Having accidentally slept through his earlier interviews, Alex Ridha – the monobrow behind Boys Noize – is yawning, slightly hoarse and (presumably) bleary-eyed. It’s early in the morning in his hometown of Berlin and Rihda, like any other self-respecting DJ, doesn’t do mornings.

It must be about the only thing he doesn’t do, since at only 28 years of age Ridha runs his own label and sub-label, has a host of high profile remixes and collaborations under his belt, has released two successful albums and continues to DJ his way around the globe.

Some good-natured small talk seems to clear the morning cobwebs, and Ridha launches into a discussion about the philosophy behind his label and the inescapable topic of how the DJ scene has changed, revealing himself as a traditionalist with an admirably genuine attitude towards making and selling music.

So congratulations on the BNR Records sub-label, BNR Trax kicking off in the last month. Are you happy with how that’s been going?
Thank you, thank you. It’s going really well, I just set it up to be able to shoot off cool tracks: more techno and more house. A lot of the DJs who play for the younger generation always play the same stuff, so I thought it would also be good platform for them to open up to different sounds. I don’t do much promotion about it – it’s the same idea I used for Boys Noize Records. Back then I just pressed 1000 vinyls and put it in the record shops without any promotion; let the DJs find it.

Nowadays it’s the digital world, so people can just find it and discover the new stuff on their own. So far we have two releases and the third one is about to come out very soon: it’s Benny Rodriguez from Rotterdam in Holland and it’s really traditional warehouse techno.

You’ve released both your albums on Boys Noize Records. What have been the advantages and disadvantages of releasing on your own label?
The good thing is, first of all, I wanted to release an album in the vibe of letting people discover it, you know – don’t put it too much in their face. I was always the kind of guy that finds out about music. That’s what I like because then it feels special to me. And that’s the way I released my album. The good thing is, if you are the label then you really have control over what you’re doing.

Other labels would probably do a lot of marketing, which means they spend a lot of money for promo agencies and advertising, and you can get a lot of pressure from the company to get that money back. Whereas if I’m the guy, I can say, “Do I really need to do this?” And obviously I said “no!” So it’s really an easy thing and I was really surprised in the end by how well the album sold. It was actually pretty crazy if you think about it – that two people in the kitchen [Ridha and his girlfriend] really run the album and the business behind.

So it’s really about the independence and the control over what you do. We always take care at Boys Noize Records never to do ‘big branding’ stuff. A lot of labels nowadays have to cooperate with big brands to pay the people that work there. Maybe I’m a bit old school on that but for me, artistically, I really don’t want to be sponsored by a car brand or something like this. So yeah, it’s the real independence with your own label. It gives you so much freedom.