A Quick Chat with Anti Lag

Your music fuses high-octane electronic production with arcade nostalgia and larrikin vocals. How did your journey from chiptune roots to this evolved sound take shape, and what sparked that transition?
When I first got into chiptune, it was just to help out a friend who made video games; I was just creating tracks in my bedroom, and they didn't have to be that big. Eventually, I started hitting up open mics and a few minor shows, and I was up there time and again trying to make things happen, trying to work the crowd. I started out with spoken word exhortations to glory, which soon developed into a sort of rudimentary schoolhouse rap that I got addicted to... and it just spiralled from there. I loved putting my emotion into these soaring electronic tracks I was building, and my voice was the way to do it.

"MICHAEL BICHAEL" is described as a track for when the night starts getting interesting. What was the inspiration behind it, and how do you hope people experience it on the dancefloor?
Sometimes you rock up to a club and you just get that spark. Maybe it's the right song on the system, maybe it's running into someone familiar, or the sudden intense eye contact with an intoxicatingly beautiful stranger as you walk through the door. It's the possibility... That's when it gets interesting. It's for when the music takes you over and you're moving with it, entirely in sync with the scene playing out that night. It's your movie, you're playing the lead, and you're slinking your way through your own adventure.

You've played increasingly larger spots at Reception Festival and even headlined Pulse Negative. How have these experiences shaped your approach to live performance, and what can fans expect from your upcoming national tour?
It's been a pleasure and an incredible challenge, all at the same time. You can't rest—you have to bring a bigger, better show every time you go out. Playing these slots has been the ultimate education in how to do that. For the new tour, I'm focusing on cardio most of all—I need to be dancing my heart out at a hundred and thirty percent if I'm going to expect the crowd to do the same. Running is the best training if you want to put on a show in my book.

The "Shoes Up 4 Chiptune" movement has become a defining moment in your shows. How did that start, and what’s the wildest thing you've seen in the crowd during a set?
It all kicked off at a show in Adelaide a couple of years ago. I kicked off to a handful of people in the room, and song by song, I was just working my ass off to build the energy. We got to the last song of the set; I was closing on Fuck With Shoes On (2023). People had been right there, jumping and feeling it, and I could just sense they needed something more, something to push it over the edge. I looked out and knew they were on board, so I just shouted "TAKE OFF ONE SHOE!" and smashed right into the track. Suddenly we're screaming—"SHOES IN THE AIR! SHOES IN THE AIR!" and the room is just going nuts. Then suddenly I'm running around blessing the shoes in the thick of the moshpit. It was so wild and intense it became an instant trademark.

Beyond the dancefloor, your music has found a home in indie games like ECHOES III and LCD SPORTS: AMERICAN FOOTBALL. How does composing for games compare to crafting tracks for a live audience?
The fundamentals are the same, but the goals are different. You still want killer hooks, and emotionally engaging content. However, the rise and fall you want in a live track is maybe not the same thing you're looking for in any given video game. For ECHOES III, it was a retro action game, so I wanted to craft tracks that had a continuous pulsing energy to match the on-screen antics. For LCD SPORTS, I was crafting a menu theme, so I cooked up something to just get you jazzed about playing the game. Often, you're looking for less drops and vocal stabs, and more steady energy.

This tour marks a big moment for Anti Lag, taking your sound to new cities and even overseas. What does this next chapter look like for you, and what are your ultimate goals for 2025 and beyond?
I couldn't be more excited. The last couple of years have been huge, and so it feels great to be going even further this time. I love playing Melbourne so much that I've made it my new home, and there's such a wonderful community of musicians and producers to work with here. Plus, the tour's taking me to Sydney for the first time, and I can't wait to find out what the scene is like over there. Perhaps most exciting though will be my first Euro show in Denmark at WOOD CHIP festival. I'm told it takes place somewhere that translates directly to "MURDER FOREST," so I hope to survive that and make the crowds bounce while I'm there.

The rest of the year is going to be a pleasant slog through many releases. I'm currently crafting new tracks every week on my Drumbeats and Dicerolls livestream, where I roll dice to choose instruments and write electronic bangers (and clangers). Beyond that, MICHAEL BICHAEL is the lead-in to an EP I'm hoping to release at the end of the year with some of my most cherished live tracks. It's a big year, and I'm just loving how much I'm getting to immerse myself in this world these days. Nothing like sweating on stage with a crowd of likeminded chaos fans.