'Let's Get Lost' launch intimate interview series: Watch the rare exclusive with DJ Harvey

Music

We all love a good chinwag. Be it over a hot cuppa or a fresh pint, in real life or over Zoom (thank you 2020), there’s always time to get lost…

Last year saw a lot of those IRL conversations come to a halt, just like the majority of the events industry across the world. This forced people to think outside of the box and, in the case of Indonesian convention Brightspot, prompted the idea of facilitatating some talks with local and global creatives —a series of intimate conversations about everything and anything.

For this they enlisted the help of Bali-based Mo Morris, a media CEO, creative director and music producer who Brightspot had worked with closely in the past. Now, though Mo doesn’t consider himself much of a host (we’re inclined to disagree), the series of interviews came organically thanks to Mo’s list of participants, the majority of whom he’s had close friendships with for many years.

Under the series name ‘Let’s Get Lost‘, Mo has six rare and intimate digital fireside chats with DJ Harvey, Roisin Murphy, Trevor Jackson, Danny Wang, David Dorrell, Dea Barandana and Tipi Jabrik, who discuss music, art, fashion, and the stories, pitfalls and learnings from their colourful careers.

We chat to Mo about how the series came to be, alongside an exclusive rare interview with Harvey (and his first ever video call), where they dive into the impact of Covid, Harvey’s business endeavours and Charles Manson’s music career.

Tell us a bit about the series as a whole, when did you come up with the idea?

It was a happy accident to be honest, as it’s something I would never dream of doing. I’m not one to be in front of a camera in any shape or form. It’s always been a little bit of a fear of mine.

Some friends in Indonesia (where I’ve lived for several years), have a really successful convention / happening type thing called Brightspot. People come from all over South East Asia, I think they had 60,000 attendees at the last physical event, anyways we have worked together before with some Vice media chats at Brightspot and I’ve played some music for them a few times…

As all big events and conferences went digital last year down to Covid, they wanted me to host some talks with local and global creatives.

I wasn’t mad keen as it was way out of my comfort zone down to my dislike of being in front of a camera and also the saturation of podcasts etc, but I thought it could be fun to go off-piste a little and try to ask some questions that are not normally part of a media interview, so Brightspot kindly let me curate the guests, questions and name the show. So it was more of a f*** it, this could be fun.

My fear of cameras hasn’t changed, I still have to re-watch the interviews through my fingers.

Lots to learn also, latency being the biggest problem with long distance video calls, and talking over each other.

Most of the people you’re interviewing are friends from across the world, it just so happens that they’re pretty big and widely respected in their fields. How did that impact the interview process?

Yes, It was friends, people I work with and people I admire really. I also knew all the guests chosen would be super colourful and up for a bit of a laugh, and a drink in some cases…

I’ve known Harvey for many years and he’s a mate, to get him on a zoom call was no mean feat (I think he popped his video call cherry on the interview as it goes) so that was a blast !

It all panned out nicely, everyone seemed to have a laugh and enjoyed it. I think it made the interview process more relaxed and people felt easier opening up to other subjects other than their chosen creative careers.

Roisin stated I sounded like one of her school teachers, her Religious Education teacher to be exact… so that was a big highlight for me as you can imagine. As well as Danny Wang breaking into song, Karen Carpenter if my memory serves me right.

What topics do you cover in your discussions?

A lot of music, but also some politics, inspiration, folklore, and a bit of where we are at, and where on earth are we going?

2020 was a pretty messed up time for everybody for multitudes of reasons, so Covid was obviously going to come up as it’s at the front and centre of everyone’s mind most days.

It’s made people become quite disarming I think, as everybody feels in a similar boat. That’s one positive I guess, through this “end of days” time.