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SXSW Rebel, Rebel, Rebel: Josh LeCash & Kyle Schneider

By Meredith Alloway · March 8, 2013

DJ Josh LeCash has performed with musicians like Katy Perry, Adam Levine and isn’t stopping any time soon. He’s the subject of the latest short to sweep Slamdance and now SXSW, Rebel, Rebel, Rebel. Director Kyle Schneider gives us a look inside the life of Mr. LeCash; the clubs, the booze…even the gigs he bombs.

I got to sit down and talk to the self-dubbed “odd couple” this week at Urth Café in Los Angeles. While sipping Boba Green Tea (cliché, but tasty), we dished on this rapidly growing new music culture, society’s fascination with celebrities we love to hate, and choosing DJing over college debt.

ATW: Where did the idea begin to make the documentary?

S: I saw Josh play at a show, and then we just started talking. We were going to do something completely unrelated. We were going to go shoot a little project.

L: I thought it was going to end up on YouTube.

S: It was just going to be something little; DJ culture, fans. But then he asked if I wanted to come with him on a leg of his schedule. So we hit New York. T

That’s when we did the Vice Interview, Jeremy Scott…

L: Katy Perry gig.

K: That’s when things took a big turn. It was a 180-degree departure form what I had anticipated and what he had imagined. I saw an interesting character.

ATW: Although the LeCash life seems to be just a big party, you’ve said before that your ‘Life isn’t as easy as it seems.’ What are some of these challenges you face?

L: Well, with the Jeremy Scott gig, I don’t think I’m a diva. All the equipment was wrong, and I didn’t have what I needed. When I was playing for Adam Levine, my computer just shut down.  You know, you use it every day, and there was too much stress on it.

ATW: Both the path of being a filmmaker and a DJ are very unpredictable and difficult. When did you guys decide to go after both of your passions?

S: Well, my dad was an editor and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I traveled for a while, backpacked. But then I ended up working for my dad. Pretty soon I move to LA and just started with editing and then shooting my own stuff.

L: My brother was a really good DJ, but he doesn’t like people. So I went out, and I had the equipment and just started teaching myself how to do it.

ATW: They do say, ‘Fake it till you make it.’ Do you remember your first gig?

L: It was at Mokai in South Beach. I opened for them one night, and then it was my weekly gig. Two days after that I flew to Tallahassee to DJ this college party. I just remember I had a fever, and so I could barely remember that night.

ATW: Fellow SXSW film Sound City is about preserving the way music used to be made. What are your thoughts on that?

L: Old people aren’t moving with technology. It’s like record companies being mad they’re not selling CDs. They’re all holding on to something obsolete.

S: I mean vinyl will always sound better than mp3s.  But we should me grateful that music is more accessible now. It’s the best time for music. There are 15-year-old geniuses with computers. It’s all the same thing.

ATW: The film is a lot about those celebrity icons that we “love to hate.” What do you think this cultural phenomenon is ultimately about in today’s society?

L: Most people are upset with their own life. I don’t understand the whole reality TV or any of that. I’m far more interesting than even A-list celebrities; they’re all the same. It’s almost like they’re all politicians. I’m sick of politicians to begin with, so why do I have to have a celebrity as a politician too. They all have to be really safe. They’re all really boring. The people that love to hate they watch Two and a Half Men too. That shit’s not funny. I don’t think that’s funny. Most people don’t have good taste in anything.

S: You know, honestly, I don’t really watch reality television.

ATW: There’s no one you love to hate? What about people like Lindsay Lohan?

L: That’s just sad, though.

S: I guess when I’m at the grocery store, I’ll pick up one of those magazines. I’ll get sucked into that. I’m totally engrossed, like I’ll let people go ahead of me.  But as far as TV goes, I don’t know why people watch that shit.

L: They don’t have taste.

S: But all that stuff, it just gets under my skin immediately – the Kardashians. But I guess people say they watch it to feel better, I don’t know.

ATW: Was the celebrity theme in your work something you wanted to explore or more just an after-effect?

S: That was an after-effect. That wasn’t intentional. The whole piece wasn’t intentional. It was just going to be a fun little, edgy puff-piece.

L: We just wanted to party.

S: [Sarcastically]I just wanted to be a DJ.

ATW: You guys have had great success on the festival circuit with Slamdance and LA Art-House film fest. What had the audience reception been like? Is it different at every screening?

S: Generally, they all enjoy the film. They’re all just sort of flabbergasted when we go up for the Q&A. They’re all just so… what the fuck. That’s what the interviewer said at Slamdance. Some people thought I had been taking advantage of his situation. I should have called a hospital…

L: Those people need to worry about their own lives.

S: …maybe I should have been more concerned with the drug and alcohol abuse.

