Golf Clap Don't Believe in Vacations

Since Bryan Jones and Hugh Cleal started the house and techno crew Golf Clap in 2013, they haven't stopped moving. Back then, the Detroit duo regularly played more than 100 shows a year in the city alone, and in the years since, they've continued to maintain a similar schedule with recurring, seasonal appearances in major cities across the country. They rarely take a day off. "There are only a few holes in the dates," Cleal said during a chat with THUMP at the North Coast Music Festival. Their consistent gigs would be challenging for any artist, but Jones and Cleal seem to thrive by pushing themselves as artists and performers. "What we're doing takes a lot longer," said Jones. "You have to build it to blow up, but we're going to be in control at the end of it."

Besides their gigs, they've grown a following online through a near constant stream of remixes, original releases and hour-long mixes. "I want them to be like, 'Shit, I don't know what to look for,' then automatically check our page," Jones offered. "[We want] them to get to the point that unless there's a specific thing they want to hear, they automatically go to us for it." Most recently, they released their Front & Back Nine series on Country Club Disco. The collection features a number of new, original tracks ("Show You," one of the album standouts, is a breezy house track with a warm, soulful vocal sample and sexy beat) and remixes from the likes of Ben Mono, Scott Diaz and Golf Clap themselves.

It is a smart strategy that keeps them in the public eye and a hot commodity at nightclubs, music festivals and other outlets. Here, Jones and Cleal explain why they don't believe in vacations and how their prolific output and nonstop energy define their goals as a group.

When we started Golf Clap, we played over 100 shows a year in Detroit. Everybody thinks that's oversaturation, and it could happen, but we made a point to play different sets each weekend. We get sick of stuff pretty fast. Point being, if you play the same set over and over, you'll wear yourself out. There's enough music to go around.

The problem with it right now is that all these big DJs go and play canned sets or they pick songs they have to play. It's not fun for them. You can see that it's just a grind and they're doing it. For us, it's the core of what DJing was about in the first place: getting the new tracks before anybody else, playing them before anybody else, and getting them on your mixtape before anybody else. You're playing for the fans, but you're also playing for all the other DJs in the crowd, trying to impress them on a different level. There's always going to be that camaraderie, kind of mild competition. But it's weird how people forget that.

Literally anytime we've ever heard anyone say, "I'm trying to step back and take a few less gigs in town," it means they're falling off. It means it wasn't their choice.

They think that's how you get the demand—to hold out. But really, every time we go to Detroit, there are at least five or 10 random people that have never seen us live. We meet them or they like a song we played or we buy them a drink–something–and then they know who we are.

If we go all the way back to vinyl-only DJing, you did not have to play as much to keep your reputation up and you didn't have to buy as many records. If you owned the heat, you could tour that around for five years and people would pay good money because you had it and would play it. Now, everybody has access to everything, and if you're not constantly in people's faces or in their car cd player, then you can get easily forgotten. The way we look at it is constant attention.

For the last several years, we haven't really taken much time off except for one or two weekends in the year. There are only a few holes in the dates. We want to go on tour and not stop. It's not really that many cities if you think about it.

You've got 104 weekend dates out of the year. Pretty much anybody would say if you were booked solid every Friday and Saturday all year–somewhere–getting any kind of a fee, you're doing very well in the music business. You're going to play three times a year in a market. That's not very many. That's really only a handful of markets that you have to get big in at that time. Make the hit list of those cities. They don't all have to be in the same place. We figure Chicago, New York, LA, Miami, Denver, Detroit.

It's something that's within your power. You have control over that. The other alternative is you have to write a number-one hit and work around a ton of money, a ton of resources and marketing and stuff like that.

What we ultimately want–the very highest spectrum of it–would be like Grateful Dead. People follow them around. The jam bands operate on a whole different plane than the rock bands and dance music because their business doesn't revolve around charts, record sales, or royalties.

What we've always done is give away a lot of free music, play a lot of shows, and then try to build that up. As long as our health is good, we'll love to travel. It's one of the main reasons we got together again. He's one of the only guys I know that's willing to sacrifice everything and do what it takes to do this and doesn't mind it. We like living out of a suitcase and going hotel to hotel and waking up early. I don't care.