BOOTS

Interview by Steven Logan | Photos by Shea Petersen

Three years ago, Abhijeet and DJ Kirk threw their first Boots party for a few hundred people at a dim sum restaurant on Chicago’s North Side. Since then, they’ve sold out 1,000+ capacity rooms, released an EP of original music, and built a cult following of a new generation of club kids. On the eve of their three-year anniversary at Metro, we sat down to talk the past, present, and future of Boots.

Thinking back to when you started Boots - what would you be most surprised by knowing where the party is now?
A: I think it’s the fact that we’re at a place where Boots kind of needs to happen at these music venues. I never imagined that's where we would be, because when we started the concept was “We want to take over unexpected places, we want to do what's not happening in the clubs right now.” But it just took off so fast, it just kept growing, and the whole reason why we did the Metro party for our last anniversary was because it was too big to keep doing it at these DIY places. It was just kinda like, “We have to scale up.”

And I never considered that when we started. Metro, Thalia Hall…that was never even a thought. 

K: After a year and a half it literally did hit the point of - I mean, at the Hairpin parties we were talking about it in real time - “This is hitting a ceiling of too many people.” We have to go to a venue that’s actually equipped to do this. 

The Boots origin story is that we got back from COVID and all the bars and clubs were just leaning into super safe stuff, top 40, like no parties, no interesting ideas, and we just kept having the same conversation of “Someone's gotta throw a party, or do something different.” And after three or four times saying that to each other we decided to give it a shot.

So you started out consciously trying to be an alternative to a basic DJ night at a bar - in your view what’s the difference between that and a full-on party?
A: I think at that specific point in time, at least in Northalsted and I think in general, they'd moved away from having outside promoters and outside parties doing stuff. A lot of what was going on at that time was “Okay, we're gonna do a Britney night, we're gonna do a Charli night, we're gonna do a Taylor night” - and it was happening in like every single club. And of course DIY underground parties have always been there, but so much of the audience that we would see every weekend when we worked together at Scarlet, or at Berlin, weren’t going out much anywhere else.

And, you know, like, SmartBar has its residence, and other venues have their house DJs, but where do new parties happen? Where do new ideas happen? And we were thought we could just find a place to make it happen. We didn't need to wait for a place to do it. 

K: At that time, I was DJing at Scarlet and Abhi was hosting. And everyone was kind of having their weekend parties at Berlin. Or downtown, people would have parties at Cerise, at Virgin, and Blind Barber. After a certain point, you're just kind of having a very similar experience, just at a different bar. And we thought “What if we threw a party in a dim sum restaurant? No one’s doing that.” 

What was the story behind putting together that very first Boots?
A: I literally think I just texted Kirk. He had a really solid following in what I was calling the “Logan Square crowd’ and I knew every gay person, so if we did a party together in Logan Square or something that could be really cool. And then we were just looking for a space, we couldn't find something that we really liked, but I'd been doing a drag brunch in Uptown for a while and had a really good relationship with the dim sum restaurant we hosted it at.

And I just kind of very lightly brought the subject to them, like “What if we did a late night party?” And we did the first one, and you know, they learned with us, we learned with them, and we did the second party there a month later and we had Baby Tate perform. And we doubled our crowd because we learned how to do it. 

I’m guessing the restaurant never did anything like that before?
A: No they had, they said they used to throw parties but they stopped for many, many years.

K: They said they got out of hand, back in the day. It would be a tough crowd and like fights and stuff. 

Has Boots ever gotten out of hand? 
A: No, we have a really well-behaved audience. Very well-mannered.

K: After parties the venues will be like “These Boots kids are so nice.” 

A: I think we set the precedent, because I didn’t want to fuck up my drag brunch. The brunch was making me money, I have to be able to come back next month. So when we sent our first address email out to people, we wrote “This is a party at a place that is not a club. You have to respect the space for what it is.” And I think because we expressed that from the start, I think that has carried over with every party that we’ve done. 

