L.A.-based Australian DJ, producer, songwriter and all-round good guy TyDi (pronounced “tidy”) has been active in electronic music for a decade and a half. In that time he’s seen the focus of his career shift from Australia, Europe and Asia to here in the States. The scene has changed beyond all recognition, as bigger festivals started popping up in the US. But there have been musical changes too.

“There are the phases it’s gone through,” he says. “I’ve probably made every type of music that is out there. I saw the uprising of dubstep, with Skrillex leading the way. Before COVID, it was cool to see a resurgence of underground music. When it hit the Vegas parties, people were still learning the genre and what EDM was. To them, it was always more commercial but in the later years it’s seen more of a wave where people can branch off and do more underground techno or all these side sub genre. Find their niche.”

TyDi started off playing trance and then got a little more experimental. A publishing deal with Universal Music gave him access to their arsenal of full time songwriters, and things really took off from there.

“I was instantly given access to these incredible writers, doing hundreds of sessions a year with these incredible people,” he says. “Now, I really enjoy sitting down with a vocalist and writer, and writing songs on the piano. Letting the lyrics and the feel of the song decide how it’s going to be produced. That’s what leads to songs like ‘Nerve’.” 

“Nerve,” featuring American Idol finalist Geena Fontanella, is his latest single, and it’s an appropriately angsty number.

“I got in the studio with Gina and we decided that we don’t have to make a positive, uplifting song if we don’t feel like it,” he says. “We’re artists and we want to say what we want to say. ‘Nerve’ is a track for people who don’t have a voice. I try to let my fans decode the lyrics themselves, but there is a story there. Sometimes the people with the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only voices in the room.”

“Nerve” is most likely going to be a stand-alone single, not part of an album or EP, though there is an album in the works. Next single, “Trainwreck,” will be released at the end of July. Meanwhile, the artist is also the man behind the Wish I Was project.

“In 2015 I released ‘Redefined’ and it went straight up the charts, launching my career in the States,” he says. “I love it and still love it, but I’d have to play it at every show. A lot of my team members at the time were saying ‘Make another Redefined.’ As an artist that can be frustrating. I found myself sitting in the studio saying ‘I wish I was able to do this, I wish I was able to do that.’ That’s how Wish I Was came about. I found myself making very different sounding songs, a lot different to TyDi. More down tempo, a completely different vibe, focussed more on vocal chops. I didn’t tell people it was me for a year. Eventually one of my friends who is a radio host blew it on the radio. But I notice that Wish I Was has a completely different fanbase to TyDi.”

With “Nerve” out now, “Trainwreck” out soon, and an album on the way, it’s already an exciting year, against the odds, for TyDi.

“Beyond that I have some exciting collaborations, but I can’t name names yet because I want them to surprise people,” he says. “Because everyone is locked down and no one’s touring, it’s a lot easier to get together with someone that I want to collab with. It’s led to some pretty cool mixes of genres and styles. It’s definitely safe to say that there’s a lot of new music coming from me this whole year.”

 

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