Growth as a mission: X CLUB.

Australians have a reputation, even amongst ourselves. Overseas, so-called Australia’s white, troubled, settler, convict and surfer image has essentially been retrofitted into something of a decent self-image. Charming and yet brash. A little vain, but humble.

Broey, even.

Broey* someone who demonstrates the characteristics of a ‘bro’.

Broeyness, a word whose difficulty in learning how to say is only bested by the difficulty with which you spell it, is a trait increasingly found in many of dance music’s largest spaces, not only within the small pond that is Australia. As a result, for many in more community-minded spaces, with more progressive politics, arguably more true intentions and a stronger understanding of dance music’s history, to call someone a bro has become something of an instinct.

X CLUB., in many ways one of Australian dance music’s largest exports right now, have spent a career in spaces, on stages and behind the scenes of dance floors now more popular than ever before. While scenes of them performing at Gadigal Land/Sydney’s Mode Festival, at Manchester’s The Warehouse Project or at AVA Festival may in many ways be some of the more ‘viral’ spaces associated with that very broeyness, in truth, X CLUB. are anything but.

Now based in London, the duo, made up of friends Ben Clarke & Jesse Morath, originally got their start in their hometown of Meanjin/Brisbane, not as DJs, but as promoters. Coincidentally, it was in that very environment where the two met, before deciding to throw their hat in the ring with GRID.

“GRID was a space for us to pretty much play the music we wanted, because we couldn’t really play it in any of the clubs,” Jesse told me. “There was no space for us to play techno, or even just the ‘weirder’ side of dance music,” he continued. “So, our only option was to throw our own parties. Luckily, we have a good friend base and a lot of people around us, so we just started doing it. Then we moved into warehouses, and did some kind of ‘illegal’ parties outside of the city, and that’s really how it all started.”

It was in these earlier days, around eight years ago, that Jesse and Ben got to understand a network of their peers, both locally and internationally, that would continue to inspire them. From booking the likes of KETTAMA, HAAi and dameeeela, to some visitors who are now longtime collaborators.

“That's kind of where we made not only a lot of music, but we had these crazy parties, and where we made a lot of connections through music. That was also a big part of the journey,” Jesse said.

Soon came the question that all Australian musicians seem to ask themselves: whether their prospects were more promising at home or abroad. The Naarm/Melbourne pipeline is a well-trodden path, but for the duo, it was clear that if they were going to give it a go, they were best to try further afield.

In our conversation, Ben and I spoke about the idea that rather than Australia being a “small pond” and them some kind of big fish, instead, the duo simply wanted to explore a new horizon. They yearned for an experience that would teach them more not only about their music and the culture they’d grown to love, but, in essence, about themselves.

This overarching desire for self-improvement ran through the entirety of our conversation and felt totally at odds with the notion that the duo were aligned with that aforementioned broeyness.

In January of this year, Ben and Jesse released ‘Frankie Knuckles’, a big room, warehouse-friendly mash of bass-heavy synth, punctuated by a sample from Mike Dunn speaking about the man himself. It went, quite frankly, bananas across social media, and for many people, may be the track by the duo that they can name. Clearly, however, that virality doesn’t mean much to them, and nor do they feel the need to make that apathy clear. For some, proving that being popular isn’t essential might not feel genuine, but with X CLUB, popularity is an exciting byproduct of their music.

Dance music’s popularity has reached a fever pitch in 2025. A post-COVID world has established a need for fun and socialising more than ever before, but in a world where social currency has never been more valuable. The idea of the DJ is, to many, a person not only in control of the soundtrack to that world, but in control of it. Young men, in a world currently failing to provide them with guidance, accountability and reassurance, see the DJ as a social figure, rather than an artistic one.

Rather than being entirely immune to that kind of social allure, Ben attributes X CLUB’s ability to focus on music and personal development to the support they can provide one another as a duo.

“There's a project in mind,” he said. “When we go to the studio, there's this project that we're both working towards. I think that keeps us very much on track and not distracted by “these” sorts of things. A lot of people are writing music for all kinds of different reasons, and some of that is for traction and whatnot. For us, it’s just been very clear that when we go in to write and record music, it’s for our satisfaction and for the project. It’s very intentional.”

“I think a lot of people maybe forget that a lot of this journey is about learning and personal development individually, too,” Jesse added. “It's not really about the fame for us.”

“X CLUB has always been about developing, not necessarily to do bigger shows, but just as artists, and to keep on learning. It’s been a constant journey of learning new things about music, sound design and mixing, and always trying to take our production to the next level both as individuals and together. We’ve created this crazy thing together, and we always just wanted to keep growing.”

“There’s so much possibility with electronic music,” Ben jumped back in. “We both studied music technology, but we’re now very different in our capabilities to the people we were ten years ago. Subconsciously, this isn’t something we ever say out loud, but we’d never want to put anything out that’s not an improvement on what we did before.”

“When we wrote ‘Stay With Me’, we both said to each other that it was the best stuff we’d ever written, and that we’re really proud of each other for getting this done. Then, as soon as we finish something like that, we’re like, ‘Okay, what can we do next?’ That’s not necessarily about development, it’s just about writing good music, and then everything else lends itself to that.”

Whether the ‘warehouse’ sound aligns with your own taste, it’s impossible to ignore the improvement that the duo have made since they first started releasing music on Muloobinba/Newcastle-originating label Steel City Dance Discs in 2020.

Typically, at this point, the conversation around growth might end here. For many artists, improving their craft is everything. For X CLUB, however, there is an element of their performance that they take a particular interest in, which, in many ways, sets them apart from their peers.

They were warehouse promoters, and in many ways, they still are.

On Saturday, December 20, the duo will return to Australia for a single night, taking over Naarm’s iconic Wool Store with Untitled Group. A 1940s warehouse right in the midst of Naarm’s inner suburbs, the venue comes with a lot of hype and history not often found elsewhere. As Ben and Jesse would tell me, “It’s only got about three or four dance gigs there a year.”

For good reason, too, the space can hold around 8,000 people in one room, and demands a level of production that many promoters and acts may struggle to handle.

In X CLUB’s hands, however, it’s clear that they take the opportunity as seriously as anyone could.

“Last time we were there (Naarm), we played Pica. Each time we find a new space, we have a whole new clean slate to work with,” Ben explained. “Generally, though, we’re just trying to do the same thing, and that’s to create the most optimal space for what we do. This time, though, it’s on such a grander scale, with a bit of a dream lineup.”

This level of preparation isn’t something the duo takes lightly, much like the rest of their work. “We plan for like, nearly a year, how it’s going to look, how it’s produced, how it’s captured. About a year ago, we started having conversations about really doing it,” Ben reflected.

“Yeah, it's been kind of our dream. I feel like we’re taking what we did in Brisbane years ago, which was our start,” he continued. “This is kind of the apex of what we can do in Australia in that space.”

This striving for greater and greater heights is at the core of X CLUB’s artistry, whether in their music or the level of involvement they have in their live shows. To some less experienced or some more critical, the grandeur of a warehouse show might appear to be, at its base level, a party. At face value, that might be true, but for Ben and Jesse, the warehouse is inseparable from who they are and an appropriate metaphor for the heights they hope to reach and the space they wish to control, not only as artists but as people.

Outside of that, their hope is to inspire someone to love it like they do.

“When we were first starting X CLUB, we went to a festival on an island in Sydney Harbour, and there was one particular set that we walked away from saying, ‘Wow, we’ve got to do this for real.’ If we can have one show where at least one person walks away from the gig having that same feeling, wanting to try dedicate their lives to something, that’s success to us.”

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Tickets to X CLUB’s takeover of The Wool Store on Saturday, December 20 are still available via Untitled Group’s website.