And obviously it’s a party, you’re drunk, you’re doing drugs, people throw up, but I don’t count someone throwing up as out of hand. You’re supposed to throw up, I’d rather you do that than die. 

Were you nervous then, for that very first party?
K: I think we were nervous about pulling it off. I do very specifically remember that right as we were about to open the doors, thinking that we should have just thrown a test party or something, just to get our bearings and get it off the ground.

But it all went really well. I mean, Abhi has a long background in producing events 

A: But not with those venues, you know, I had worked mostly with clubs and stuff. twenty minutes before we open doors the owner of the dim sum restaurant was like, “So is this more of a Sip & Chill?” (laughs)

K: I remember you were like, “...No.” (laughs) And it was like, we were loading in speakers and subs and all this lighting and we were fogging it out, like it’s clearly not gonna be chill at all. 

A: And then the difference from the first party to the second party was so major because they were like “Okay, we know what to expect now”. They came with a more expanded drink menu. They started having crab rangoon for people at 3AM, you know, they adapted to it the same way we did. 

So you did the first two at the dim sum spot, then where to after that?
A: I don't think we ever necessarily intended for it to be a constantly moving party. It's just something that happened because we wanted to keep trying things. I think next we went to the Hairpin Arts Center in Logan Square. And then we found -

K: Center on Halsted. 

A: Center on Halsted, we found the rooftop. 

K: And what did we do for Halloween that year? 

A: We did Hairpin again. And then we found the iO Comedy Club, and did New Year’s Eve there, and that was our first year.

K: Yeah, our M.O. was always kind of “never force a party” and also, one party at a time. I guess we don’t really follow that rule anymore. 

You’re planning ahead a little bit now? 
K: We’re planning six or seven parties right now.

At a certain point you have to?
K: Yeah, but at the time, I remember it was forever between that second party and the Hairpin party. It was the end of April to like, mid-July, so really only a couple months, but it felt like forever. But we wanted to make sure we found a space that was gonna work for a Boots party. If we didn’t like it, we’d rather wait and find another spot rather than throwing a bad party or having a weird space.

So when you’re checking out venues, how do you know it’s gonna work out and how do you craft the party to a specific venue?
A: I think early on a lot of what we did was drive around Chicago in Kirk’s car and just drive by places like “Boots here?” And it was a lot of just doing a vibe check, and looking them up on Google Maps trying to find photos of what the inside looks like, or just even dropping by and talking to an owner.

K: And with Chicago we know we want the party to go until at least 2AM, but then along with that the place needs to have a liquor license and different boxes to check with like, the capacity, how are we going to build the infrastructure for it…

I was thinking about the art installations too, how much time do you have to set those up when you’re getting in there?
A: We’re lucky to have a really awesome install team. Our installation artists - JForPay and Pagina - the way their minds work is insane. They’ll do like one walkthrough of the space and they can walk away fully visualizing how they’re going to transform it. And we worked with a really awesome audio-visual tech person, Jack Weimer, who is just like the fastest person I’ve ever seen wrap a cable. So we were just very lucky to have this really tight group of people that were willing to take time and grow with us. And I feel like the only reason we were able to grow is because they were able to adapt and keep up with us.

Do you have a dream venue for Boots? 
K: We’re kind of hitting all the dream venues right now.

A: We always have this idea every year of, “What is an impossible Boots?” What is a Boots that can basically never happen? And I feel like we get closer and closer to doing stuff like that every year. 

K: We’re kind of working on one of those impossible ideas right now, off the record.

A: Off the record, we’re trying to do a Boots at [REDACTED].

Oh my God, that’s amazing.
K: Yeah, and a lot of that will just kind of be Abhi saying like “What if we threw a Boots party here?” And me being like “That’s impossible.” But then we start talking, start having a conversation, and thinking maybe we could do this or this.

