Interview of DJ Riri
DJ Riri, aka Riri Mestica, one of the biggest Indonesian DJs
Interview added on Sat, 25 Nov 06
DJ Riri
DJ Riri, one of Indonesia's best, most senior, and most experienced DJs, accorded us an interview, after the 2nd Anniversary Party of 7/24 at Centro, where he played from midnight till 1:30 AM.
Good evening DJ Riri, thanks for according us this interview. We're from indonesiaclubbing.com - glad to see you play at Centro!
Hi, good evening!
So, we have a few questions for you. First of all : The crowd at Centro which is practically younger than your usual crowd, let's say at Centro tonight the age range is between 18-23, while you mostly play for people around 24+ don't you?
Actually, there's no boundaries of age, neither crowd limit. I even have a 6-year-old listener who know ALL of my songs and mixes! So, as in music is universal, my crowd is universal. Global. You can be a teen, a mid-aged, an adult, or even a kid (like in the 6-year-old case) and you still like my mixes. So I always try to give my best in every gig I do, regardless of the crowd range. What matters to me is that the crowd is happy. As long as they're happy, I'm happy. It means I do a good mixing job. And talking about crowds' ages, in my DJ Management, we also have DJs whose crowd is veeeeery young, for example I have a DJ who is 17-year-old, talented, and his crowd is of course very young. It's not about the age. It's about how making your crowd mean it when they say, "This DJ is great".
Actually we heard that you studied in Lille, France. From our experiences we know that French DJs such as Antoine Clamaran, Laurent Garnier, David Guetta, and all, even though they possess each their own genre de musique, they have another identity and different styles/touches as DJs from UK and US, which are slightly closer in terms of personal touches.
Actually, I have my own style of mixing, it's uninfluenced by my French experiences. I think the techniques are everywhere the same, but the style is personal. Indonesian DJs are actually very potential, because they do the mix to the whole of it.
That's great! But nowadays, the term "DJ" is often misunderstood and misused in Indonesia - everyone is DJ. What we mean, it's so easy now for someone who understands a little bit of CDJ to do mixing, without even knowing what real mixes are...
Yeah I know. I think computer is good for learning, but softwares cannot replace human senses. You might remark that the DJs who mix with computers would never reach the soft mix level we DJs who stick with vinyls and CDs can. If you want to start, better start with vinyls and real mixers, don't start with computers. As long as you depend on the computer, you can never call yourself a real 'DJ'. I would encourage everyone who wants to try to be a DJ to start with real stuff because the experience behind mixers is something great.
You're from Spinach right? Can you tell us a little bit about Spinach, and the new one, SubSpina? What's the difference?
Actually, Spinach itself is only a DJ Management when we started. Then we started the DJ School, and we found many new DJ talents, who weren't ready yet to enter Spinach, but very talented that you would feel as guilty as sin if you don't let them get a chance to explore their capacities. We sensed the need to build a new community for those junior/rookie DJs who are talented, but not yet ready to get involved too deep in the business. That's how SubSpina was born. Now our management possess a good number of talented DJs, juniors, young ones, or older people who only started DJing recently. We encourage them to explore their styles, their creativities, we support them to start playing at clubs, doing their own events, and all. It's very positive, I'm happy about it.
So your DJs from both Spinach and SubSpina each has a style of their own?
Style, music genre, creativity, it's very personal. We don't limit them, we help them develop themselves to become great DJs in the future.
Now back about yourself...Do you often play in Bali? More often than in Jakarta?
Not that often, maybe in a year I'd play, let's say, about 10 times in Bali. I still stay mostly in Jakarta gigs, everywhere. Like yesterday at the same night I had Centro for 7/24 and Vertigo for The Generation.
We think that it must be pretty exhausting DJing for 1-2 hours, and if you do two gigs at the same night, does it affect your play?
I always try to avoid it, and give all my best for both gigs. Of course there are small obstacles, such as the question of adaptation. Each club has a different kind of DJ booth, different soundsystem installment, different people, different ways, and for each club I try to play the best songs suitable for the club's crowd. Actually the biggest problem lies in the adaptation. If I have more than one gig in one night, by the time I start the second one, I'd need 2-3 songs time to adapt, before I get totally in and perfectly readapt with everything.
Actually, being a DJ is exactly the same as being a musician, only you use different platforms...
Yeah, that's correct. We create our own music using our own ways. But our soul belongs to music. We love and live for music.
What do you think about a clubbing website? Is that necessary or still, other media such as printed magazine, tv, radio and all are better way to advertise?
No, I don't think so. I think it's necessary to have a website too, nowadays. Internet is growing fast, if you see hotspots for wifi everywhere, and basically, we're happy to get supports for the dance music scene from everyone.
Actually, IndonesiaClubbing is not just a website, it's an online guide to discover the Indonesian nightlife, with everything inside, you have the party agenda, the gallery, all the addresses and info, friendship networking system - maybe like Friendster for clubbers - and the community behind is very positive. And we're working on the DJ database system now. We consider internet as a good way to make the message pass through, the message for everyone to support the nightlife, the dance music scene, the creativity of people behind it, the DJs, the EOs, the clubs/bars/lounges/other nightlife establishments, basically everyone who's involved in it.
I think that's great. The message needs to be passed through. Dance music scene has been identified with 'bad' mark since years, and it's time to get people to understand that it's not bad, it's creative and very fastly developing.
Do you have any special messages you want to transfer to your fans at our website?
Thanks, keep supporting us!
