One of the snappiest dressers in electronic music has to be American producer Seth Haley. The immaculately groomed beard and impeccably chosen wardrobe shows that we are dealing with someone who has a fine eye for detail – and it shows in his music.

Better known as Com Truise to us, this beatsmith has been making booty-shaking electro-funk that will invoke the ‘dance like nobody’s watching’- clause with devastating effect to anyone in a kilometer radius of his tunes. His music might have its roots firmly in the 80’s when synthesizers reigned supreme and the cocaine flowed freely, but have a closer listen, and you’ll find his productions might just as well be some sort of intricate transmission intercepted from an inter-galactic party where the aliens ARE the synthesizers.

Unique doesn’t even come close to what Com Truise does. Out in Australia for the New Year period where he will be playing at, amongst others, the Let Them Eat Cake festival in Melbourne as well as Field Day in Sydney, we caught up with the Ghostly International producer for a quick ol’ chinwag

SR: How do you go from remixing Maroon 5 to Charli XCX to The Knocks and manage to make it work every time?

CT: I try to approach almost any song I remix as if I am the original producer / engineer with a top-line vocal/melody. I basically rewrite the song from scratch–I rarely use any sounds from the original recordings, just the vocals. Unless it’s an instrumental remix, which tends to be a bit trickier for me to make it work.

SR: It’s no secret that you come from a drum n bass background. Do you find yourself still being influenced by drum b bass in your production today or is it something you’ve left in the past?

CT: You can definitely hear that background hidden in my productions if you’re listening for it. Up until recently, I hadn’t been listening to much drum and bass but lately I’ve found myself going back to some of the tracks I really enjoyed and I find them all very inspiring these days.

SR: I’ve noticed a pattern in your music discovery journey, it’s almost similar to what I do. Assume I won’t like something, then months later discover that I had never given it a chance and fall in love with it. You did this with Boards of Canada as well as 80s music, which has become a huge part of your sound. Have you managed to tackle this problem? Has it happened again recently with any other areas of music?

CT: Ha, yeah. I find it happens more with music I’m not prone to ever listening to. I had a friend force me to go see a Black Keys concert. It wasn’t until after when I was in my hotel room that I looked them up and thought “man that show was awesome, i dig some of these tunes.” Another instance, I was home for a friends wedding over the summer and he was like “man, you have to listen to the new Alabama Shakes record. It’s really amazing.” and I did that standard robotic response of “awesome man, I’ll check it out.” I feel that response comes out of my mouth too often.

I think its a way to escape being influenced by another person’s ideas, and then in the end being self-influenced by being alone to discover. Lately, I really find myself giving some different music a chance, music that I would never see influencing my sound. I think its my attempting to grasp at listening to music without really breaking it down and just enjoying it. I miss that part of music.

SR: Com Truise is probably your favorite spoonerism – what’s are some of your other favourites?

CT: I mean, Wevie Stonder is great. I know there are a lot out there these days. I tend to not like to speak about it or them as I want people to focus on the music, who really cares what its called. If it sounds good, roll with it. I’m just amazed there are still people in 2015 tweeting: “there’s an artist called Com Truise?”

SR: Ever since your first hardware purchase, a Moog Voyager, I think, you’ve become a full blow gear head. If there was a fire in your studio, what would you save first?

CT: Impossible to answer! I mean I recently got a Sequential Prophet 6, and its on a 2 tier stand with the Juno 106. I’d say I’d grab those and hard drive. In the end it can all be replaced, but the ideas I have been working on would pain me the most to lose. I don’t even like imagining that type of situation.

SR: Speaking of gear, you use quite a bit of it in your live shows. Do you think there is unnecessary pressure on electronic artists to create exciting live shows when at the end of the day, it’s almost impossible to do something live with electronic music that compares to seeing a band live?

CT: As a solo artist, I always think I could be doing more or making it bigger, I doubt that feeling will ever go away. I think no matter what you’re doing as long as it makes at least one person happy, you’re doing something right. The live show aspect for a band vs. a solo electronic artist can be similar or extremely different, there are so many factors that come into this discussion.

SR: You’re touring schedule is quite quiet until you head over to Australia. So what are you getting up to while you have some time off?

CT: I’ve been writing a bit, resting, playing a little Fallout 4 and cooking. I have been keeping it really low key, I haven’t gone out for a drink in ages. I guess when I’m home I really like to be home.

SR: You’ll be back for Let Them Eat Cake in 2015 NYD. What did you enjoy the most when you were down here? Looking forward to doing anything?

CT: I had a blast from the moment I stepped off the plane. I just enjoy the feeling of being in a place that I never thought I would see, let alone see again. Everyone was amazingly friendly and I can’t wait to come and play some new tunes and hopefully do some nature oriented things!

SR: What’s your new year’s resolution?

CT: To get healthy, I’m not getting any younger. It’s really time to focus on my health if I want to be around for awhile.

Catch Com Truise at Let Them Eat Cake and possibly a handful of sideshows if you’re lucky. Get into one of our favourite Com Truise Albums ‘In Decay’ while you count down the days to catch the galatic sound explorer live.