Features

Throttle (Robbie Bergin) on Music, Watches, and New Ways to Move

Show me a precocious artist and I'll show you an impatience to create—the youthful impulse to express, to become, to prove, to be seen. 

For Robbie Bergin (or Throttle as he is better known), that ambition swiftly manifested into everything he wanted: headline shows, global tours, music that moved the masses. The caveat? 'A perpetual state of restlessness'. 

Once self-diagnosed, then came the question of how to treat it—to cure or feed the restlessness? The answer for the twenty-year-old globetrotting DJ was simple (and the music industry provided the spoon). 

But what once propelled soon consumed him—such that a global pandemic would turn out to be just what the doctor ordered. Forced to find other outlets, Bergin found new channels for his energy—in tangible things he could buy, fix, sell, build. 

One such outlet was trading luxury watches with a friend—a hobby that allowed him to use his pragmatism over his profile. The relief of a new path was immediately apparent: 'It's addictive discovering new ways to move in the world.'

Within a few years, this side-hustle would morph into something unexpected—a luxury watch brand of their own. 

On paper, it's the perfect parallel to music: tangible over ephemeral, collaborative over solitary, a product separate from his identity. 

But then, what's that old saying? You can take the boy of the music industry…

WILL: Paint a picture of your life as a DJ at its most intense to where you are now.

ROBBIE: There's a real dichotomy in the DJ world. On one hand, there's a lot of sitting at home in the studio, oftentimes alone, totally out of the schedule of everyone else around you. This sometimes lasts weeks, sometimes months. And then it suddenly turns. You're travelling the world for months at a time—long nights, jet lag, living off the pure adrenaline of performing—basically living a rockstar life by all definitions: drinking, different countries, fame and all that comes with it… 

Always jumping between those two states, it certainly wires you in a particular way. I don't know exactly what the end result is, other than a perpetual state of restlessness. You're always thinking: you're only as good as you're last week, last song… And yet, despite it being such a difference – the chaos and the calm – one is always feeding the other. You're at home thinking, 'God, I just got to do this to get to the next level of success. Then I'll be happy.' And then when you get back on the road, you're thinking, 'God, I wish I could just sleep'... 

But I think COVID just reset the goal posts for me. I think a lot of people jumped straight back into the grind when it ended. But I had become quite different in my goals and what I wanted. During that period at home with my family, after an intense 4-5 years of touring, that was certainly the clearest access I had to my true self, or to a perspective that aligned with me. Where I could be still enough to say, this is where I wanna take the music, this is where I wanna take the touring…

And from that forced pause of COVID, were you able to execute your new vision of your career?

To a degree, I think. I mean, two things happened during Covid. One, I decided I'm only gonna say something if I've got something to say—which turned out to be not a hell of a lot in those years. 

The second was I bought a house during Covid and I just put everything into that. I was learning how to garden, ripping out the backyard, painting. And that sort of became my album during Covid, where every room was a different song. And that in itself satisfied my creative side. And I probably got more out of it than with music because I was using my hands. I'd also get to the end of the day knowing I'd done the thing I wanted to do, as opposed to with music, which is extraordinarily tough to be so objective about things. There's always this little voice going, is it right? Is it?

So then take me through to the present. How are you balancing soulful pursuits, like working on your house, and that restlessness, which may be intrinsic to your character?

I did get back into music post Covid—did some touring, put some music out. In a much different way than before. It was feeding a much different version of myself musically. All the rush was gone. There was no more comparison to my peers, which was such a big part of it when I made music before. It was just a purely artistic pursuit, and has since been that way. And I think music just ebbs and flows. Some days I work towards finishing a project and others I am more enriched by going for a run or thinking of a new business idea. But yeh, it's all a balance...

There are still those moments of dread. If I had to give examples it could be, if I continued on this path, I could be making this much money, or if I had just pushed a bit harder there, I might be more famous. But those thoughts just aren't helpful. They're just anxiety. There's no truth in them. And I think that's probably just a human experience of anyone who has shifted in life. But I think you just have to follow where your heart is, especially with something like music. No good decisions are made in a state of anxiety, or duress. Period. I think pressure can be good in some form, but a decision informed by nostalgic anxiety, I would call it, is very unhelpful to achieving, well, peace.

Well let's jump ahead to the current project—the watch. How did it start and what excites you about it?