Like asking yourself “If we had to, how would we do it?” 
K: Yeah, and that’s how it starts. Us having an insane idea, and then figuring out how it’s possible.

A: And I feel like our first year of Boots were questions like: How do we get someone from out of town here? How do we do a performance at Boots? How do we make this room dark?

Those were the first impossible Boots. And then it turned into: How do we find a place that can fit 500 people? How do we exit if there’s a fire? Like, initially we were thinking big and trying to solve these logistical problems and now it’s like, “What if we make music and did a DJ set together?”

How did those Boots DJ sets get started?
A:  I think the music kind of led into the DJ sets. I had never anticipated DJing in my life. It's very scary. But, Kirk is always kind of pushing me to try new stuff and he was just like, “You're great on the mic, you always know how to hype up a crowd, we just need to record you saying stuff and put it on a track.”

So we would just try stuff and play it at the parties, and it went over really well. Then Kirk had the idea, “Okay, for our one-year anniversary, what if we did a Boots DJ set?” And I practiced DJing for like 6 months. 

K: We practiced a lot leading up to that.

A:  At least four months of me going twice a week to Kirk’s studio and learning. 

K: Yeah, I think from the start of Boots, there were always conversations about making music, but it wasn't until that first year anniversary party that we threw some demo ideas out. 

A: Yeah, “Gay Guys Drink Vodka Sodas” was happening then. There was a version of it.

K: If you listen to those recordings, we used the a capella of “Looks Good”, because you had written it, and we recorded it, but we hadn’t made the instrumental yet.

You used these early versions in the DJ set? 
K: Yeah, we just put it over another song. There’s probably a version of “Let’s Get This Party Started” that was bubbling up then, too. 

So all these songs existed at the party before they were ever like, fully formed on a track. 
A: Yeah, the vocals existed.

K: And now we book ourselves to DJ, kind of like, the really special parties, whether it’s Halloween of the Metro sets.

So people can listen closely for teasers of future releases in your sets. 
A: Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff in there already. People will also start to recognize it because they’ll ask “When are you dropping that song?” I’m like “That song doesn’t exist. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

K: There’s gonna be some new stuff for the three-year set.

Abhi, is DJing still scary now?
A: Yes, absolutely. 

K: But Abhi has always been incredible on the mic, number one as a drag host and performer, and has this incredible control and command over the crowd. And when we started talking about music, Abhi already had this idea that a song can just be one or two sentences repeated, it doesn’t need to be this big verse chorus thing. It can just be a really cool, simple idea as a club track. 

That’s essentially the magic of “Gay Guys Drink Vodka Sodas, But Girls Do Poppers”. Is there a story behind that title or concept?
A: I don’t know if there’s a story as much as like, I just text Kirk my stream of consciousness because he told me to start thinking of stuff we can repeat on a track. I just texted him “Gay guys drink vodka sodas” and I think he ignored me the first time. (laughs)

K: It’s true, though.

A: And then I got to the studio and he helped edit it - because I’d never written for a song, I didn’t know how to phrase it correctly to fit with the beat. I’m sure if we could find that first text it was phrased differently.

K: Or sometimes, I'll be able to write like five bars out of eight. Or I’ll know one part goes so hard so it needs to be the last thing, and we have to find the ten seconds or whatever that comes before. 

But I remember we knew that one - we gotta call that “Gay Guys Drink Vodka Sodas, but Girls Do Poppers”. That’s just a really funny title. And two - it seemed like a great song to lead the EP.

So then how did the whole EP come together, and specifically the idea of the EP being an experience of being at a Boots party?
A: For us Boots is always a party first before it’s a DJ duo or artist duo, before it’s anything else. So from the start of talking about making music it was always about “How does this fit into Boots as a party?” 

And for the EP we were thinking about what a Boots party sounds like and feels like, because there are so many tracks that we worked on that didn’t make the EP because they didn’t fit.

K: We also made “Lines” during that same time, and I remember us deciding it had to exist on its own.

