Goth Report: This is the first Sorbet post-summer hiatus–how does it feel to be back?
Shane: Feeling good! I'm excited. We're back at our birthplace, Godspeed Labs. It's good to be back here. It's been a fab summer break, but I'm ready to turn it.
What motivated you to start Sorbet? Was there a universe-sent “aha!” moment or canon event that led you here?
I have a party called Blush! that I started in 2021. I was doing that at the Ace Hotel on the rooftop. The Ace closed…and I stopped doing Blush! for a bit until it was at Honey’s for a short period of time. And then there was still a need for just like a queer sexy afters.
This party called Loose had started, and they reached out to me because they ended at 2am, and they had just a bunch of people always trying to go somewhere…our tides pulled together–I was trying to do something sexy, and they were in need of something, and we just started it. It started out of necessity.
What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned as a community curator so far?
I've learned that I'm capable of a lot, but also I've learned that it's okay to ask for help. I like to do things primarily myself because I like to have full control of everything, but…I've learned it's okay to ask people for help. Throwing underground’s can be challenging, and just one person producing a party is honestly not realistic, so I brought on Miracles as another resident DJ and lighting director. It's good having other people on the team with me.
You released your first single, “Antidote” earlier this year–a genre-bending club track, and a rare sonic blueprint as an LA-based producer. Where do you find inspiration for your uniquely personal sound?
One of my inspirations is Kingdom, who's a really fab producer and DJ. He started Kelela's career, who’s one of my main inspirations, in music and artistry…when I discovered him and his sound…I was going out to parties and it was either house or disco, some techno, but it was just very genre specific…There was no “the other.” I very much describe that genre as “the other” because there's no way to put a genre on it…it encapsulates a lot of genres. After discovering him and his sound, and like the Fade to Mind crew–Fade to Mind was doing parties in LA back in the 2010s… [I wanted] to give a resurgence to what they had created that was so special that just literally doesn't exist anymore.
How did it feel to release your first-ever single?
It felt really good. It was a long time coming. I started making Antidote in 2023 and finished it that year…thought I was going to release it that year, and then it just wasn't the time. I then opened for Beyonce and things kinda shifted, I wasn’t sure if I was going to release music anymore. I kept pushing it and pushing it, and I was like, I need to find an engineer to mix and master and do all the technical things that you have to do, and I got Kingdom to turn my shit out. You don't necessarily have to do [that]... it's my first time releasing music…and I'm just like, if I'm doing something, I'm doing it properly and seriously.
What can we look forward to musically in the future?
My next single’s out September 5th, and then remixes of Antidote are coming out after that, and probably some remixes of the second single, and then an EP maybe early next year. I realized I was holding myself back by this restraint of “I have to do things right and be on the label and release songs on the timeline and have an EP,” and all this stuff, and now I'm realizing I don't – I just need to do what is right for me. I'm just doing what feels good–and sounds good, especially for my first release of music. I was so like…girl, I just need to release fucking music. I just need to release music and start making it happen.
Over the past several years, LA has seen a surge of newly-created queer events that seem to be embracing a “Euro club culture meets warehouse rave” type of vibe. How have the ravers/club kids of the city responded, and do you see this being a long-term, sustainable trend for the city?
It's interesting. A friend of mine was saying he wanted a place in LA that's…like a non-stop party place that you can just go to all throughout the night…a place like Nowadays [in NYC]...I [told] him the scene here can't really handle something like that per se…there just aren’t enough nightlife people and it can get scary very quickly…but we can have a piece of that in LA. There's the party Another Castle that starts at 4 a.m. and goes till noon, and LA hasn't seen anything like that, not since I’ve lived here–not for a long ass time…I think it's cool. If the right people are behind it. I think it's sustainable. These gay people want to be out til 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., and outside of those parties, there's no options for that. Or you're at a dingy...the after, after, after, after, afters that you have to like climb into a sewer to get to, you know?
Just as mainstream rave has seen an influx in attendees, the underground scene has seen a rapidly increasing interest as well–especially in queer nightlife. What advice would you give to people interested in attending queer events who typically aren’t familiar with the culture?
I would say, number one, be respectful and be aware of the space you're going into. There's times I'm invited somewhere at 3 a.m., and they're like “oh, come to this [party]” and I’m kundled and I don't know where I'm going…if that's the case, just be aware that you're walking into a new space.
Be open-minded–especially coming to a queer rave–about what you might hear, what you might see. You might accidentally stumble into a dark room. You might hear a crazy jungle remix of Lana Del Rey. You might see your ex getting head on the dance floor. And you’ll definitely see a lot of he she we’s get their lives. You might only be used to going to parties and hearing a certain sound–that's why I started Sorbet, to open people's minds to “the other” and that there's so much more music out there than one specific thing. Be respectful, be mindful, be safe. Make sure other people are safe.
Any big plans for Sorbet in the future?
No big plans as of now, but I would like to maybe do a day-to-night, something I've been talking about with Miracles. He's been talking about having something called Sorbet All Day, so that's kind of in the works.
I would love to do a collab with an above-ground event, take Sorbet from the underground to a large-scale above-ground something…