So just before Covid I had headlined Webster Hall and bought my first watch to celebrate, with the help of an old friend, Sandy, who was really into luxury watches at the time, and had a side hustle of flipping watches. Then during Covid, while I was thinking about music and the role I wanted it to play in my life, I was able to spend more time with Sandy. And we were just constantly talking about career and business ideas, what our dream car might be—just all those sorts of entrepreneurial chats, for lack of a better word. I also got into trading watches myself, as a hobby really…

We always said we wanted to do a business together. And then one Monday, about six months ago, I woke up to a text from Sandy saying, 'It's time we had a go at doing a watch.' He'd ordered a few parts from China and was gonna have a go at building a watch. I was in Mexico City at the time, spending a month working on music and just living in a new place. He was in London. He built the watch. We loved it. And then I spent probably the next six weeks in Mexico City iterating every day on different designs, brand names and marketing strategies. And just that became my whole Mexico trip. 

You've talked about how that restlessness might've served your music career in the early days. But how are those feelings harnessed in your current project, which, while creative, is more collaborative and business oriented?

I'd always wanted to do a business that was less reliant on my image and my creativity. So, a product, I suppose—something that I didn't have to be as emotionally attached to. So I just latched onto this idea. For one, it was with someone I really liked. And two, it was just this thing you could hold in your hands—there was no emotional second guessing to it, which was so refreshing. In music you're constantly iterating and then you have to front it and be the face of this thing that you've made. So it was just like a breath of fresh air. Identifying problems, solving them, finding the next problem, solving that, be it design, innovation or branding or whatever. And I just found so many more uses for my restlessness than I did with music. Because the music so much over was restlessness going to the song itself. 

I can see how, when launching a product, restlessness – and maybe we're overusing this word – can be very helpful because there are a million things to work out. But then when it gets to the stage it's at now, does that restlessness still serve you? Or do you have to sort of impose more single-mindedness upon yourself? 

The relationship with Sandy is that I power the ship and he steers it. I'm very much the restless thinker, which I think is great and important for a business. And he's the one that puts it all together and makes sure we're going the right direction. 

I think I have a lot of left-over A&R in me. A&R being the people who work at the record levels and who critique the music and get you to send 30 different versions. Music has definitely left a lot of residual tendencies to iterate constantly, which is something I'm trying to shake because I think it's really bad in business. But Sandy has been really good at saying we're going side to side here rather than going forward. But that's the balance we have. I would say I'm iteration, he's the deadline. But it's certainly a work in progress.…

It's funny, when someone comes to me with a problem, I jump straight into pragmatic, decisive mode, absolutely instantly. And the best advice I've ever given myself has been to copy-paste the advice you give to others. I can see it in real time: I'm helping someone else with something and I realise I could've solved my own problem by using this exact advice. But it is a muscle of not letting yourself get too close to that thing. And almost chasing mistakes as opposed to perfection, as perfectionism the enemy of all progress.

So you've had to learn to distance yourself from your work?

I think it really depends on your emotional investment. I think you lose access to intuition when you're extremely emotionally invested in something. Not to say I'm not extremely emotionally invested, but a product is less emotional than music… I think not over-researching, deciding quickly and accessing intuition is key—committing to things early and not outsourcing opinions beyond a very small circle of people. 

My first manager was sort of that figure for me. And I remember when he left, I was so close to quitting music that I stopped caring about what I put out. And in the space of a week, I sort of became that figure for myself, where I just had so much clarity around everything and just knew what was right every single time. And it was my most productive period ever.  

It sounds like you haven't killed the restlessness, just redirected it. Is that fair?

For DJs, we know how exciting that journey from bedroom to main stage is. And you kinda always want to recreate that feeling. The feeling of, I've got this thing that I'm working in my bedroom and the second I put it out to the world it could explode. And for me that is absolutely addicting. And it's the same for the watch too. It's having this little secret and walking around a city and thinking, "No one else knows when I'm about to put out into the world." I think that is really close to start-up culture. It's this childlike excitement that so many people have. And the most successful people I know get just constantly excited by things.

A Knitter's Return to Slowness

On the morning of the interview I had my partner read the questions I prepared for our friend Abby. Take out words like strategy and profit margin, I was told, they are so not her.

A woolgatherer by nature and name, Abby Keep also personifies a rare strength in our Instagram age—an age of shrewdly marketed identities, of photo or didn't happen.

We often admire—envy even—those who pursue a slow, solitary art that, if time is indeed money, is fiscally hard to justify. We romanticise these sorts, and the simple life we assign them, without truly appreciating the discipline and self-clarity required for such a way of life.