A: Right, because it didn’t make sense for that experience.

And we got two of our closest friends involved who had not really ever made music either, but they were into it. When we were recording with Bambi, we were just like “Oh, we just want you to repeat the ‘Looks Good’ chorus, that’s all you have to do” and she came in and said “I actually have a verse”. We never expected or asked her to record her own verse, but when she did, it was kind of like “Oh, this is the song.” 

K: She nailed that first take too. And that first take is probably on the song.

A: And same with Loren. We told her the concept was the feeling of after the party when the drugs are wearing off. And she was so secretive about it, I didn’t know anything about it until she showed up to the studio with a script and just read it. 

So in the future then, with any other music that you guys do, it’s going to exist in the context of the party still?
A: I think that it'll always be tied to the party. I don't think it necessarily always has to be about the experience of the party. But I feel like, because with “Lines” - yeah, it fits into the Boots universe, but I don't think it's really about Boots. 

K: There’s always a line at Boots.

A: There’s no VIP.

K: That’s true.

A: But you know, it's the energy of Boots, but it's not necessarily literally about us. And I feel like that's how we're branching out with it, where it doesn't always have to be tied to the experience of the event. It can start to be its own thing. 

Other than your own DJ sets or the experience of the party, what else influenced you musically while making the EP?
K: I mean, it's definitely just like club music, right, a lot of house. I think I was definitely listening to a lot of 90s trance and classic house at the time, trying to find the right vibe. 

A: I feel like we were also listening to a lot of Vengaboys at the time. 

K: We were listening to a lot of Vengaboys. Vengaboys, I mean obviously the hits are hits, but their other stuff that gets browsed over is good too, just super cool, weird club tracks. It’s goofy, fun music that’s not over pretentious. It’s fun for the sake of fun. 

Just like Boots music?
A: Yeah, and not irony-pilled, you know, because people will make fun, club music that is supposed to be ironic. That can work, but it’s nice to be sincere. It’s nice to just enjoy things being silly and campy and it doesn’t have to be with this lens of like, “Oh, but I don’t actually mean it.”

Like I genuinely mean that I need a man that looks good and sounds good, it’s not me being ironic.

So after each Boots party, like how do you know if it was a success? What's the marker of a successful Boots? 
A: I think so far, almost every Boots I’ve done, as we’re closing out the venue will always ask “Ok, when’s the next one?” And that to me is like, okay, we did something good here if all these people are not mad at us.

K: We'll have parties where it's like, on the spreadsheet, it'll barely break even. But maybe the party was so important, and either was a great vibe, or visually looked great. There are different markers of success.

A: Or a party that has changed how we think of Boots parties going forward.

K: Yeah, especially those first two years when we were switching venues, you're just kind of problem solving on the fly as the party was starting and people were showing up. Whenever we have a party, we literally always have a list of notes for the next time we’re there.

A: For example, we switched from wristbands to stamps because our door people said people were just throwing the little sticky end of the wristband onto the floor and we didn't have a trash can. So there was just all this trash by the door, and it's not a good look when people come in. The little things. And then for the next time we got a customized Boots stamp, and I don’t have to buy wristbands for every party.

It’s just those small things that put us in a really good place, where I’m able to give advice to friends of ours who have launched their own parties and stuff. It’s nice to see people take that advice and roll with it. Like, the point is not to be this exclusive entity. We exist as part of an ecosystem and a culture, and if we do well and other people do well, then we're all doing well together. It's important that people go out in general. 

