B&B Interview: Sandy Rivera

Written by the B&B Crew

There's  no denying. Sandy Rivera's still on top of his league when it comes to punchy, yet soulful house music. Today sees the release of his new album The Blackwiz Farm, and with much more exciting plans in the pipeline, the time was right for us to go for a little chat with the renowned house honcho...

Sandy's not just one of those new school house heads. No sir. his name will always be synonym to the epic, landmark house anthem Finally, released under his Kings Of Tomorrow moniker. But the Harlem native has proven to have more tricks up his sleeve. The man's been spinning in every corner of the world for over two decades now, has dropped a serious load of funky fresh grooves on labels such as Yoshitoshi, Subliminal and Hed Kandi, and has been mixing celebrated compilations for Global Underground and Defected. Indeed, most DJs would sign on the spot for a grain of his skills. And than there's his Blackwiz label, which has proven to be a valuable source for those who like their house grooves sexy, filthy, and utterly effective.

We recently teamed up with Sandy for some first hand info on the new album, his future plans whilst also dropping a handful of details on his studio gear.

Hi Sandy, firstly a big congrats on recently becoming a father! Where do we find you today?
Hey man, thank you  I’m in Poland. I should be in Brazil but that’s another story! Stupid volcano.

Tell us about your early years growing up in Harlem and your earliest musical memories as a kid?
I remember my dad used to bring home tunes on vinyl when I was a kid and I used to listen to him play them, that is probably my earliest memory. There was a whole lot of music in Harlem in those days, I grew up in the 70s so a lot of stuff happening musically on the streets there that went on to influence huge movements, a lot of the music that you hear today in fact. Latin, early hip-hop and rap, electro b-boy beats, Spanish rhythms, that kind of thing. I was surrounded by music from a very early age.

You were into spinning hip-hop originally, what was it that made you switch over to house music?
I got myself into a bit of shit, the parties where the hip-hop was happening at seemed to attract a load of trouble, not the kind of thing I wanted to associate the rest of my life with. The house sound was coming through and it seemed to suit me more, more my kind of flavour so I gradually found myself more and more into that scene.

Describe your DJ style now in three words...
Deep, dark, sexy

As the proud owner of some of house music’s crown jewels, ‘Finally’ stands out to most people. Have you ever been amazed/horrified with any remixes or bootlegs of your own work? If so, which ones and why?
Oh yeah, hello! Some guy recently tried to do a remix of Finally, it was all over the shop, it was on Beatport and everything but it was shit! I had Defected pull it. It’s such a tune, if you’re going to do a remix of it and associate my name with what you’re doing then it had better be good!

You have a new artist album, ‘Blackwiz Farm’, released on Beatport today. Is it your usual Sandy sound? Which tracks standout to you?
If you know my sound over the years then it’s not such a huge departure. I’ve been involved with techno in some form or another for years, just my more commercial stuff is exactly that, commercial so it sells more and that’s what I’m more known for by a lot of people. But this is still my sound, it’s still something that I made and the style of music that I’ve been playing out increasingly. I love that darker, techno vibe, you seem it find it especially all over Eastern Europe which is where I’m feeling pulled right now. Cosmo Bar is a big one for me, it seems to have been attracting a lot of love from other people as well which is all good.

And the inner workings of the album - you’re an outspoken Pro Tools man. How do you find your skills best match this particular toolset?
It never ever crashes, has a lot of power to hold some good sounding plug ins and it is a better sound by far if you have the H kit. I use a lot of outboard keyboards and do most of the sounds from synths like: Nord Lead 2, Virus T1 and 2, Korg M3, Red Voyager Moog and some sound from sample libraries. I also use Ableton for starting beats. I do have Logic 9 also but I only use it like a plug in, so I do something and then get it back into Pro Tools. It really doesn’t matter what you have, it is all about what you do and what vibe your music gives out. Mixing is another matter and PT is great.

With so much readily available production software on the market, how will producers establish themselves above the rest? Are there any drawbacks to such seemingly limitless options?
Maybe that some kids just don’t know where to start. If you know what you’re doing then it’s pretty easy to distinguish between the bad and the good once you’ve had a go on it or read the reviews. I don’t think the fact that everyone is a producer these days has a massively negative effect on music. Yeah of course there’s going to be more tracks out there and not all of them are going to be good – in fact some of them are terrible – but at the same time there is some amazing stuff out there too and our ears are still the same, we can still tell the difference between good and bad.

The life of a touring DJ is something we’d consider idealistic. What’s been your favourite experience to date?
Definitely the Exit Festival in 2005. I played on the main stage in front of 25,000 people – that’s a lot of people! When I started playing, there was only a couple of thousand people, then all of a sudden when I started dropping the tunes, people came out of nowhere. Darren Emerson was playing after me and he just taps me on the shoulder and whispers to me, “Look, they came for you.” That was definitely a magical moment for me.

And the not so ideal? Surely this volcanic Armageddon episode has upset a few people?
Well yeah, me! Haha. And I guess a couple of thousand Brazilian’s who wanted to come see me play. But it’s all good, at least we’re still here and the volcano didn’t blow, and no-one got hurt. The bigger picture’s always better to look at in these kind of situations, there’s nothing you can do really.

What dates have you highlighted with the excitement pen in 2010?  Will you be touring as much nowadays with your other commitments in the picture?
My residency at Prive in Tallinn is always one that I look forward too, I have a great relationship with the guys over there and the people that come to see me play, it’s kind of like going home. Then whenever I play at the Cavo Paradiso, that too is an amazing club, have of it is outdoors on the beach, so that’s a good one for me to see when my agent sends my diary over :)

Do you have any other forthcoming exciting Sandy scoops or news we should know about?
Why yes I do: Keep an eye out later this year for a new project that I’m working on with Rae, who is the singer on my track Persuasion. It’s called KOTRAE (Kings of Tomorrow and Rae, in case you wanted to know ;) ) and it’s a chill-out album, kind of like Zero 7, Massive Attack, Portishead, Leftfield, that kind of thing. The first track will be out soon and I hope you guys like it because I think it’s one of the best things I’ve done. Hopefully we’ll be able to put a band together and tour it too because it’s perfect for the whole live festival circuit. But I’m just the producer, don’t be expecting to see me on any drums or anything! ;)

If God is a DJ, what is Sandy Rivera?
Happy :)

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