When EDM Maniac flags down Très Mortimer, he’s buzzing around the canopied backstage artist lounge at Chicago’s ARC Music Festival, greeting a laundry list of friends in town for his home city’s clubbing Super Bowl.
It’s Sunday evening. Before our park bench chat, the DJ, producer, and lifelong Chicagoan played a Thursday-night festival pre-party, a B2B on the main stage, and a marathon house party afters until 7AM this morning, but he’s still going strong. Earlier, he agreed to speak with us, “as long as we’re before Bibi.”
Très is about as Chicago as they come. Born Kevin Fronckiel to first-generation Polish immigrants in the city, the house artist grew up in Elk Grove, Illinois, and spent summers with his extended family in Warsaw, the product of a proud heritage shared by many in Chicago, which has the largest Polish population of any metro area outside of the country’s capital.
The birthplace of house music has produced no shortage of talented DJs and producers. But unlike many renowned Chicago artists who’ve permanently relocated to the greener party pastures of Los Angeles, New York, or Miami, Très never left.
While his over 10-year career has taken him across the globe, the DJ has built and developed the entirety of his project from his home base in the Chi, writing deep, groovy productions for the likes of Three Six Zero, Ministry of Sound, Seth Troxler’s Slacker 85, Ben Sterling’s Planet X, and his own Optics Records in between jaunts to play the heralded dance floors of Miami, New York, and Europe.
“This is my hometown man. I love it here,” Mortimer tells EDM Maniac. “I’ve been told by many big DJs, ‘Move to Miami. Move here. Move there. Move to Berlin.’ But dude, I have a sick house here. I love it. It has so much history. And I can travel everywhere.”
We spoke with Très Mortimer about ARC and the current state of Chicago’s house scene, the city’s rich musical legacy, the consensus among some artists that DJs need to leave Chicago to make it big in today’s scene, and how his own journey challenges that notion altogether.
EDM Maniac: You’re back here at ARC, played the Thursday night pre-party with Kev, played B2B with Cole Knight on the main stage yesterday, and played a marathon house party afters last night. How are you feeling about the shifts you put in this weekend?
Très Mortimer: Yeah, 10PM to 7AM with SLAMM last night at an afters at a house. The cops came five times. We would stop the music and go negotiate with them and come back. It was hilarious, but I really like how it all worked out.
The Thursday, everyone’s fresh. Energy was really good. Me and ALLNIGHTKEV. My real name is Kevin, so we just called it KEVSQUARED because we’re boys. And it was just nonstop, two-and-two. I like to play two-and-two. He has an insane style. It was cool. It was just banger after banger. It’s all recorded. Media has been crushing it, which is important.
And then with Cole was awesome. Totally different vibe. She wanted to go fast. We were negotiating up there. She’s like, “Let’s go 135.” I’m like, “133.” She’s like, “134.” I’m like, “OK.” Then she’s like, “137.” I’m like, “135.” She’s like, “136.” I’m like, “Alright.” And then by the end I’m playing my songs at these crazy tempos. She’s like, “It sounds better.” And I’m like, “You know what? Yeah, it does. Hell yeah.”
It was beautiful, man. I can’t complain. And then now it’s day four. Easy to get here. No traffic.
EDM Maniac: What does it mean to you to have a steady presence at a festival like this, in a city like this?
Très Mortimer: This is my hometown, man. I love it here. Here’s the thing. I’ve been told by many big DJs, “Move to Miami. Move here. Move there. Move to Berlin.” But like, dude, I have a sick house here. I love it. It has so much history. And I can travel everywhere, so it’s easy. It’s in the middle of the country.
As far as ARC, I’ve seen it grow. I’m moving up the set times. I love what they’re doing. They’re trying so hard. People are like, “Oh, the sound bleed.” I’m like, “Dude, if you go get up in the actual thing and dance, you can’t hear anything.”
It’s amazing. You can have so much fun here. The weather has been amazing. But it means the world. It’s cool. Obviously, out of all the Chicago festivals, I can check off this box, and then, dude, I would love to play Perry’s at Lollapalooza one day.
EDM Maniac: What does having a festival like ARC in Chicago do for the local scene?
Très Mortimer: If you’ve ever been to Movement in Detroit, I feel like this is ‘Chicago’s Movement.’ They rep the music that the city is known for. It’s so cool. We have so much great music from here.
We have Chief Keef. We have Kanye. Chief is my favorite. That was, growing up, like a rock star for me. But then, house music-wise, you go to Smart Bar, that’s the only venue left from back in the day. You go to Gramaphone [Records], the guy who owns it used to play this stuff. It’s amazing. There’s so much history here.
It’s just a huge honor to play it, and it’s only going to get bigger. Who knows? They’ll probably outgrow this venue. It’s huge. It’s the people of it who, every year, are like, “We look forward to this.” People start partying on Monday.
