11 September 2013 (gig)
11 September 2013
It’s always re-assuring to learn that a drinks company doesn’t believe in half-measures. Up until recently, the team at Music-News ’ understanding of Tequila was that, like fist-pump-worthy music and beautiful members of the opposite sex, it seemed to live exclusively in nightclubs, only appeared at about 1.30 am and was often the key reason for not getting the night buses we should, and sending texts to the people we shouldn’t.
The news then, that Mexico, Africa and, it emerges, Russia’s most popular Tequila brand Olmeca Tequila had decided to fly French ‘floor commander Martin Solveig out to Ibiza for a weekend of Fermented-Cactus and Floodlit-Club fun was inspiring. The subsequent news that Olmeca Tequila had then decided to fly Music-News out to cover the event had us packing our bags quicker than you could ask your local bartender for more limes. The following is what, based on somewhat inebriated scribblings on our phones, we understand happened last weekend.
11am Music News arrives into the Ibiza sunshine like a newborn, blinking, sweaty and emotional having come directly from a cramped venue the night before, via a 4am taxi to London City airport. Scanning around the usual sea of bored stubbly taxi-guy faces we spot an Olmeca sign, attached to a pair of impossibly good looking models decked out in Olmeca Tequila mini-shorts and matching heels. Music-News stilted attempts at small talk are received with bemused amusement. We’re then met by a detachment of approximately 300 hundred Russians, South Africans, Mexicans, Georgians and an international party of awestruck competition winners and placed onto a coach.
Arriving at the Hotel Gran Ibiza we’re ushered by yet more models to our rooms and met with the first of what will ultimately be a daunting number of bottles of Tequila.
9pm
Music-News is in Ibiza’s Nuba Restaurant where we’re served Tequila jugs to start, followed by Tequila Old-Fashioned’s through dinner, then Tequila-coffee-liqueur for dessert. Hazily wandering to the terrace for some air, we bump into Ian Credible Olmeca’s Be-The-DJ competition winner of earlier in the year, who closed Amnesia earlier in the week. How did it go? “It was just.....just.....” Ian gestures with his hands, an amazed look on his face. A model hands him another shot.
2am
It’s 2am and Music-News is in Space Ibiza. Cyril Hahn ’s laid back pitched down sound has been replaced first with the rumbling anarchic menace of Brodinski then with the rolling groove of Felix Da Housecat playing a locked-in sleazy sound so slick it slides down the walls and across a dancefloor punctuated by dancers on podiums and hot lights smashing into relaxed bodies.
Saturday
10pm
Following a day at Cala Bassa Beach Club involving an inordinate amount of Tequila daiquiris (try this) followed by impromptu jetski drag racing (don’t try this), Music News is now sat in El Ayoun restaurant, flanked on one side by masses of Russians who are becoming increasingly enamoured with Olmeca’s ‘Mexican-flavoured vodka’ - as one Muscovite blogger sweatily pronounced - and are now doing what Russians do best: loudly celebrating. On our other side, Georgians are doing what Georgians do best, quickly leaving, when Russians are celebrating. Music-News has now sampled Tequila lime and tonic (yes) Tequila and lemonade (maybe) and Tequila Red Bull (nope) in between courses of what we understand was good food before we’re steered into a taxi for our interview with Martin Solveig
Music-News is led into a designer hotel, pounding music in the lobby, socialites running around bearing champagne and mini-vodka bottles and burlesque dancers hovering every few paces. Led by two Mexican female brand ambassadors (there’s got to be something in the water. Potentially tequila.) up a lift and down a red-lit corridor we’re ushered into a room where fierce looking supermodels float around, kitten heels picking between around 5 video cameras on tripods, on mounts, on shoulders of busy looking cameraman whilst a well built Austrian man finishes a cigarette on the balcony, shakes hands and introduces himself as the shoot director.
That’s not a middle aged French DJ....
The interview with Solveig is to be filmed for Olmeca Tequila. Sure enough, the man himself arrives shortly after, medium sized, slight build and a permanent expression of quiet amusement on his face. He insists on standing on his record box for his photo shoot with the models (“Why do you guys get me such tall girls? Did you do this on purpose?”) before bantering with the film crew following requests to say sponsored pieces into the camera.
His tunes are massive. His height less so.
Amusement and a sense of relief all round, the director now takes Music-News by the shoulder and pushes us down onto a chair, facing Martin Solveig, cameras between us. Laptops, models and other expensive equipment are cleared away, a hush fills the room and spotlights burst into life either side of us. Red lights and timers appear on a multitude of camera screens and Music-News can feel the director’s face by our shoulder: “You’re up. Don’t clear your throat, don’t hesitate, don’t ask complex questions. Oh, and whatever you do, don’t screw this up.”
Well. This should be a breeze.
-2013’s been quite the year for you: new hit with Hey Now, a Las Vegas residency. One thing you’re known for is continually producing fresh performances & production: how do you manage that when you’re continually doing such high profile stuff?
Well that’s a relief to hear! I continuously try and renew my sound. What helps is my consistent collaborations and studio work with other producers and friends, for instance a project I’m working on now with Laidback Luke or with previous productions like Hey Now with the Cataracs . Working with different artists all of whom have different approaches I guess helps my own production move down new paths.
You are indeed known for your collaborations, how do these come about? Is it a case of friendly behind-the-scenes chats over drinks or is their serious strategy at play?
