How would you describe your personal style?
DJ Pube$: I’d say it’s heavily influenced from my brother, since he’s the designer of Obey Clothing. I take whatever he can give me and go from there. But my style is a little bit more East Coast. I don’t like to get too crazy with the all-over print stuff or whatever kids wear these days.
You wrote on your MySpace page, “Hipsters ain’t nuthin’ but ex-ravers.” Besides the similarity in hygiene, why do you think that?
DJ Pube$: That’s funny. I wrote that quote when MySpace first started a couple years back and haven’t changed it since. It was really before everything came into play; before all the Justice, electro and French stuff really hit. I don’t know, maybe I’m psychic since that’s the road it took. In the beginning, the hipsters were all rock kids and now they’re listening to all this crazy electronic music. Basically everything that happened in the '90s with raves has come back. I guess everything goes in cycles.
True, true.
DJ Pube$: Even stuff like Daft Punk! Kids are freaking out on Daft Punk now, but I remember the first time that came around, and I’m only 28. It’s like a second coming… because it’s already been around once.
Los Angeles is like the epicenter of electro nowadays.
DJ Pube$: Word is, all of those guys from Ed Banger Records are moving here from France. As is MSTRKRFT. This scene in LA is going off more so than other places. Personally, I don’t play a whole lot of electro other than a couple songs here and there to make the crowd happy. But yeah, it’s definitely going.
Why do you think that is?
DJ Pube$: LA is late to it. It happened everywhere else, and LA is always so late on music. Everything usually starts in Europe, then New York and LA gets it last. And LA is the best at exploiting it and taking it to the mainstream. That’s why it’s getting so much press. Once it hits LA, everybody knows about it and that’s when you get the crossover into the Midwest and those songs actually chart.
What kind of music do you think clubs should be playing more often?
DJ Pube$: I don’t really care what other people are listening to. Honestly, what I’d like to listen to are the Scandinavian guys like Lindstrom, Prins Thomas and Todd Terje. It’s a bit of the newer disco style, a little more refined, with a better musical composition than the stuff Ed Banger’s putting out. It has more substance to it. Which is why my Sunday night is strictly disco. I teamed up with Mark the Cobrasnake, Blu Jemz from Turntable Lab and Dan from the Royal Rumble—we all have an interest in this music. That’s what I’d like to hear more of, but not too much of it.
Word has it you have a collection of over 20,000 records.
DJ Pube$: Uhhh, at least 20,000.
Where do you keep it all?
DJ Pube$: (laughing) In my back bedroom, which is kinda my record room now. It’s like they say, “fish grow to the size of their tank.” It seems like every time I have a room to put records in, I buy more to fill it. I can’t even walk in there because everything is floor to ceiling.
Sounds less like a fish and more like a packrat.
DJ Pube$: Right now I’m a packrat. When I move to my place in March, I told myself I want to get rid of 5,000 records. Now that Serato is around, I can be more selective with what I keep. I don’t really need Journey or Kansas records lying around anymore. I’ll put those back in the thrift store for someone else to find.
If not a DJ, what would you be?
