Robbie Rivera fans were left shattered last week by the news that the Miami-based house music doyen had been forced to pull out of his appearance at this month’s Future Music Festival tour. And believe it or not, it would have been his first visit to Australia: it’s hard to believe that someone who’s played everywhere from Canada to Casablanca has never been to our little island nation, but there you have it. But fear not house-heads, because you can be sure it won’t be long before Mr Rivera makes his maiden voyage to our country, and in the meantime you can check out his sound on the Future Music Festival CD. Ironic, we know!.
Getting his name out there to the world through his Juicy Music label, he’s well known throughout the world as an A-grade producer and has worked his remix magic on a diverse range of artists that include Faithless, Felix Da Housecat, Moloko, Sonique, Sinead O’Connor, Victoria Beckham, Madonna, Ricky Martin, Santana, Harry Romero, Puretone, Kylie Minogue, Pink, Brandy among many others – making him one of house music’s premier “go to” guys. Here ITM chats with Robbie Rivera about big gigs, strange gigs, and for perhaps the first time ever on inthemix, Rod Stewart!
Hi Robbie, thanks for talking to inthemix. You’re heading down under in March for the Future Music Festival – will this be your first trip to our shores?
This will be my first time in Australia. I’ve been wanting to go for a long time and I’m really happy to be going right now. It’s such a big tour, I’m going to be DJing all over the country so I’ll be able to see the all best cities – it’s going to be hot!
You’ve played almost everywhere there is to play – what’s your favourite place to DJ?
I love playing in Ibiza. I play every Sunday night at a club called Amnesia. I do my own party there called Juicy Ibiza, and I just love playing there. We’re on the terrace and it’s usually three or four thousand people and it’s just a great vibe. And obviously I love playing in Miami.
Does Miami being your hometown make the annual Winter Music Conference there a bit more special for you?
Definitely. Everything’s right there in your backyard, and I know so many people here, and I organise my own event as well, the Juicy Beach Party. I love the fact that it’s here – plus it’s much cheaper for me!
The Juicy Beach Party features some of the biggest names in dance music at the moment – Deadmau5, Axwell, Sander van Doorn and Australia’s own Dirty South. How did all this come together?
This is the fourth one we’re doing, the second at Nikki Beach. We have an amazing line up. Most of the people I’ve booked are my friends, a lot of them love playing Juicy tracks, and they love being party of my event.
For example Deadmau5, I just love his music, I had to get him on board!
What’s the strangest gig you’ve ever played?
This past summer I played in Cairo in Egypt, it was very unusual! I was playing outdoors and there were maybe 1200 people, and I would say 90% of them were men, so that was kind of weird, and then in the middle of my set, most of them started fighting each other with bats! I only played for fifteen minutes, and the promoter told me that’s very normal in Cairo, for all the guys to start hitting each other with bats and ruin the party. It was pretty scary actually, now I think about it!
So you won’t be going back any time soon?
No, I have been invited many times and they’ve apologised to me, but no, not right now!
You’ve said that when you’re working on a track, you’ll play it to a crowd, and depending on their reaction you’ll work on it the next day. How do you know from the crowd’s reaction what needs to be changed?
Well, for example, today I did a remix, and for me it’s finished, but what I’ll do is, tomorrow I’m playing in San Diego, I’ll play it out, and really look at the crowd, the way they react, if they get a bit bored, start looking around, going to the bar, that kind of thing. I like my tracks to be the ones where everyone goes really nuts on the dancefloor and don’t look anywhere but at the DJ and jump up and down. If they’re not doing that, then I’ve gotta fix it!
Does all the success you’ve had in your career give you the opportunity to promote tracks and artists you believe in?
Oh yes, definitely. We get a lot of demos, and in the past month we’ve had almost 150. We listen to all of them, and out of 150 we’ve picked up three.
I love picking up new music from new DJs and trying to blow up their career. For example, DJ Rooster and Sammy Peralta, I picked them up in New York and they did this track called Shake It, which was huge all over the world, and I helped them out with gigs and stuff like that. I like picking up new artists and helping them out in their careers, like I’ll pick up their tracks and put them on my label, and if it really blows up I’ll try to get them gigs and hook them up with my agencies and stuff like that.
What’s coming through at the moment that you’re excited about?
I really like all the stuff that Deadmau5 is doing recently. I really like his music, it’s progressive, electro-y, sometimes even banging. I like Dirty South a lot, Laidback Luke is doing really cool stuff.
Does your sound change much between a club or a festival set?
For the festivals I try to play some tracks that are well-known to everybody, for example, I have a remix of Basement Jaxx’s Where’s Your Head At that I did just for myself and nobody else has, and I always play that at festivals, the crowd always seems to love it!
Speaking of remixes, have you ever done a remix where you weren’t able to do exactly what you wanted with it because you knew the record label wouldn’t accept it or release it?
Yes, I was asked to remix Rod Stewart once and it worked, it was great, I was playing it everywhere and people loved it. But the label hated it – they paid me, but they didn’t put it out. Now when I do a remix I listen to the original track and make sure I really like it and then I’ll tell the label they have to let me do what I want to do. I just did a remix last week for Fedde le Grande, called Let Me Think About It, which is being released in America. They loved the remix, they just let me do what I wanted to do. I tell the record label I’m gonna do whatever I want, and whatever rocks the floor, and if they don’t like it they need to get someone else!
What kind of set can we look forward to at Future Music Festival?
I’m gonna play a lot of my new music that I’ll be promoting at the Winter Music Conference, and a lot of stuff from my label. So it’ll be like a big, pounding, energy set!
Well then. So now we know what we’re missing out on! Hopefully we’ll have another Robbie Rivera tour on the cards before too long!
Future Music Festival 2008, mixed by Robbie Rivera & Carl Kennedy is in the stores now through Ministry of Sound/EMI.
Weqster says...
:( I heart Juicy. Would of loved to see this guy smash some tunes...