As much as my world over time has become a lot more professional and the access to other artists over time has become both increasingly straightforward and officiated, I don’t really work by the manual, I try as much as possible to go on raw instincts when it comes to making music. We had just a couple of chats with the Cataracs back in 2011, simply because I liked their stuff and that led to the collaboration. So I guess to an extent for me it’s still down to ‘private messaging’ levels of casual communication and late night Skype’s rather than management teams shaking hands and so on.
You’re French, your sound has a very international feel to it, as opposed to the very stylised productions of the likes of other French acts Daft Punk and Justice, or the weird tech house wobbles of Shonky. What then, inspires you?
I’ve always struggled to answers questions on what defines ‘The French Touch’ in music. When you move away from the core of the French Touch, the likes of Daft Punk and similar artists between perhaps 1995 - 2000 had their niche but after that you had Bob Sinclar, then you had the rise of David Guetta, and these guys were a departure, they had their own sound which became regarded as more international by its raw global success. What I cared about was defining my own sound, through my collaborations and their own nods to different genres, but by virtue of my proximity to other French names, I guess that’s how my sound began to feel ‘international’.
As someone who’s been in the spotlight for a while, what do you think has caused this growth over the last half-decade or so in mass mainstream interest for electronic music?
It’s the natural evolution of a musical genre that was born in the late 80s - at least in terms of widespread distribution of its ideas. It’s the last and latest ‘primary’ genre of music, rather than subgenre, to have been born in living memory, so really electronic music cracking the mainstream was inevitable, like hip-hop before, like rock and roll before that. In each case it started with underground movements and ideas and over the course of 25 years hit the top 10 charts. This is just part of the lifecycle.
Talking of evolution, so much has changed even in the last decade in terms of delivery: social media, music-sharing, production software, even the act of DJing for many is handled quite differently to how it once was. From where you sit, what’s changed the most?
Social media’s definitely a contender for biggest change. It’s an interesting one though. I always say in interviews that I’m not doing the same job I set out to do years ago, I’m still a producer, a DJ, but the day to day running of that career is dramatically different because of social media, of followers, of maintaining a brand with online and offline presences, in so many different countries. There’s a pressure to an extent to be constantly innovating in the hope of drawing interest from new followers and fans. But, I like that, it all feels fast moving, it feels immersive challenging.
Do you feel nowadays, with established communities of online trollers and plenty of increasingly opinionated music fans, that you have to be strategic in working with top-name artists, in not being too commercial, or does that not cross your mind?
First of all, I see all this happen however I feel lucky because I’m miraculously light on online haters. Some of my good friends have received serious flak but so far I’ve avoided it. I guess all that happens because social media culture is such that individuals receive more attention by venting hatred rather than hype and support. It’s utter bullsh*t, but it’s unfortunately fact. All the artists I know are working and creating based on pure instinct, so when someone slates them it hits them directly, and hard. But them you learn to realise that this is an attention seeking exercise, based on the fact these individuals are not themselves prominent media figures so are doing all this in an attempt to weirdly emulate your own influence. Bystanders criticising for personal fame is much older than social media. It has its perks of course, some people send me jokes or tease me and I respond to that, it’s fun, but otherwise, what can you do? Not read tweets I guess!
Where do you see yourself in the future?
In the next 40 minutes? Playing in my favourite club, Pacha, for Olmeca Tequila, obviously laughs , in the next few months I have a few records on the go including the upcoming project with Laidback Luke and further out, I’m working on a music video and I love that. Video is my other passion. I’ve come up with some new film concepts, I’m flying to the US to work on the shoot and I’m really hyped for that.
If you weren’t a DJ, what would you be?
I would be Owen Wilson.
Huh? I mean, Oh, do go on....
I’d be Owen Wilson in all his roles: I’d model and I’d also fight crime, more often than not with Ben Stiller.....
3am
Pacha Ibiza is heaving. Performers in all-glitter body suits dance on raised platforms around the superclub. A nude woman swims around in a martini glass in the outdoor terrace. Inside, the crowd are repeatedly blasted with immense, Tsunami-like vertical ice cannons, which do nothing to lower the intense heat radiating from the DJ booth. Solveig opens with a stripped, techy rerub of ‘Hello’ laying down a theme that will dominate his monster set as up on the VIP balcony, Music-News once again is fed a combination of tequila mixers, tequila shots and hugs from startlingly beautiful girls.
There was something important at play here too. An understanding of context. Corporates have long been interested in entering into the music-sponsorship arena. Music however, has long been cautious. For an industry that’s been at the forefront of liberal from day one, the only point that gets most artists upset is the debate on ‘selling out’, and the arrival of major brands to an artist or event is often regarded by many as an embarrassing admission of defeat of some description. Olmeca’s Ibiza weekender proved a balance could be had. Yes, there were big restaurants, yes there were a couple of speeches, but there was a sense of tactful separation between music and marketing. Olmeca had VIP areas cordoned off in venues, but there were no glaring banners, no eyesore visuals from DJ booths, no tired looking DJs forced to shake hands with sweaty businessmen in backrooms. The only real reminder once Music-News entered the club that these were backed events was an abundance of free tequila and insanely aesthetic hosts. Other brands, take note. Olmeca have got this.
Find out more here
Ally Byers
