In their respective home bases of Berlin and New York, DJs Nicolas Endlicher and Memphy are unmissable figures of the night.
Harlem native Memphy burst onto the local techno scene when she was still a teenager. She’s since DJ’ed among the likes of Madonna and Beyoncé, while maintaining a high-profile modeling career and cementing herself as the rare It-girl who straddles the Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan crowds.
Endlicher, who DJs under the moniker MCMLXXXV, co-founded the cult party line and collective Herrensauna (think sweat, sex, and hard techno) in 2016 with his friend Cem Dukkha, with which he’s toured the electronic music world’s most hallowed venues.
Ahead of Herrensauna’s XXL Berlin Pride takeover July 27—where Memphy will DJ alongside the likes of X3Butterfly, Slim Soledad, vtss, and Word of Command—the pair sat down to talk about the pressure to produce, pre-party rituals, and their nightlife origin stories.
Nicolas Endlicher: What brought you to techno?
Memphy: I grew up in New York. I started learning how to DJ at 16, and actually started going out to clubs and DJing at 17. I'm 23 now. I like music that makes you feel something. When I went to my first rave, I saw everyone dancing their heart out, which is an energy that I had never felt or seen before. I definitely preferred that more than just going to a bar and listening to top 10 rap hits and drinking! I just like something different than the mainstream, even though techno is getting more mainstream now.
Endlicher: I was born and raised in Vienna. I started going out when I was like 14, 15. I was going to rock parties, but they also had a lot of electronic music parties at the place I would go. I became friends with the people who liked electronic music; that's how I stumbled into it. That's also where I had my first DJ sets after that, because I became close friends with the owner of that club.
Then at some point I was just fed up with the city. It was not really my vibe and I wanted to live in Berlin, although my last expectation was that I was going to be a successful DJ, or a DJ at all. The city is so saturated with electronic music, and it was also much more gate kept at that time. Techno was not as queer as it is nowadays… I was 23 when I moved to Berlin. I'm exactly 10 years older than you. I remember in New York last summer when you told me when you were born, I was like…
Memphy: You're like, “Should I even be talking to this bitch?” I think the first time I went to Herrensauna was definitely in New York. When did you start throwing parties at Basement?
Endlicher: We DJ’ed for the first time in 2019 in August for FIST, but then there was Covid. I think it was 2022 when we had our first proper event there. I'm looking forward to your set [in Berlin]. I'm curious, where are you going to be playing?
Memphy: It's really good. I'm just going to say that.
Endlicher: I happen to have listened to your new track.
Memphy: I've been working on producing a lot more. I’ve been at home practicing, doing my thing, experimenting more, trying to find my sound. Now, if you don't produce, you're lame.
Endlicher: I know, the pressure's high on me as well.
Memphy: How did you learn?
Endlicher: I was teaching myself, but it was FruityLoops that I did everything on. To be honest, it's quite a good thing to do when you're touring, because it's very hard to paint when you tour.
Memphy: If we have enough time, maybe we can try to get some studio sessions in. When did you meet Cem?
Endlicher: I met him when I was 18—he was 17. We met at one of those rock parties. I think I showed him a little bit of that electroclash stuff that I was into back then, and he showed me more techno. We've always been influencing each other.
Memphy: I love that you've been friends for so long.
Endlicher: It's really special having a friendship that has gone through so much already and is lasting for so long throughout all the years in Berlin. I read in your artist's bio about your inspirations—Mary J. Blige, a lot of R&B artists, a lot of vocals—but there are no vocals in your new track. It's minimalistic, stompy, and percussive. I love that personally, but I didn't expect it.
Memphy: In New York, at a lot of the parties that I’ve been booked at—whether it be fashion parties or more corporate parties—it's really hard for me to express that side of myself, because I feel like I've been pigeonholed as this model girl. When you get booked for these brand events, they want you to play happy-go-lucky pop vocal remixes. I grew up listening to all of that stuff and I have such a deep love for it, but it's not really me. I've always just loved techno, and I've always wanted to make tracks like the one I made. I'm really excited to show the different sides of my sound.
Endlicher: Do you have any other shows coming up in Europe? What are the places that you would love to play?
Memphy: Fashion week is coming up, so London and Paris. Milan scares me a little bit. Berlin. I love the scene in London. Everyone is so happy and loves to dance. In Paris, it's really bitchy, but I kind of love it.
Endlicher: Do you have any plans to throw your own events?
Memphy: I've done that before, actually. I had this collective called Club Carry, and it was going for a while, but my business partner was not professional enough and it kind of failed. Working in business, you have to pick carefully who you're working with. Sometimes one person will get jealous. When I started that collective, I also started working a lot more as a model, and I think sometimes my partner would get jealous that I would get a certain booking and not be communicative or collaborative enough with me because of that.
We had to cut it off because there was this one event we threw at Knockdown Center where she got paid all the money from the venue and then literally just fled New York. We didn't see her for like two years. That was the final thing for me. After that I was like, “I need to take a little break from throwing parties and kind of just focus on myself.” But I'm not saying that I would never. I just have to find the right people … I'm excited to play in Berlin. What does Berlin Pride give?
Endlicher: I don't think I have ever been to the main Pride event in Berlin. There used to be an alternative Pride in Kreuzberg. People from our community would come together. That was really beautiful. But I would love to be in New York next year for Pride. I really want to see that.
Memphy: It was actually really fun this time. You see all the Hell's Kitchen gays in literal fairy wings. You've played at quite a lot of parties in New York now. What is your favorite vibe?
Endlicher: I mostly played Basement, Wire Festival, and STEAMROOM. Wire was great. The sun was coming out in the morning, and the room was filled with everyone's heat. The steam was trying to escape through the windows, but the windows were not big enough and you could literally follow the stream of steam. That was such an iconic moment. But at the same time, I love playing hard techno in the Basement dungeon. The crowd is always so enthusiastic and puts me in such a good mood. I'm just always so honored, like, “Wow, I'm just like a basic bitch from Vienna, and now I'm here and I'm getting all that energy.”
Memphy: [Let’s talk about pre-set rituals.] Mine is a shot or something. I need to take the nerves off, get into my zone. Usually, if it's alcohol, wink wink, it's tequila or Hennessy. Hennessy's the tea for me. I don't smoke weed before sets because I'm like, “Bitch, I'm gonna feel so tired.”
Endlicher: That's for after the show. I used to be really nervous before my sets, and I used to have my playlist particularly arranged before because I would be really nervous on stage. Luckily, I am not in that phase of my life anymore. The best preparation that I can have is actually just finding some new music every week to keep it fresh and you keep being inspired. And just being hyped up and in a good mood helps, which obviously is not always easy to achieve because you're not always naturally in a good mood.
Memphy: Gotta make sure that you have at least like a couple of friends coming with you. You have a little pre- and just vibe it out. Most of my sets recently, I just show up and then I start playing.
Endlicher: You surprise yourself in that moment. When you're on stage and all this attention is on you, you think differently. You're just in the moment and what you play next, you could have never like thought of in a calm, planned moment. That's where the art happens.
