The rise of Hot Dub Time Machine: ‘No matter how good a DJ is, you’re still pretending to be a musician’

‘What I do is daggy – I’m a retro DJ’ … Tom Lowndes, aka Hot Dub Time Machine in Adelaide, South Australia. Photograph: Sia Duff/The Guardian

Tom Lowndes wants to tell me a theory.

“I think DJing is the professional wrestling of the music industry,” he says. “Wrestling, in the end, no matter how good it is, it’s still people pretending to fight. The DJ, no matter how good you are, you’re still pretending to be a musician.”