Against All Odds: Mickey Nox’s Melbourne Underground Pioneers 20-Year Fight to Make It in Music
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How did Mickey Nox first get into music and start DJing as a teenager?
Welcome back, Danny Rantz. This week, we have a very special guest. Every week, we have a special guest sitting across from me. He's a longtime friend, what I would say is one of Melbourne's best underground DJs, and now a full-time sound engineer after fucking 20 years.
Yes.
Mickey Knox, what's going on, my man?
Danny, thanks for having me, mate. It's
a pleasure. Long-term friends, obviously.
Yes,
yeah. Your story begins probably before me, but fucking not very long, not very shortly before me, I wouldn't imagine.
100%. Well- Not long after I started DJing, you then kicked it off professionally. Yep. So I was, you know, young teenager in school, 15, 16, already collecting music, DJing, doing house parties. And it was, I think I was 17 or so. My space was huge back then. And I had found you as Danny D Train. And I noticed your profile picture from like play school and other uni nights. And I think famous even all that back then. I just knew you were around promoting. And, um, Yeah, I think I contacted you. It started that way. And then you end up booking me for Examined.
I reckon I met you. If I'm digging down into my memory wells, I reckon I met you at Billboard.
Yeah, it was made in Melbourne. Yeah. I think maybe the first made in Melbourne ever.
I can't remember where it was. It was like near the cloakroom and you come up and spoke to
me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was underage. I got in. I didn't know. You didn't tell me that part. Yeah, yeah. I had a fakie and I was clubbing back then underage. And then I knew who you were and we had chatted briefly. I think you're right. I think we met at Made in Melbourne and that sort of sparked conversation for potentially DJing down the line. And then examined happened. I was still 17, I think.
Yeah, 161 it was. 161. My missus was on the fly. So I was early days of my promotion career too.
Yeah, yeah. How long had that been for you?
maybe three years. I was a baby still, too. We all were. So we were just, like, learning to cut our teeth. And I was just starting to run my own nights, like, after working under guys like who you did, too, at times, Jason Colbeck. And, you
know, I was
working under the Udorovic family, et cetera, et cetera. And then when you got on the scene, I was just starting to curate my own shit.
So that would
have been my early days, too. And we obviously went to work on a lot, right? But before that, right, your music runs deeply through you. And, like, when I talk about passionate music guys – you know, myself included, but like you're one of them. There's guys that do it for money and there's guys that do it for music and you're in that latter section, right? Yeah. When do you, because when you came to me, you're like a young starry-eyed 17-year-old.
Yeah. You
were heavily into music, but not just like commercial shit. You're kind of, I guess, like you're, what's the word, your kind of understanding of music was a lot more, it wasn't what a normal seven-year-old kid was listening to.
Yeah, I'd agree with that.
So how did you get into that shit? Like, I remember like, you were listening to The Doors, we'll talk about The Doors when you were 16, 17. I'm like, how the fuck do you even know who The Doors are as a 16, 17-year-old back in mid-2000s?
Yeah, it came from me old man, me uncles as well. They were huge musos. Played in bands, nothing major, but always playing bands, always guitars in the house, always records. And music was on 24-7, like 24-7. And now my house is like that because of that. So I was exposed to all your typical bands in the 60s and 70s. But I took a liking to it in depth very early on. I was playing guitar very early on. I was overdubbing cassettes. I'd go to – I don't know if this will probably show my age, but I'd go to Gaslight on Bourke Street. Do you remember Gaslight?
Yeah.
Yeah, and like go buy like Hendrix albums and live albums and shit like that. And then it just spawned from there, from playing guitar to then – overdubbing cassettes and just recording, making my own mixtapes, burning CDs, making my own track listings, all of that.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Mickey Nox first get into music and start DJing as a teenager?
0:00–6:18
2
What was the breakthrough moment that led to Mickey’s first nightclub gig at 161?
6:18–13:10
3
How did TFU and Korova shape the Melbourne underground scene and Mickey’s career?
13:10–20:08
4
Why did Mickey decide to buy into TFU and become a club owner, and what challenges did he face?
20:08–27:04
5
How did the creation of Green Fetish Records and overseas touring influence his path?
27:04–33:36
6
What impact did COVID have on Mickey’s plans and how did it lead to his studio business?
33:36–40:27
7
What core advice does Mickey give to aspiring music creators about persistence and staying true to the scene?
40:27–48:47
8
How does Mickey envision the future of Melbourne’s electronic music community and his role in it?
48:47–53:57
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Danny Rants
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