I’ve been touring America this summer. You go to a Memphis, a Dallas, a New York, and you see these people, you meet them, and then they’re all at ARC. They’re like, “Hey, remember when you played that afties in that kitchen?” I’m like, “I do, kind of. [laughs] It was awesome.”
EDM Maniac: What are your core Chicago music memories?
Très Mortimer: Sexyy Red at Lollapalooza two years ago. There’s a lot of stuff. The first time I saw Seth Troxler was here at ARC. He was playing “In a Dream” by Raquel, this ‘90s dance-pop record. It’s amazing by the way. I was just like, “Wow. What is this? Who is this guy? How could he play this song right now? It was just so cool. I was just a GA warrior, baby. rockin out.
EDM Maniac: Who are your biggest Chicago house music influences?
Très Mortimer: Derek Carter. If you go to his Queen! party, that’s at Smart Bar, it’s a sea of shitless men, they’re just grinding it up until it closes, and it’s the middle of January, and the club is packed. No one’s wearing clothes. It’s so awesome, but it’s sweaty. And I’m just up there, and he’s playing like nine-minute songs.
You’ll notice it’s not always just build-up, drop, build-up, drop. He’s really good at just keeping a groove. If a groove is good, you take the kick out for a while, you bring it back. Derek is one. Gene Ferris is cool. Obviously Green Velvet, Cajmere, legends like Frankie Knuckles.
EDM Maniac: What kind of impact does a festival like this have for local artists?
Très Mortimer: It’s huge for me. It’s so stacked, but that’s the thing, the amount of people playing this is insane. Not only across genres, but just to be included with everyone in that way is really big.
Imagine you’re just starting out. Being a producer is great, but I had to grind it out at the college dollar tequila shots bar, doing rotating opening sets every other Friday, going from like 20 to 50 people, just getting them to dance in whatever way I could. That’s DJing, man. Making a banger, also important. But two different skill sets. I feel like you can’t skip that. That’s why you can have DJs who are mostly selectors.
EDM Maniac: Many leading DJs pride themselves on playing sets of exclusively their own music. Are we losing pure selectors? Has the focus shifted to music production?
Très Mortimer: There’s a lot of shit going on. Attention span is at an all-time low. I used to get away with murder on Reels. I’d make something in 15 seconds and post it, and it would just blow the fuck up. Now it’s way more complicated. These are people scrolling their phones at 7AM before they take their Adderall, their coffee, whatever they need, and they’re like, “Ugh, bored.” [Pantomimes swiping on reels.] “Oh, that caught my attention.” You’re conditioning people in this weird way.
House music is kind of meant to just be a groove that goes on for a long time. It’s still fun to make. You gotta play the game. I don’t complain about it. I’m like, “OK, I’m gonna try anything I can to promote my stuff, and it’s fun. I don’t mind posting things and going through the ringer of “today I got 100 views, today I got 10,000, today I got 500 again.”
Not everyone is down to do that shit, but the reason it ties into this thing with losing selectors is you have to really dig through this music and learn what DJs you like and really listen to be able to understand a nine-minute song. I think it’s beautiful. People enter the scene through, I don’t know, you hear a Mau P or a John Summit, you’re like, “This is amazing,” and then like six months later, now you’re digging deeper. Now you’re in the Luuk van Dijks and Roddy Limas, maybe the Très Mortimers. Who knows?
EDM Maniac: What’s your response to artists who say you need to leave Chicago to make it big?
Très Mortimer: Here’s the thing. I feel like if you moved away, it’s kind of a bigger deal when you come back. But the other thing is that I don’t play here that often. I play everywhere. I’m able to go wherever I need to go. I’ve made so many connections just from people being in the club with me. We fly in all these artists every week.
You go to Miami a few times, you meet a few people. Now when they come back to town, you’re friends. And then you make more friends, and it kind of just adds up and stacks over time. I was in Miami like 12 times last year. Obviously that’s a lot of flights. That’s as much as paying rent. You definitely can’t just sit in your house.
EDM Maniac: What’s your assessment of the health of the scene here?
Très Mortimer: Oh it’s good. In my personal ranking, obviously Miami is different because there’s no other place like Space and shit where they just have, like, unlimited time. The party just cooks. People literally go at 8AM with a coconut water and dance. We just don’t have that.
To me, it’s number three after Miami and New York, in the States at least. But then, bro, you can’t leave people out. I played a crazy show in Memphis that was insane, and they’re doing their thing over there. Morning After Club, they’re doing these coffee pop-ups, but they’re getting bigger and bigger, and they’re huge. It was this giant outside, beautiful park with maybe 800 people or something.
There, you’re kind of like spreading the gospel. In Chicago, we have big DJs every weekend. It’s like my Slavic House Society party. I did that for the culture. I’m Polish. I’m proud of the heritage. There’s millions of these people here. I’m giving you a reason to go to a party that’s not just the big DJ. But people definitely appreciate music a lot. I was just in Monterrey, Mexico. It was awesome. Everywhere is cool. It’s growing.
Featured image courtesy: Très Mortimer. Credit: @notjakehenry.