Abby discovered the bliss of knitting as a kid, well before her imagination learned restraint. Ever since, the act has been closely tied to losing herself in childlike reveries. This was still the case during her year-12 project, where after threading together all the scrap yarn she could find, she spent every recess and lunchtime in the art room, knitting a full bodysuit with a 10-metre-long arm that also served as a skipping rope. (Talk about unrestrained…)

When she moved to Melbourne after school, obsession soon became mastery, extraterrestrial jumpsuits became a line of custom chequered vests, and her childhood haven, her castle in the clouds, became a viable business. 

Was that not the ultimate goal? To win freedom by turning her passion into a dependable source of income? 

To Abby, freedom means plenty more than emancipation from a 9 to 5—it's the reveries, the drifty thoughts, the 10-metre arm.  

At the heart of this interview is the story of how she reclaimed that creative freedom.

MONETISATION & THE MACHINE

WILL: Can you elaborate on times when the business side of your art made you lose love for knitting?

ABBY: Yeah, so during COVID, I replaced my part-time job that I lost with knitting, so I was relying on it financially. That was when I was making clothing. I was making vests and, after a couple of years, I got to a point where I was just making things because that's what people were ordering. I didn't feel creative at all. I often said to myself, "I want to make something for myself." But I got caught in the cycle of the quicker you make something, the quicker you get paid.

When I moved to Paris about two years ago I made that hard decision of not bringing my machine with me. I was also living in like a seven or eight square metre place so there was never room for it. I said to myself, if I'm moving to a different city, I'm going to have a fresh start in my creative life as well. And I just started hand knitting again. And it actually took me a while to get my groove back because for a few years I was knitting so much for other people that I didn't really remember what I liked to create for myself. And I think that only recently, after a couple of years, I'm back to where I was ten years ago, you know, in how I feel more generally about knitting and why I love it and what it gives me.

TRANSITION FROM CLOTHING TO OBJECTS

So I guess that both moving to Paris and leaving the machine behind was a symbolic end to the commercial grind of your work. But did it also mark your departure from fashion, your transition into objects?

For me I find that objects are a lot more intimate. And I'll elaborate on that a bit further because I think there's nothing more intimate than a piece of clothing, being so close to your skin, you know. But I've always made objects, even one of those hideous cactuses I'd made when I was young. But for me, if you buy an object, you're never going to put it in a wardrobe. You're never going to wear it once and then feel suddenly detached from it. You always have it out on display for the world to see, and you're enjoying it all the time.

Whereas for a piece of clothing, it's just a really toxic environment these days with fast fashion and I just feel like I'm contributing to that, even if I knit something that takes fifty hours to make. I just feel like the way people consume clothing, I don't want to have anything to do with it. I also feel like everyone does a better job than I do, as far as making clothes slowly goes. So I'm going to leave it to them to do, and I'm going to stick with what gives me a little bit more meaning and that's objects.

WORKING WITH CLIENTS

One of the things I find most interesting about your craft is your relationship with your audience—which is maybe the wrong word. Every time you're making something, you're making it for one person, which is quite rare in creative fields. How does this impact your relationship with your work?

I mean, 95% of the time I know the person. And it's cool because they just trust me to make something that they want. And they know that I'm the person who can do it. For me, that trust is really nice, I get to make them something and they're supporting me and what I do. 

But yeah, I'll always try and grab a coffee with them before or after too. And their reactions are always so sweet. And I never think that it deserves that because I'm just like, can't everyone do this? But, you know, if the product is well-made and thoughtfully created, then it touches the heart of the right person.

I'm also a big advocate for toys for adults. I have a knitted toy that sleeps here (her chest). I put her in my pyjamas and I know I've slept well when I wake up and she's still there, because I haven't moved that much. And I love when people buy themselves a toy. People think they're just for kids, but I don't think that's the case. Like, why can't we have our little friend? 

I get it. It's just a place to deposit love. It's a healthy thing. Do you have many adults asking for teddies, and how do you promote it?

I don't promote it at all. The reason I have my own here is because I needed to make a sample a while back, and I was knitting while watching TV and I put her feet on backwards. I never got around to putting eyes on her either. Now she's like our daughter, her name is Mimolette. She's named after a cheese. But no, I don't advertise things like that about my personal life because who cares? You know. But I also think that's such an Instagram thing for people to glamorise these little like quirks and pass them off as personalities. Whereas I just do what I want and only some people know about it. Like you now.

PRICING & VALUE

And like anyone who reads this.
Now, I want to talk about the commercial side of your work. Maybe in your field more than any other, there seems to be an unseen imbalance between the amount of time and love you put into a project, and how much you can reasonably sell it for. How do you think about this dynamic? And how do you navigate it/talk about it with your clients?

Yeah, I mean, it's so layered. And something I've always struggled with. If I were to sell the pieces for what they're actually worth, based on an hourly rate, it would be ridiculous. That said, I honestly don't even know how long a piece takes, because I've never sat down and made one thing from start to finish. And I sorta don't really want to know either. Basically, I price it like it's a hobby, not a business. And I have to be really careful about that fine line. I mean, I have a full-time job so I'm fine, but if that changed I wouldn't use knitting as a financial income again. I think I've got pretty good at setting those boundaries.

BOUNDARIES & BALANCE

Do you think those boundaries are something you set and have stuck with, or are they always being renegotiated?

Oh yeah, always renegotiated. But that's why I come back to—as harsh as it is—I need to be really selfish sometimes. But then it's not selfish, it's just a boundary. You know? But for me I'm like, I need to please everyone. And that's why I'm tossing up the idea of a website, so then I can just post my things and people can work within that.

And would you be open to people saying, look, I see what you've done with these rabbits, but how would you feel about a life-sized marmot? for instance.

Yes, hundred percent! That's my favourite. It's so refreshing. When someone comes to me with a particular idea, that's like the coolest thing ever. And I also go out of my way to do something special. I wish every job was like that. 

But that's rarely how it goes. I find people are only creative when given permission to be. They see something that I've made and then they want the exact same thing. I always tell them If you want a different colour or different features to what you see here, be my guest, I can pretty much do anything. But unless they see what you can do, they usually can't envision anything else. And also, if you see something you love, why would you want something different? That's the whole point of a product. I don't resent anyone for that.

PARIS & PERSONAL GROWTH

So at the start you talked about how Paris cut the yarn—sorry—of that commercial, uncreative work. Can you think of any other benefits or drawbacks that have come with moving here? And has Paris given you an extra creative oomf in any way?

I feel more permission to be myself in Paris. And I think because there's so many people doing so many artistic things, there are less eyes on what you're doing, so you just end up doing whatever you want. I also don't know that many people. And so I feel like I just—I just care less, you know? I don't second-guess myself as much, creatively and as a person. I just have an idea and I do it. And, positive or negative, I don't really care what people have to say about it

CREATIVITY & WELLBEING

You've spoken about what it means to you, but do you have any opinions on what the role of creativity should be in people's lives? Basically, if you were a kindly dictator, would you mandate that all your citizens have their own creative pursuit?

I think everyone should have three things in their life—some kind of financial income, a physical outlet, and then a creative outlet. And maybe that could be like bedazzling door handles, but it also could be any hobby that doesn't require you getting money from it. 

As I've said, if I ever stop knitting, that's when you know things could take a turn. The same goes for running. And I think that's when I'm most creative, when I feel well. But there have been periods in my life where those two things have stopped at once. So they keep me well balanced. Reading too, actually. I could live in a cave and not see anyone for the rest of my life as long as I've got those three things.

Molly Reynolds' My Name Is Gulpilil is built around a simple but powerful premise: let David Gulpilil speak for himself. The result is an intimate portrait of one of Australia's most compelling screen presences, told entirely in his own words.

Molly Reynolds didn't set out to become David Gulpilil's chronicler, but over two decades of collaboration, that's precisely what she became. Through her creative partner Rolf de Heer's films—The Tracker, Ten Canoes, Charlie's Country—Reynolds was there with her own camera, creating companion documentaries that captured not just the filmmaking process, but the man himself. When Gulpilil received a terminal cancer diagnosis in 2017, Reynolds and the legendary actor embarked on what they thought would be his final project: My Name Is Gulpilil. Four years later, with Gulpilil still defying medical expectations, they'd created something remarkable—a film that lets one of Australia's greatest performers tell his own story, in his own way.

This film emerged from incredibly personal circumstances. Can you walk me through how it began?

“It came about because David was diagnosed with a seemingly fatal disease that was going to see his demise in about six months’ time; it was widespread stage four lung cancer, with emphysema, just to tip it over. But yes, he defied the odds and was still with us four years later. And at the time, David just wanted to keep working, and this was the best project that could get him the most work — to kinda be, you know, the final story in his life story.”

And you told it beautifully. Obviously, you’d worked together before, but did he approach you and say ‘Hey, I want to work, and I’d like to do a doco about my life’…

“It was more organic. When Rolf [De Heer, her partner and producer] and I heard about David’s prognosis, we hightailed it over to Murray Bridge in SA just to see how he was doing. And he said, ‘Brother, Sister, I want to work!’ I joke about it, but in a serious way, that only Rolf would be audacious enough to cast David – a dying man – in a film of his. But I didn’t think the investors would go on that journey with him. And so, David and I had collaborated on Another Country (2015), and wondered, what happens when we do the final story? And David had this great vision of the doco going straight through to his death ceremony, and him returning to country, and everything else like that. And when David was seemingly immortal, we said, ‘David, how about we regroup here, and you take the stage, and finish it sooner rather than later?’”