K: And if anyone ever needs help, or wants to bounce ideas off of us, we’ll tell you, “Don’t do this, don’t do that. Do this for this type of venue.” We’ll throw game at you for free because we’re happy to see other parties do well. Boots Consulting, Inc. (laughs)

Now that’s the future of Boots. 
A: When we’re forty. (laughs)

Abhi, how do you decide your look for each party? 
A: I don't. No, I'm kidding. It really depends. I think sometimes I will have an idea way, way in advance and then other times I'm like, “I have five days. What can I realistically do?” I think a big part of Boots is that we don't have a theme or anything, it’s just like “Come be hot.” So it’s nice to not have to force myself to think about - while in the middle of twenty other things - what I’m going to wear. But then there'll be times where I’m like, “I need to be like a giant baseball hat. It's very important that I do that, so I’ll get started on that.”

Did you really wear that? I think I missed that one.
A: Yeah, that was a Halloween look. 

K: No, but the look was like…you had a big baseball hat, but you had a small baseball hat, and you kept switching between them the whole night. 

A: It was a baseball hat with a wig attached to it. And I wanted to make a large version of that. But then throughout the night, I would keep switching it out.

Kirk, when you go out and DJ elsewhere, how do the Boots crowds compare?
K: It’s just a lot more fun, I guess. I’ll play the downtown club crowd that can be less willing to go hard and have fun. And the Boots crowd - especially right now, we had a great year last year that kind of coincided with Brat Summer and whatever this renaissance is of recession music and partying and all that.

So is clubbing back?
K: I think so. It’s very like, self-aware clubbing, but when it comes to Boots…it’s just more fun to DJ for the girls and the gays than some guy in a downtown club. I used to do a lot of open format, lounge gigs and that shit was so tiresome. So it’s exciting to do real parties and play music that I’m excited about.

So clubbing is back, but from what you’ve seen, is there any truth to the rumors of this generational clubbing divide? Are younger Gen Zs not as into clubbing or is that made up?
A: There's definitely a generational divide. I don't know whether it's that specific thing. People drink a lot less, which I'm personally not mad about. There’s a lot more community awareness about drug use, overuse, protection and like, harm reduction and stuff. There’s conversations that I never had in a club when I was twenty-one.

And I feel like that's kind of what I see. I don't think there's necessarily a younger generation clubbing less. I think it's also about where younger kids feel like they can just make mistakes and be like weird twenty-one year olds, you know? Like I had Berlin to do that, where I don’t think I was normal any night I went there. 

What about you Kirk, what do you think?
K: The first thought that popped in my head was just that COVID gap, where you can tell the people that turned twenty-one around then were learning club etiquette, the stuff you just pick up along the way. Learning like, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t do this on the dance floor or yell at the DJ.”

A: Tipping the bartender.

K: Yeah, tip the bartender, don’t request songs, stuff like that.

It’s good to know the young people are out there, people keep trying to say they’re boring now.
K: No there are plenty of people that are ready to go, you just gotta give them something.

A: And the cool thing about moving locations and having parties in different neighborhoods is that we get a fresh group of people every time, just because it's in proximity to their home. Going from Upton to Logan Square and then to Little India - we had so many people that were like “Yeah, I live in Rogers Park. There’s never anything near me to go to.” 

And I think the first time we did our party in Little India, all the hosts were people that lived in Rogers Park. And it’s cool to see the difference in the crowds that come out to the different locations. And then they all converge at the ones at the big music venues.  

Last question for both of you - what was your favorite Boots party? 
K: For me, it probably had to be that Metro two-year party. We knew we were hitting our ceiling on capacity and things were starting to really push the limits of what we could do and knew if we wanted to go past 500 people it had to be a proper venue. And we knew we wanted to sell out Metro, and we did. And because of that party, we were able to do a ton of cool stuff last year and going into this year, so that was my favorite and one of the most important Boots parties. 

A: I agree with that but not to give the same answer, I feel like it’s New Year’s Eve. It’s a very sweet, very nostalgic holiday for me. People are on their best behavior, they’re ready to become a new person. And I think it’s a very precious time of year. And to be able to do a party where I get to see all my friends on New Year’s Eve at a time where people would usually be scattered, but instead I’m here with my entire full friend group surrounded by 500 people having the same experience together.