We sat down with Adventure Club at Escape Halloween and reflected on their more than a decade-long career, what the future looks like, and more!
Every OG bass music lover has crossed paths with Adventure Club, comprised of Montreal-bred Leighton James and Christian Srigley. From their early 2010s dubstep remixes of tracks like “Daisy” by Brand New and “Collect Call” by Metric to their latest collaborations with Jessica Audiffred on “HERO” and Bear Grillz on “Play the Game,” their music has stood the test of time. As they continue to play shows around the world, fans always look forward to catching their signature emotion-fueled sound that packs a serious punch.
Their travels have taken them to festivals like Das Energi, Beyond Wonderland at The Gorge, EDC Las Vegas, and Forbidden Kingdom as of late. Amid their busy schedule stocked full of festival and club shows, we knew we wanted to catch up with them before their set at Escape Halloween this year.
When asked if they were bringing any special Halloween edits or remixes to their Escape performance, Leighton let us know that the duo are “big horror and thriller fans.” “We like to put obscure references into our sets,” he said. “We do it for the maybe ten people that are in the crowd who’ll get them and go crazy. Besides that, we’re gonna play a lot of new school Adventure Club, maybe a couple throwbacks.”
Between the “old school” and “new school” Adventure Club sounds, the duo have consistently explored the concept of duality in their music. Titles like LOVE // CHAOS, “Death or Glory,” and “Heroes and Villains” support this backbone of their brand.
When asked about future plans for this concept, Adventure Club reminisced on their musical approach. “When we started making music, we wanted to make the most aggressive dubstep possible and juxtaposed it with a playful name like ‘Adventure Club,’” Leighton remarked.
There’s always two sides of a story, like two sides of a coin. We’re on the melodic side, but we also like the heavy stuff and finding that balancing point between the two where they can communicate with each other. It’s always been part of our story.
Christian Srigley of Adventure Club
Coming off a fresh collaboration with Bear Grillz and Craig Mabbitt of Escape the Fate, Adventure Club elaborated on how they’re all “emo kids at heart.” The band has been one of their favorites for a very long time. “We just got the opportunity to work with Craig, and everything came together incredibly… Working online and sending files back and forth, the song took about six months to come together,” Leighton continued.
The artist collaborations don’t stop there, as Adventure Club recently took the stage with Sullivan King at Dancefestopia in Kansas for a first-ever back-to-back set. It might come as a surprise to fans that they did not prepare for this performance at all.
“It was completely impromptu. We didn’t work on anything beforehand… we just met up at the festival and gave each other a ‘What’s up, let’s do this thing,’” he said. The set was a hit among fans, featuring a solid blend of bass genres and heavier styles, with surprising melodic edits from Sullivan King as well.
Pivoting to family life, we congratulated Christian on becoming a new father. As he steps into this new life chapter, he reflected on how he approaches his work with Adventure Club. “We grew up in a band and both played guitar… I now find myself playing a lot more physical instruments because I love playing music around my baby girl,” Christian said. He claims he has “a new perspective on the actual instrumentality again and getting back into that analog feel.”
With a career spanning over a decade and no signs of tapping out, it’s evident that Adventure Club aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. These EDM scene mainstays have amassed a devoted fanbase over the years, played some of the biggest festivals in the world, and were even nominated for a Grammy for their remix of Kehlani’s “Undercover.” What they’ve achieved extends far beyond what they imagined at the beginning.
“We started this project not expecting too much. To reach this level and the accolades that we’ve had so far, it blows all our expectations out of the water… I think we’ve done everything and more than we ever thought was possible as Adventure Club,” Leighton commented. “We hope that all our music resonates with our fans from now until we can no longer fist pump or play these festivals because we will do it until we die.”
Christian Srigley of Adventure Club
We’re at the point where we’re past the ten-year mark on some of our releases, and seeing music that we worked on that long ago still resonate with people today — that’s a fun, new perspective for us. We’re looking at probably doing a couple more throwback sets moving into next year.
As we embrace and appreciate the last ten plus years of their career, we’re looking forward to seeing what the next ten bring. We had an absolute blast catching up with these OGs of the scene. Be sure to stay tuned to Adventure Club’s social media channels for the latest show announcements, new music, and more!
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