That dedication to performance, even facing mortality—how did that shape your approach as a director?

“Yep. Documentaries tend to form in their own way, but you can always step in the ring with some criteria. Here, one of them was that David was staring down the lens of the camera. And as the director, I knew that I could be really bold in that opening gambit, because David is such a consummate performer. His primary relationship is with the camera.”

The film moves between memories and reflections in a way that feels very natural, almost stream-of consciousness. How much of that structure was planned versus discovered in editing?

“I knew that David was going to hold the entire space. Also, when threatened with one’s mortality, you snatch back at life. Memories come to the fore, and there are seemingly random, but ultimately interconnected, thoughts that come with that. I was very keen on that idea of reflecting back on one’s life, but for one’s self. The other thing was that David has had an incredibly surreal life: the highs, the lows, the people he’s met, the things he’s done…I was jelly-bean keen to take that approach. And boy, we were lucky with a lot of the footage! If you spend time in David’s company, you know that he’s quite the storyteller, but one needs the patience…he’ll take a long time. We had 67 shoot days, and most days we did an interview that lasted an hour plus. I learnt to just wait, knowing that David would eventually deliver the goal. I crafted it in the way in which David tells stories, which is sort of, you’re in one place, and then before you know it, you’re in another, and yet, before the story ends, it all makes sense.”

You mentioned 67 shoot days—that's extraordinary for what you initially thought might be a rushed project.

“Yes, because we thought he was going, going, gone. And we had allocated 30 shooting days with David, and then an extra week for his death ceremonies, and all that came with that. And so, we raced through it, and David is calling saying, ‘Molly! Molly! When are we working?!’ And this is his documentary, it is his gift to the rest of the world. And so, we just kept shooting which, from my perspective, allowed for such a luxury. With doco, you’re always capturing what’s necessary for what you need for the doco to make sense. And so, we were able to get more and more fantastical with the passing of time. And when we did the interviews, I’d work with [cinematographers] Maxx Corkindale or Miles Rowland, and they’d get ready outside while I went in with David and discussed what I needed to cover and then he would decide which of that he’d run with and how he’d handle it. And then we would get to work.”

David's producer credit wasn't ceremonial—he had real control over his story. How did you navigate the more difficult chapters of his life together? How much did he embrace plunging into that?

“David was a producer so that he could ensure that his legacy was as he would like it. And he was very much engaged in all processes. On some of the tough stuff, when he speaks about being a drug addict and alcoholic, I really had to draw him in on that, and explain to him that for the doco to have authenticity, for it to have gravitas, that we had to cover it all. From his cultural perspective, you just don’t talk about the stupid things that you do. But in our world, we do, as it makes us feel much better. And so, once I explained the context of it all, he understood and spoke to it really beautifully, quite poetically even.”

David speaks in the film about existing between two worlds—Indigenous and white Australia. Did you feel that tension in your working relationship?

“That’s a really interesting question. David really belongs to no culture anymore, because he has been away from his own culture for so long, and the dominant white-fella culture hasn’t entirely embraced him, as it isn’t evolved enough just yet. But working with David, I never felt that. As when we worked together, he respected me as the director, and he would work hard and professionally. Outside the context of work, I am a female, and I take a different sort of hierarchy; I do admire David in that he transcends that with work.”

Your documentaries have consistently focused on Indigenous stories. Was this always a conscious direction, or did it evolve through your work with Rolf and David?

“Well, in many ways, it was a happy accident. It started when Rolf embarked on Ten Canoes (2006), in about 2004. It was a time when multi-platform was very much in vogue – the whole notion of having a feature film, a doco, a website, and how they can be independently connected. And so it began with Twelve Canoes (2009), and those circumstances continued along that line, as when Rolf and David partnered for Charlie’s Country (2013), I thought, ‘Right, there’s so much more that I can do there.’ Out of that came a documentary called Another Country. And so, it grows from there, and it’s almost like it’s a calling.”

The film reveals the profound cost of David's position between cultures. What did you come to understand about that burden through making this documentary?

“It came at a great cost. In many ways, it sent him adrift, and he seriously sought solace and ganja, as he calls marijuana. It came at high cost. And now, here he is with a white-fella’s disease, and in order to survive it, he needs white-fella medicine. That’s just not possible if he was to go back to country. And that’s a damning choice to have to make. In fact, it’s not even really a choice. So, yeah, it’s come at great cost.”