Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat. Whether you’ve seen those words plastered on a shirt or heard them blasting through festival speakers, everyone involved in the electronic music scene has ingested the title of the infamous tune in some way or another.
Even though this was the mantra of the modern raver long before the words were used for a track, they are now most commonly paired with the super model looks of Calvin Harris despite the fact he didn’t produce the track. He remixed it.
Now I know many of you reading this are probably thinking, “That’s not true! I heard the original first. It’s by Fatboy Slim!” and you deserve the proper amount of credit for knowing that, but I bet there’s a name you wouldn’t associate with the track at all, and that name is Riva Starr, who in addition to co-producing “Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat,” has been changing house music from behind the scenes for years.
Hailing from Italy and currently residing in London, Riva has been absorbing different styles of house music long before the term “EDM” existed, and his efforts have recently culminated into Snatch! Records; the label he runs which has been consistently releasing new material since 2010. The Snatch! 5-Year compilation will be released on May 24th with 15 unreleased tracks from the label\’s best.
With today’s image obsessed media, it’s easy to overlook some of the most influential figures in modern music just because they haven’t had a platinum album or had their face in a tabloid. I caught up with Riva Starr before his show at Exchange LA on Saturday to talk about what its like to change music from outside of the spotlight.
HL – How do you feel about electronic music’s rise in popularity and its recent shift towards the more sophisticated sounds like techno and tech house?
RS – I’ve been waiting for this moment to arrive. You know, they’re always saying, “EDM, it’s the entry level dance music for the kids, and they will eventually grow up and move towards the sounds that I like,” so I’m pretty happy about it. It’s all about cycles in music. I’ve been producing music for a while and I’ve seen different cycles coming back again, and then finishing, and then coming back again. So its all about making what you like and not thinking, “Oh @#$%, no one is going to have me on board anymore because the trend is somewhere else.” If you feel something you should just keep on doing it from my point of view. This particular tour in America has been really good. I think kids are really getting a bit more aware of whats beyond EDM.
HL – Do you see this shift as an opportunity to gain more mainstream attention?
RS – It’s very delicate. Talking about my style, I can handle bigger rooms, but I’m not sure how mainstream I could get. I had a couple of hits in the past that were unintentional in a way. I did “I Was Drunk,” with Noze and other very weird kind of stuff, and eventually it went number 1 and we got signed by Virgin. Then I did “Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat,” which was just an acid number with some weird vocals on top then Calvin Harris did the remix and it went number 1, but I know from that experience that I couldn’t handle a more mainstream vibe. Sometimes the crowd is not very open minded. They just want a certain kind of music. If you go to the Top 40 clubs and you don’t play the Top 40s they won’t even look at the DJ booth. I think there are certain rules you should follow if you want to be a mainstream DJ, but I don’t mind, you know? It’s different scales. Ive always considered myself in the middle ground. I can go very underground but I don’t think I could really handle a mainstream situation. I’ve been DJing way before the production side of things and there’s a quote, “I’m a DJ. I am what I play,” and it\’s fairly true to be honest.
HL – Many of your most well know tracks are collaborations. Do you feel you make better music alone or with others?
RS – I don’t know, it’s two different things. I really like to collaborate with people, but not just for the sake of it. Sometimes people do collaborations because they want to use the bigger name. Some people keep themselves relevant because they keep on collaborating with new kids. You know, the “flavor of the month.” I try to do collaborations with people I really like and I really think can improve my idea of what club music should be. That’s why I’ve done stuff with Green Velvet and Fatboy Slim. They’ve always been on my wish list for obvious reasons, and I’ve actually learned a lot from them. It’s all about having fun and thinking about what I can achieve doing stuff with people who have a certain type of character, but in terms of making music I think its pretty much the same thing its just a different approach.
HL – How do you balance life as a label head, touring DJ, and active producer?
RS – It’s pretty hard work, but I have my label manger helping me, and of course the management plays a big role in handling all the day-to-day things, but its pretty hard. I’ve been playing almost 200 gigs a year for a couple of years, and I had to step back, slow down, and pick the right ones because I was finding myself very tired all the time. I ended up making some bad choices for the label in terms of signings, bad choices in the studio in terms of production because I was too tired and you end up losing focus. So I think its good to keep a balance and not just try to over kill it. Of course, if you have a lot of requests its pretty hard to say no to gigs. It’s money as well, but you really have to. In the long term it really pays off because you have much more control, your work is better quality, and you dont kill your self with extra work. Plus I have two kids at home, so it’s not like I get home and I get rest. It’s amazing, but its hard.
HL – Did you take a break from touring when Snatch started to pick up?
RS – Yeah I actually just took two months off; January and February. I really needed it. I’m just taking weeks off here and there; at least once a month now. The summer’s probably going to be nonstop so I’m trying to find my routine with some weekends off, which allows me to keep a better balance with everything.
HL – What do you see in your future and the future of Snatch!?
We are actually pretty happy at them moment. Stepping back and slowing down the whole thing just allowed me to focus on the sound. So over the last year I really realized what I wanted from myself and from the label and it\’s actually paying off big time now. The label is definitely on the rise. We have the 5 years compilation coming at the end of May with 15 unreleased tracks, and everyone is playing our stuff. From Joseph Capriati to Marco Carolla to Loco Dice, and Maya Jane Coles, everyone. From the Riva Starr point of view after the “Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat,” thing that was pretty much everywhere, I was feeling very frustrated because it was not the sound I was standing for. Also because it was a remix. The remix was amazing for that style. It was actually very good in a way because it wasn’t the standard EDM kind of thing, but it really didn’t reflect my style. I mean, the original is Acid House. There’s not even a break down. There’s not even an intro or an outro to mixed. Its a weird track and so I really thought I had to work more on the sound and focus on being kind of fascist in the way I choose the kind of music I want to go out because I want the message to be clear: I belong to house music.
