MESSIE: “I want it to be a celebration of something more than just me."

When MESSIE, aka Tessa Hills, was hand-picked by Fred again.. to open for his New Zealand tour last year, it kick-started her budding DJ career into becoming a New Zealand household name overnight. But her breakout wasn’t just a chance moment put down to luck - it was self-described best by MESSIE herself, as “luck is when opportunity meets preparation”.

Amid the new generation's internet age, where TikTok-ification of DJs and 30-second viral clips launch careers, MESSIE’s mantra of luck manifesting when opportunity meets preparation is a testament to years of working on her craft and self-development behind the scenes, which social media didn’t see before Fred again-gate. Growing up in small town Gisborne, MESSIE’s teenage years were intertwined in skate and band culture as a drummer, before securing a scholarship to study music technology at Massey University. Moving to Pōneke for her studies, she quickly immersed herself in the capital city's queer creative scenes and music culture, partaking in DJ workshops led by seasoned Pōneke-raised, now London-based DJ Hurricane Emily, and spent countless hours as a bedroom DJ before picking up regular sets and residencies at small Pōneke and Tāmaki Makaurau clubs.

The pipeline from band drummer to DJ / producer was a natural transition for MESSIE’s evolution as an artist, whose dynamic sets today are built on the percussive rhythms of a melting pot of global club genres from breakbeat, to jungle, to Jersey club, and much more.

“All my songs and tracks that I play are all drum-based,” MESSIE says of her drummer foundation still being the beating heart of her artistry today. “I’m always constantly just tapping away. If there’s a four beat, I’m always the one who's filling in the gaps with all the different pockets that I hear. And so it just makes sense to me as an artist that the drums always have to be interesting.

But also, something I’ve taken with me from my band days is that I was always kind of the one who was managing the band. I was initiating press shots, doing bookings, and realising we need to have a tech rider... It taught me a lot about how to break into an industry, and what it means to have branding.”

Before being selected to open for Fred again..’s Coroglen Tavern New Zealand show in March 2024, when the British artist opened a Google form for Kiwi DJs to submit themselves for an opening set, MESSIE already had her sights set on her longtime goal of turning music into a career. She had just finished studying music technology at Massey University and was ready to put her all into grinding her DJ hustle. And then one night in March 2024 - the night of her debut headline show at club b.space - Fred again.. and fellow UK electronic duo Joy Anonymous announced a surprise last-minute pop-up show in the same city.

“When I saw that they were doing pop-ups, I messaged Fred and Joy. Fred didn't reply, but I did hear back from Joy,” MESSIE details of the turning point of what would quickly become a career trajectory-changing moment. “At the same time, I’d been preparing all month for my first headline show at b.space, so that was my priority. But I realised that my gig was after they had finished playing at the pop-up. So that's when I shot my shot, and Joy Anonymous came through to my set to do a b2b.

That helped me get picked to open for Fred afterwards. I applied to the Corog

len Tavern opening set, and it was brought up to Fred. Joy was like, ‘we DJ’d with her at the club’, so then it all just aligned at once.”

MESSIE’s opening set for Fred spiralled into her becoming his protege of sorts, and being brought over to Perth to open for his biggest show to date in front of 30,000 people just weeks later. Despite the destined alignment of her breakout moment and obvious immense gratitude, the whirlwind experience also came with an overwhelming multitude of dissociation, highly publicised media attention, and anxiety.

“That was the craziest thing a human could experience, literally just going from 0 to 100,” she reflects. “But I think once I kind of accepted the fact that it was just gonna happen, and there was no controlling how fast it was going, I just had to do the job. I had to try to stay professional and act as if I knew what I was doing, and then deal with the processing later.

That involved a bit of dissociation, but I was trying to stay as present as I could. I would say, now, after doing my own New Year's run, touring a lot on my own, and doing sessions, I’m trying to treat this career as a nine-to-five. Although it never really is with this kind of job, because you're thinking about it constantly.”

At the height of her rapid rise, she was even met with backlash from ACT MP and Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. When Fred gave MESSIE the pivotal opportunity to open for his Perth show, she didn’t hold a current, valid passport. She had no other option but to secure an urgent passport to cross the ditch in time, and Fred stepped in to assist via social media communications with a senior official at the Department of Internal Affairs. The passport was indeed approved fairly, despite receiving intense media scrutiny, and MESSIE addressed the situation the best way she knew how - by incorporating a cheeky sample of Wellington Green Party MP Tamatha Paul, clarifying that her passport was approved due to traditional processes into a DJ set.

Looking back at the whirlwind experience almost a year and a half later, MESSIE has a new sense of self-assurance and purpose. “Now I feel a lot more aligned with what I could potentially become, and what my vision is. I know my place and can hold my own a lot more. In a way, it’s almost like the fact that I did play to 35,000 people for the Perth show right when this all started, and just got thrown in the deep end… It's kind of a superpower in a sense. If I did that, anything you throw at me, I'm just gonna give it a go. And I don’t think anything can be as scary as that.”

MESSIE’s passport is well stamped now, and in the space of just over a year since that life-altering Perth show, she’s toured the UK and Europe, performed at some of the worlds biggest festivals including Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds, played at Australasian festivals including Beyond The Valley, Rhythm & Vines, Listen In, and much more. She’s also immersed herself deeper into the realm of production and started releasing her tracks and remixes, including an official remix of Fred again.. and Anderson .Paak’s collaboration, ‘places to be’, which marked her debut official release via streaming services last year.

“It's one of those things where there's just so much you can do, and when it comes to producing, it's such a big world,” she says of her evolution into releasing music as a producer. “I think I'm only just starting to crack getting my capabilities to my actual taste, being able to identify sound and then figure out, how do I actually make that? I started learning to produce when I was like 16, back when I was doing all the band stuff before DJing. But ‘places to be’ was probably the first track that I feel like I finished and was happy with.”

MESSIE’s official remix for Fred again.. continued the theme of her ticking off goals faster than she could even process them. The remix came to be after her opening set for the Perth show when she asked Fred for the stems to the then-unreleased track, which he happily obliged.

Her take on ‘places to be’ finds MESSIE reimagining the emotionally-charged dance track as a rapid-fire global club headspin. Opening with skittering UK garage percussion before accelerating into breakneck jungle, accented with Jersey club squeaks, heavily chopped vocal loops, and triplet drum kicks, the remix is a frenetic joyride that just keeps getting harder and faster, keeping listeners on their toes the entire way through. While she only has a handful of tracks out to date, including Redlight collab ‘THE CODE’, and remixes of Joy Anonymous’ ‘JOY (No Slip In My Faith)’ and Charlotte Plank's 'chemical fashion’, during her travels in the last year, she’s cooked up a huge vault of unreleased music. She’s also been working on sessions with the likes of UK producers P-rallel, Y U QT and Pocket, in addition to working closely with her longtime friend and collaborator, Iraqi-Kiwi artist Mikeyy, who also contributed to the production of the ‘places to be’ remix.

“I wanted to play out remixes in my sets, so I tried my hand at remixing the stems Fred sent me,” she explains of the tracks' formation. “Then, a week before we did Glasto together last year, I finished a demo of the remix and sent it to him. I was like, ‘this isn't properly finished’, but he really wanted to include it on his project. I was at Mikeyy’s house at the time, and I was like, ‘Mikeyy, get your ass up’”, she laughs. “So he helped me mix it, and we sent the final mix through.”

MESSIE’s genre-meshing approaches have become a staple of her production, the same way her DJ sets are never confined to one singular sound, often switching up three or four different genres in the space of one four-minute track. One of her earlier edits, a rework of Charli xcx’s BRAT hit ‘Von Dutch’, encapsulates this hyperactive energy to a T. Made in collaboration with renowned Aotearoa producer mastermind Caru and released as a free Soundcloud download at the peak of the 2024 BRAT Summer era, the bootleg mixes five different genres together while still managing to sound seamlessly cohesive and clean; shapeshifting from Baile funk, to breakbeat, Baltimore club, vogue, and Jersey club, all rolled into one exhilarating club weapon.

From the depths of the underground where she cut her teeth gigging in bands at local dive bars and attending beloved Aotearoa club nights like FROTH and FILTH, to the mainstream stages she’s shared around the globe with the likes of Fred again.. and Sammy Virji, MESSIE pulls inspiration from all corners of the dance world. As a producer, her intention is to strike a balance between accessibility and her core sound, which emphasises the restless, intricate drums she describes as a depiction of the “chaos that I constantly hear in my brain”.

“It's kind of gotten harder in the sense that I've watched so many sets, and I love just to hear the journey of a set,” MESSIE says of the ongoing process of finding her authentic sound as a producer. “There are so many ways you can take it. I play and draw inspiration from everything, which can be overwhelming. But I think the people I’m looking up to, like Jamie xx, Fred, Skrillex, or Overmono, they’re all able to push the culture of the commercial world, while still being themselves and being unique in a way that nobody can replicate.

I think as long as it feels right to me, and it resonates in some way, then I’m happy. I love emotional dance music, but I also love the skanky, hard shit. So I think just being able to evoke any kind of emotion is what I'd like to be able to do - whatever feels true to me. I believe with my production, it’ll always have my signature sound through the drums and percussion, which I feel like is my real foundation.”

Next up, MESSIE will be sharing her new music at two headline New Zealand shows for the ALL NIGHT LONG tour. Playing shows at Auckland / Tāmaki Makaurau’s Studio the Venue on September 13th before heading to Wellington / Pōneke’s San Fran on September 20th, the headline shows will see MESSIE taking audiences on a genre journey until the early hours of the morning, embarking on a 6-hour set embracing all the elements of her high-charged, wide-ranging sound. After touring abroad for the majority of the year, the shows mark a sentimental homecoming, returning to MESSIE’s formative creative communities where she’ll share the stage with a range of local special guest DJ b2b’s to be announced.

“When I get an hour set, it's like, okay, power hour. How am I gonna fit everything I want to play? I love the curation of a set, and I really want to challenge myself to hold that energy for the whole night, in a way that we're all aligned together,” MESSIE says of how she’s approaching the ALL NIGHT LONG tour as opposed to a traditional hour-long club slot.

“But what I'm actually doing for this tour is two b2bs with local DJs at each show in addition to my own solo sets, to get people into the idea of locking into this whole night-long journey. The idea of it just being me playing all night is a cool way of flexing my versatility, I guess, for the culture of DJing,” MESSIE expresses, before adding, “but I want it to be a celebration of something more than just me.”

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