Red Bull Thre3Style Knights Its West Coast Qualifiers

Following the lead of the East Coast Qualifiers in Halifax, Red Bull Thre3Style sought out the West Coast comrades. Last week, the battle royale in Vancouver knighted three winners, each of which will move on to the Nationals in Winnipeg on May 9. Although each set was crammed into 15 minutes, the evening didn't skimp on quality mixing, scratching, and beat juggling. Vancouver's Nick Bike, Saskatoon's Charly Hustle, and Golden's Wakcutt are busy sharpening their knives for the turntable showdown, but let us in on their rise to Thre3Style fame.

Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
Set Up: 2 Technics 1200 turntables, a Rane 62 mixer, an overheating MacBook, Serato Scratch Live

Nick Bike is quite familiar with the life of a Thre3Stylist. Back in 2013 he placed first at the Regional Qualifiers in Vancouver and this year he's back with a vengeance. "I'm a better DJ because of Thre3Style," he tells THUMP. "It's always a challenge for me and it pushes me to get creative." That creativity is well illustrated by the mashup in his winning set: Missy Elliot's "Get Ur Freak On" and Drake's "We Made It."

"It was a crowd pleaser, as far as I can remember," he says.

Winning titles aside, even an experienced Thre3Styler's palms get sweaty. "I overthink things a lot," says Bike. "[But] it's mostly a matter of coming up with ideas I like, putting them together in a manner I'm comfortable with, and then settling on them." While he masters his next set, Bike is stocking up on "lots of Red Bull, coffee, and periodical Seinfeld breaks." (Same.)

Nick Bike is on Facebook // Twitter // SoundCloud

Location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Set Up: 2 Technics 1200 turntables, Rane mixer, 2 Dicer midi controllers, Macbook pro, Serato Scratch Live, and a Prince symbol necklace

Charly Hustle is the self-identified music nerd from Saskatchewan with an impressive Red Bull Thre3Style backlog. In 2012, Hustle spun his way to the runner-up title at the National Finals in Halifax and scored the first place at 2013 Regional Qualifiers in Winnipeg.

"From listening to my Dad's Led Zeppelin records, to re-writing drug-themed lyrics on elementary schoolbooks, to pretending I was in the Rock Steady Crew whenever 'Rockit' came on—I was always surrounded and excited by music," Hustle tells THUMP. He says that the open-format that Thre3Style adheres to is something he always pictured himself doing with DJing. "I love so many kinds of music, so having a competition that focused on rocking a crowd with many genres as a mandate just seemed perfect."

Hustle also hints at a potential second act to his performance: a magic trick. "I've increased my practice hours by a lot. I'm hoping to be able to do the set blind-folded by the competition date."

Charly Hustle is on Facebook // Twitter // SoundCloud

Location: Golden, British Columbia
Set Up: A priest, a Rabbi, and a DJ walk into a bar…

Despite his father's avid record collection, WakCutt infers that Steve Aoki played somewhat of a role in inspiring him to DJ. "The first time I ever saw a DJ throw a cake into the crowd, I was like 'Wow, I gotta learn how to do that.' And I gave it a whirl." WakCutt perfected a bass laden that scored him opening sets with the Glitch Mob and an on-stage collaboration with fellow Canadian Mat the Alien.

"The main challenge was to not pass out from the boredom of practicing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again," WakCutt tells THUMP. By the sounds of things, WakCutt spent this month preparing for the finals with a strange combination of tranquility and dry, dry sarcasm.

"I built a greenhouse and some garden boxes. I split and stacked a couple cords of wood, painted a couple nice pieces of art, and took a lot of photographs. Now I'm ready to practice the same thing over and over and over and over and over again."

WakCutt is on Facebook // Twitter // SoundCloud

Tickets for the Red Bull Thre3Style Finals in Winnipeg are on sale now, find them here.