A cute dog distracts Josh and the rest of the table for a moment. Then, we’re back on track.

L: Also after the LA Art House film fest, I went up to some of the filmmakers, and they made a little short about 911 being an inside job. I said, ‘Hey man, I really liked your film.’ He just walked away and didn’t even take the compliment. I think that’s a reaction too. Older people don’t get me. He didn’t even give me the time of day.

S: Then there are definitely the people that ask [Josh], ‘How did you let him make this?’ He didn’t know the way the movie was going to be put together. As I was shooting, I chose to put it together another way. I couldn’t show him anything.

L: He literally moved away. I thought I could just pop by, but I didn’t even know where he was.

ATW: How do you, Josh, feel about the way the film portrays you?

L: I think that I’m here and that I’m getting exposure. I think that’s good.

S: He was reluctant to accept it at first until he started showing some people, and they thought it was interesting and there were important themes.

L: Themes, yes. I want to do a feature length documentary, and I want to put more of how my life really is, the day to day.

ATW: What do you want people to get from that?

L: Besides me being awesome?

ATW: Yes, besides that.

L: Well, that I’m actually smart. That some DJs aren’t fucking…

S: It’d just be a bigger, longer, uncut misadventure.

ATW: But what’s the point? Most documentaries today are very weighted. Do you want to break free of that?

L: Ok, here’s another answer to that. Most people in Middle America haven’t even been in a club. I think that’s probably why they’re drawn to reality shows like The Bad Girls Club. That’s just the scum of the earth they’re watching. But it’s not that. You can appreciate good music and dress cool…

ATW: You want to inform people about the culture you live in.

L: Again, I’m not that homeless artist in New York or whatever. I’m a DJ, and I think that it’s still an interesting topic, although not “heavy.”

S: I think it could be very interesting. That short was pulled from only eight days of shooting! All of that material, all those gigs, all that pulp was only seven days.

ATW: No way, I had no idea. I thought that was months!

S: No, no.  Maybe we could go shoot across the country, go international…there could be so much interesting material.

ATW: When I saw the short, I saw that this was a culture that is more than people give it credit for.

L: We bring a lot of joy to the world. How is that a bad thing?

ATW: That should be the feature title, “We Bring Joy to the World.”

S: [laughing] A lot of joy.

L: Seriously, we do. When you go to a concert and you see your favorite band, although it’s still live music, you hear the same type of thing for an hour and a half. And how much do you pay, sometimes a hundred bucks or 200 bucks for a ticket? When you go to see a DJ and you’re going to hear a ton of different kinds of music, it’s even more like a party than any concert is. How is that a bad thing? How is what I do a bad thing?

S: Even as far as kids getting into it, it’s so easy now. Why would you not want to get into it? There’s the attention and the girls and the money and this music, why would you want to say no, I guess? It’s just cool right now.

L: Do you want to go to college for four years and be in a lot debt or pick up a computer and start DJing and maybe make some money?

ATW: Well, when you say it like that, I going to have to say college.

L: With all that debt? Yo, every college kid that went to college that I know has a shit load of debt.

S: A bunch of college kids I know are struggling for minimum wage jobs.

ATW: Ya, well, I went to college to study playwriting…probably not the best money-maker.

S: But it was very enriching, right?

ATW: Very enriching. Speaking of writing, what’s your working/creative environment like? A nest?  For you, Kyle, while editing or writing and you, Josh, while making music?

L: The great thing for me is that I could do it from my bed. I just need my laptop and that’s it. When I don’t have gigs, I become a hermit for a little bit. So I have a lot of time to think and become crazy.

ATW: Do you have certain headphones that you like?

L: Not for DJing, but for chilling at home I like those Bose Noise Canceling headphones.  That’s chill. I mean, being in LA I really don’t like traffic, so I kind of stay at home. That’s where I do my work.

S: I also work at home, which is nice. Sometimes I have to leave though if I want to be productive. I get so easily distracted. I’m sure as a writer you understand…anything in the corner of the house that needs mopping or dusting. If you have a creative block…

ATW: You get so many other things done! What about when editing?

S: I have to go do something physical. If I know I’m editing for 16 hours a day, I have to go to the gym or a hike or yoga. That will kill you. Sitting for 16 hours a day.

ATW: Anything else you guys want to say about the film?

L: I have a question for you. Is this the best interview you’ve ever done in your life?

ATW: It’s the second best.

L: Who’s the first?

S: John Stamos.

L: I just want to say one thing for real. Fuck SXSW and fuck Elijah Wood.

Apparently Elijah has taken up DJing. This is news to me, but Josh claims he’s an “ipod DJ” aka a DJ who just presses play. Rebel, Rebel, Rebel opens this weekend  March 10th at SXSW Film Festival!