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‘My music’s like a drunk punch in the face’: indie sleaze horndog the Dare and his 00s hedonism

He’s been called ‘a poster-boy for indie sleaze’, a hard-partying NY DJ who just had a global smash with Charli xcx and Billie Eilish. But is the Dare for real? As he releases his controversial debut album, we meet a superstar in the making

And they know he’s already on an unstoppable slide into actual superstardom, being booked as a DJ everywhere from Miami’s Art Basel to Boiler Room in Ibiza and having just produced Guess, Charli’s global hit with Billie Eilish, in the video of which he wiggles impassively. But his main point of reference quickly became mid-00s electroclash and art-punk, when bands such as the Rapture, Chicks on Speed, Peaches and Cut Copy were using synthesisers and heavily processed guitar to make indie kids dance. At points, his music sounds almost litigiously similar to some of those groups, which has led many to brand him the poster-boy for “indie sleaze”, a term for Gen Z’s obsession with 2009 aesthetics – those days when Uffie partied late with New Young Pony Club and getting on the Skins soundtrack could make a career.

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