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Music

The Arrival: Boys Noize

Boys Noize talks timing, Myspace and saying "no".

This is the fifth in a series of 10 interviews with our favorite electronic music artists, celebrating the Arrival of Thump and made possible by the new Heineken Star Bottle. In this edition: Boys Noize. For more Arrivals, check here.

People don't bob their heads to Boys Noize's music. They thrash around in mosh pits. The first time I saw Boys Noize (né Alexander Ridha) play a show in New York back in 2007, his brand of razor-edged electro whipped the crowd into a surging mob of adrenaline and manic glee.

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It's no surprise, then, that Alex confesses to harboring a punk rock mentality throughout his decade-long career. He's turned down opportunities because they were too cheesy—or too commercial. That, he claims, has helped him get to where he is now: the proud captain of Boysnoize Records, which he started in 2005 to release his first record, and still uses to distribute his music without the nuisance of suits breathing down his neck.

This freedom has also allowed him explore musical territories far away from his own. From remixing David Lynch's eerie track, "Good Day Today," to producing for a South Korean band called Big Bang, Alex refuses to conform to the leather-jacket-wearing scene of tough-guy DJs that sweat his every release.

I called him up at his studio in Berlin to hear his stories about slumber parties with Skrillex, the power of MySpace, and how "nope" has made him happy.

THUMP: When was your first foray into the world of electronic music?
Alexander Ridha: My older brother got me into early house records and hip-hop when I was a super small kid at the end of the 80s. He was already listening to Farley Jackmaster Funk, Trax Records, a lot of Chicago house…when I started DJing, I was buying those records back.

When did you start DJing?
When I was 15, I started working in a house and techno record shop. I got in deep and started my record collection, which is almost up to 20,000 records now. A guy I was working with noticed I was mixing, and he was like, "Yo, I have this gig for you." It was with a local DJ who was big at the time, Boris Dlugosch, and it was his birthday, so the whole scene was at that house club in Hamburg.

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I was playing a warm-up set with deep house and disco records, and everybody was going crazy—because I was super young and skinny. They were like, "Who is that kid?" After that night, bookings just started coming in.

Did anyone encourage you to pursue DJing as a full time thing?
Not really. I was addicted to this whole house music culture because no one else was doing it when I was 16. Most of my friends thought it wasn't cool. [laughs] I felt good being an outsider. That was the main thing for me—I always wanted to be different.

What was your first big break?
A few years later, when I was 19, I built my own studio on a [whim]. Then I met one of my heroes, DJ Hell, at a gig in Berlin, gave him one of my demos, and he called me back a week later saying he loved my stuff. He was putting out super cool stuff like Miss Kittin and Vitalic at the time.

That's awesome. Where did you go from there?
I always had a dream of having my own record label, so around 2004, I started releasing my own stuff independently on Boysnoize Records. Suddenly, MySpace started, and that was the first time people outside the DJ world were able to discover my music.

Good timing.
Yeah! The whole scene started to grow. People like my friends, Justice, were inspired by techno that was harder and rock-influenced. It felt really fresh and new. When I first started, no one cared about what the DJ was doing on stage because you couldn't see him anyway. Then when it started appealing to rock and hip-hop people, kids who went out started mosh pits and stage diving. That was new for the club world.

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So the changing social scene shaped the way you DJed?
The technology did too. I stopped playing vinyl in 2008 because clubs couldn't play them anymore. It became too difficult to travel with your vinyl, and have clubs not taking care of their turntables. With CDJs, you had more effects, and more possibilities to be creative. That was really exciting for me.

Has anything about your style or your approach to DJing stayed the same all these years?
I never put my name next to something that is too cheesy or too pop. Like, I wouldn't go to Pacha. [laughs] I said no to a lot of things and it helped me get to where I am. Techno started to as a reaction to all the cheesy stuff, it was kind of a punk rock attitude…it was a lifestyle.

But did saying "no" come with a cost?
Of course! I could've gone with the whole commercial movement easily. It's not a big secret how to make those records. Right now, in EDM or whatever you call it, there's a lot of business music. But that's just not who I am. I love to play in front of 50,000 people and be successful, but there's a way to reach out to people with the things you love. People like Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy—they make good music and are also successful.

You seem to have a very strong sense for what you want and don't want to do. Has it always been clear what the right decision is, or did you develop that compass gradually?
It's harder to do things the way I do, but it's the most fulfilling way for me. When I released my first album on my own label, I could've just signed somewhere and gotten help and marketing power. Instead, I had to work harder because I didn't have a big team behind me. That might be something for me to consider in the future…if it's even worth it. But I don't need to have the number one hit on the charts. I'm happy with the life I live.

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At the same time, you've collaborated with a lot of big names—The Scissor Sisters, Snoop Dogg, Skrillex. How'd that happen?
Most of them happened pretty naturally. Last year, I took a few months off and was in Berlin all summer. Skrillex was here for a show, and he just crashed at my place for two nights. We made a lot of music, but it wasn't planned. Same way with Erol Alkan and Gonzales.

What was it like to have a slumber party with Skrillex?
It was funny because he'd never seen the machines that I use to make music, like a traditional 808, drum machine, and all the synths I have. So he was like, "What the %&*$ is all this?!" So we recorded those sounds and put it on my laptop—because he only uses his laptop to make music. I thought it was cool to have those two worlds colliding.

Have you ever felt a breakthrough moment while spinning at a party?
When I first moved to Berlin, there were lots of crazy parties—just strobe lights and nothing else but the music. That raw vibe really shaped me.

When did you realize you'd arrived as one of the biggest DJs in the world?
Well, there's always that moment when you meet P. Diddy in his mansion.

@michelleLHOOQ

The Arrival series is made possible by the new Heineken Star Bottle