Osmosis Jones’ ability to marry speed garage and unique vocal work has accelerated his original post as a local Australian DJ to internationally recognised artist. After a shout-out from Interplanetary Criminal doubled his reach overnight and convinced him to pursue music full-time, it became clear that Jones’ ability to connect with audiences runs parallel to the collaborative strength of his own musical network. He strives to support fellow emerging artists in the industry, who are unified both in their friendship and their collective aim to put Australian garage on the map. Before a busy festival schedule and a UK tour, Ollie Schilling chatted to Jones about playing to bigger audiences, the admin associated with running a record label, the garage genre, having control over your output, and becoming “unavoidable.”

OLLIE SCHILLING 2025 is now underway. How has your year been so far?

OSMOSIS JONES It’s been busy! I’ve got shows pretty much every week interstate, which I’m feeling really, really good about. We’ve got some plans to do a UK/Europe tour later in the year. I’ve also got releases planned all the way up until September. I’m sort of just reaping what I sowed last year and going strong and continuing to build.

OS Are you looking to go to Europe for summer?

OJ No, I’m back for club season, so tour will kick off in about September. The international festivals choose their line-ups quite early and I don’t think I’m at the top of the list because I’m quite far away. I just see that as another opportunity to level up from the tour I did last year and get my name out there again.

OS Last year you got some big shout outs from the king of garage, Interplanetary Criminal. Has that accelerated your career in any way? Have you noticed any shifts?

OJ That was one of the craziest things to ever happen. I woke up in the morning and I had double the number of followers on literally everything that I did. It was pretty life changing. A few weeks later I quit my job as a teacher and started doing music full time. It was an astronomically big moment changed my life.

OS Off the cuff of that big blow out, you are playing at your first Pitch Music and Arts Festival. How are you feeling about it?

OJ Whenever I think about it, I get this surge of nervous excitement, but overall, I feel quite positive. I used to go to Pitch as a punter before COVID and had a lot of fun there. I’m looking forward to making one of my all-time dreams come true. It literally never occurred to me that I could ever play at Pitch, but here we are.

OS Does getting the call up to Pitch show how far you’ve come career-wise? It’s a really big step for you.

OJ  I like to think that no gig is ever a game changer. You can take them and leave them depending on what you need. Pitch is one of those festivals that a lot could change after performing. I think the gigs that I will get and accept after this are going to be different to the ones I’ve been doing before. I hope to get a whole bunch of new fans and showcase who I am as an artist to more people.

OS Putting Australian garage on the map. You had a big UK tour last year and played some big shows in Australia as well, and started putting on your own events. How are you preparing for your upcoming sets? Will they be different?

OJ They will be different. Bigger audiences so more opportunity to show those ten out of ten tunes that I love.

OS Obviously you make a lot of speed garage and garage music. How did you get into that and who inspired you to start making garage tracks?

OJ My interest in garage has been varied. It’s a combination of going to festivals and hearing garage tunes, listening to old school artists like Mike Mill Rain at home, friends showing me a bunch of garage, and then going down the rabbit hole of SoundCloud and vinyl. Lots of different influences.

OS Are there any other Australian DJs that you think are going to make a big rise this year?

OJ There’s my boy in Sydney, Scrappa who is going to do an EP on my label, In the House Records. He has grown so much in the last year. I think his tunes are really solid and sounding really clean. I’ve been playing his tunes in my sets a lot. Then there is Prize Fight and Trustee, but they’re starting to get the recognition that they deserve. The one guy that I really want to highlight is Scrappa. I think he’s doing a sick job.

OS There are a lot of local garage producers and DJs coming through. You mentioned your label In the House Records. How are you finding running a label?

OJ It’s a lot of admin. It’s like an office job. I’m sending emails all the time [laughing]. When I was starting, I thought, hell yeah, record label, we’re going to press records, it’s going to be fun! In reality, it’s a lot of back and forth, a lot of clickety-clack on the keyboard. But, I do love it. I wanted to make a discography that I could be really proud of and I think I’ve achieved that so far.

OS Out of all the tracks you’ve made, could you pinpoint your favourite? If you were to show someone a track who you didn’t know, which would you show them?

OJ I think ‘UK Raver’. It’s one of those tracks that’s criminally simple, but hits all the right notes. Its a good example of who I am, with its interesting vocal sample, banging drums, and a bit of a sweet chord line. It’s all we really need.

OS What has been the favourite set that you’ve played so far?

OJ One of my favourites was that Nerve set that I played at Brown Alley. It’s up on YouTube. It felt like every song I dropped was accepted really well from the crowd. The beauty of that set is that I get to watch it back on YouTube and re-live it. It also gives people an idea of what they can expect to hear in my sets.

OS If you could play back-to-back with anyone who would you pick and why?

OJ I’d play back-to-back with Prize Fight because that’s my boy. We’ve done a lot of back-to-back sets so far. I could sit here and say any big artist, but I think when you’re doing it with your mate, who you’ve done it with so many times before, it’s special.

OS In the past, a lot of Australian festivals have been hard groove and focused, but slowly they’re starting to switch up and move into different territory. You’ve got artists like YUQT bringing a more garage. Do you think that there will be a continuous focus on speed garage or do you think there will be another genre of music that takes over?

OJ I can’t speak to what’s going to become popular, but we know that music is ever changing. Nothing lasts forever. All you can really do is evolve with sounds. As for what’s going to become popular, I think that version of house and speed garage, which moves more into the 2010s Jack and House style, but a bit faster than it used to be, is going to become quite popular. Sort of what Silva Bumpa’s doing right now. He’s really been ahead of the curve, especially with the genre that people don’t know a lot about. I feel like you can sense that the scene is moving more towards this tech house style of garage and Speed garage where there’s less rules and more space to experiment. It’s naughty, it’s cheeky and it can hit pretty fucking hard.

OS Do you have any goals to hit by the end of the year?

OJ One of my big goals for the year was to release on ATW Records, which is Interplanetary Criminal and Main Phase’s record label. We’ve got an EP coming out with them in June, so that’s a big tick. I’ve got the UK tour happening, which was another thing that I wanted to do. Another big tick. Playing my first festival was going to be a goal. And we’re doing that at Pitch, Baseline Festival in New Zealand, and Meadow Festival in Tamworth. And not to mention Digi Festival in Canberra. After the UK I want to play another few festivals. Really levelling up the record label I think would be the next goal. Once I’ve been featured on other people’s platforms, I’ll start to build up my own even more.

OS What advice do you have for local producers and DJs that are trying to make their way into the scene? How do you think people can separate themselves from the rest and pave their way?

OJ My best advice is to control what you do. I’ve always self-released everything. I’ve always built up my own platforms, including SoundCloud, Spotify and Instagram. The more that you control, the more you can gain and the stronger brand you build. You’ve just got to graft. If you’re not getting opportunities, it’s got nothing to do with you. You’ve just got to keep working until you become unavoidable. For a long time I spent a lot of time feeling like I wasn’t getting the opportunities I deserved, but it just wasn’t my time yet. I just kept putting my head down and working. That was my big philosophy. I know a lot of DJs are social media phobic, but honestly you’ve just got to adapt or sink because in this day and age you just have to be on there. You have to show yourself, you have to have a bit of personality, you have to have a bit of swagger about you because people want a personality to look at on top of the music. And if you don’t have that, people aren’t going to be interested. Control as much as you can, have a bit of interest about you and become unavoidable.