Boys Noize - Come On Feel The Noize
Alex Ridha is the man behind the production powerhouse (and record label) Boys Noize, one of Germany’s most in-demand electro artists. In Sydney for New Year’s Eve, 3D’s Rezo had a chat.
Most producers produce an abundance of tracks and remixes before they drop an artist album, but you seemed to jump the gun and release an album pretty early – was this always the plan-
Honestly man, I didn’t plan to produce an album. I was touring and doing remixes and productions and stuff like that. After each track I thought it would be great to release them as a single but my schedule didn’t allow me to put anything out because of my other releases. Then I found I had produced more and more tracks, 15 in total, so I decided to put them all on a CD. I only wanted to produce club tracks and I wanted to have good tracks to play for my sets. I wouldn’t really describe it as a classic album because it doesn’t really tell a story – it’s just a straight up club album for DJs. Then the release was a little delayed and I’m just having someone help me now, as it was a lot of work on my own. I actually released an album on my label before and didn’t do any promotion for that one, but I thought it would be necessary to do on this one, so in the end I released it worldwide which I’m very happy about.”
So how did you get into music-
When I was, like, five years old I was in this room listening to all these house records and disco records. That’s the first I can remember being into it; then my parents put me into piano school, which I did for a couple of years, and then I got into the drums. When I got to about grade five every kid here in Germany goes to a bigger school and I continued with music. When I turned 13, I started to buy records. I saw that Grandmaster Flash video where he explains how to DJ and that was amazing stuff. I think it was around [that] time I started working two jobs to afford turntables and records. Then I had my first big gig. When I was 16 I had my first show as a warm-up DJ and it went well and I got a lot of bookings. Then I got a program to produce music at home. I met a guy called D.I.M and we built our studio up and learnt a lot about engineering. I later moved to Berlin in 2003 and that’s when I started my Boys Noize project. I founded the label in 2005 and released a lot of music and now have finished my album.
What do you see as the role of you label-
I don’t think of it as signing hits. It’s about tracks that work well and it’s about getting the release first – then if it’s a hit, good! If something is cheesy and I don’t like it, I won’t release it. I’m moving more into the direction of Warp Records. Like Oizo but in a good way!
So what can we expect of your sets in Oz-
I’m going to do a mixture of a DJ and live set. I will obviously mash them up a little bit. I will play some records as well, but right now I’m into more old stuff like ’90s house and techno to very new tunes. The reason behind the live thing is that I while I was preparing my laptop for the performance I was conscious that I didn’t want to be up on stage looking at my screen all the time. I consider myself a musician so I think the idea of three decks and FX is a good one!
WHO: Boys Noize
WHAT: Plays Harbour Party NYE at Luna Park / Field Day
WHEN: Wednesday 31 December / Thursday 1 January
MORE: harbourparty.com / boysnoize.com