Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo wants his fans to know that despite his prolonged success with the Bloody Beetroots, it has made him anything but complacent. The man behind the mask continues to channel his inner punk persona more than ever before within his solo project SBCR, a project focused on experimental composition. His latest solo EP, SBCR & Punks Vol. 3 is due today, and we had the opportunity to discuss all things SBCR and what makes this powerful figure in dance music continue to push himself outside the box. While much of the dance music world has been criticized as of late for \”playing it safe\”, SBCR continues to evidence that fans are hungry for something new and exciting to shake the existing  system.

EDMChicago: Your new EP \”SBCR & Punks Vol. 3\” comes out March 25, what was your inspiration for the EP?

SBCR: The whole SBCR project is all about experiments, and this is the last installation. It\’s inspiration for what I\’m going to do after this with all the knowledge I have now, and new production
skills for The Beetroots. That was my intention; 15 months, 3 EPs, and 15 songs.

EDMC: Definitely, I was curious as to how your creative outlook between the SBCR project and the Beetroots differs, or do you consider them to be vastly similar?

SBCR: With Beetroots I tell more stories of my life, and the music is inspired by the way I live, and the people I\’ve met. SBCR is a production project with just myself and my collaborators in the studio creating an experience with sounds, and trying to discover myself as a producer in 2016.

EDMC: You\’ve called yourself a lover of Chopin. How does a love of classical music translate into the music you make?

SBCR: A lot of The Beetroots\’ work was inspired by classical music, not only Chopin, but Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky, and Wagner…If you listen to \”The Furious\”, from my last Beetroots album Hide there\’s a very Wagner-ian aspect to the song. The Beetroots project itself brings all of the classical elements together. With SBCR it\’s less evident, but still, my music skills are there, my harmonies are there. I\’m just not going to do any Bach arpeggio with SBCR music at the moment because I feel it\’s not as proper as with The Beetroots.

EDMC: I have a quote here from one of your interviews with Billboard… You say \”feeling out of my comfort zone in the creative process for me is necessary, if not indispensable.\” Speaking to this quote, even with all the success you\’ve had why do you still feel so strongly in pushing yourself out of your comfort zone?

SBCR: We should first talk about what success is. I believe success is when you live your life and you are happy living that life. If I don\’t evolve, I\’m not happy. I\’ve got to grow every day, and that\’s what I do in life. Of course, all of the other disciplines around me are growing too when I grow. So that\’s what success means to me, happiness. To create my happiness, I need to evolve, I need to get out of my comfort zone making new music, meeting new people, and creating new experiments. I\’m always hungry for new things to discover, and new stuff to learn.

\"Main

EDMC: You\’ve had the opportunity to work with so many different  artists, all the way up to Paul McCartney. Who else would you  still like to work with in the future?

SBCR: There\’s lots of people I want to work with, but it has to come natural. As soon as I have the Beetroots music done, then I will open up that chapter to collaboration. First I want to make something solid musically speaking, and then put it out to potential collaborators. At the moment, I can\’t say any names, but as soon as I have the music I will open that chapter.

EDMC: What can we expect in the near future from both SBCR and the Beetroots in the near future?

SBCR: Now that the two projects are well established, SBCR is going to continue its own journey to the collaborative music. It\’s going to be my DJ aspect, but I am first and foremost a musician. The Beetroots are going to play as a live band because we have decided after many, many years to step out of the DJ scene and make the Beetroots a live band. What I\’m going to do is compose music functional for the live aspect of the band.

EDMC: Going back to what we talked about earlier with pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, now we are seeing a lot more live instrumentation coming to the shows. How important do you think that trend is to having success in this industry?

SBCR: I think it\’s crucial at the moment. We needed to evolve as a set. We all need to evolve. We need to make live music better again, because live music is the human aspect of music that we pride ourselves on. People are getting tired of the screens, and the one guy doing nothing. We need to bring back that human aspect. That\’s why the Beetroots is so important to me; I need to bring back my humanity. SBCR was my chance to play music that translates between the old and new generation on a new journey.

EDMC: Do you think SBCR is the entry point into your scene where fans can better appreciate your Beetroots work after having first listened to SBCR?

SBCR: I hope so, we have some new kids coming to SBCR shows who are curious and have no idea what The Bloody Beetroots is, or what I used to do with them. Lots of them have questions, but now I have the ability to show them what Beetroots is all about.

Special thanks to Dim Mak for hosting the interview, and to SBCR for joining us. Be sure to check out SBCR & Punks Vol. 3 out March 25th, and its high energy single \”Guillotine\” below!

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR