Hi Richard. So where have you come from dude…?
“Well, I grew up in the south of France in the lovely city of Cannes. A great cosmopolitan city where the French high society enjoy. We have the Cannes Film Music Fesival and of course MIDEM.”
How did you get into dance music in the first place?
“Dance music was growing in the ’90s on French radio. I was listening to it late every evening on the radio, I became a nerd about all the new sounds coming out, spending my days in the record shop. I used to sneak into MIDEM as a child and ask about every single label I knew that was making house music for promos. I remember Kevin from Nervous Records was amazed to see a 12 year old boy asking for promos. Every year I went there to get those gold records and when I entered the business years later, the people recognized me from the old days and were like, “You still here?”
What was your first ever club experience?
“The very first club experience was a kind of rave party on the beach in Cannes in ’93. It was when I heard ‘I Like To Move It’, I was totally in love with that record.”
How did you get into DJing in the first place?
“A friend of mine was a fan of Public Enemy and we used to spend hours scratching in his room. I loved it so much that I stopped school for a while and practiced every day to enter the French DMC Mixing competition.”
How did you get into producing?
“I hooked up with a guy in a club that was in a search of a DJ to produce electronic music as he was more into rock music, but very interested in this new sound. So we hooked up a couple of times after that and created our first electronic beats. I have always liked completion in every domain, music producing was a big challenge as in those days we had no strong PCs but an Atari and a simple Akai sampler. I was spending more time programming than making music, so took me almost 10 years to learn everything, from engineering to mixing.”
What have been your best gigs over the years?
“M2 in Seoul rocked it big time last year and I’m also a big Brazil fan – they have music in their bodies. I also always enjoy Pacha in Ibiza with ‘Subliminal’.”
What three producers are the biggest influence on your life and why?
“Danny Tenaglia, Deep Dish and David Morales. I’d also have to add to that, the music revolution in 1996 by Daft Punk and of course the Subliminal crew.”
How did you meet Erick Morillo and get involved with Subliminal?
“After three years of producing and bringing out records I created a quite American, disco sound and always received the same answer – “you sound American but you’re from France”. It started to get critical for me money wise as my new sound was not interesting the record companies here in France. One day, I decided to make a last record in the studio and sent it to Subliminal – which was in my opinion at that time, the world’s best dance label. To be honest, I never expected to hear back from them about my record and I was already looking for regular jobs. Three weeks later, I received a message from Subliminal. At first I thought it was a joke, so I phoned Subliminal and Erick came on the line. He asked me if the record was still free…the answer was of course yes. Bam! I was back into the music business and delivered them a lot of stuff that I had produced with my Akai sampler and Atari only. No mixer, with my first check from the advance I took a flight to NYC to see them.”
I believe you live in Ibiza now though?
“Yes, I live in the best place for a dance music producer. With Morillo every week at Pacha…where else? The Summer is obviously good for a DJ, we have millions here then, in the Winter not over 100,000. It’s such a good place to relax and focus only on producing. Our airport has good connections all year long and is a two hour flight from most of cities in Europe, so also good for gigging.”
What about your sound, how do you describe it?
“Progress demands change and innovation. I’m always looking forward into producing music and trying to avoid becoming old fashion. My roots are French House, I loved my early American disco soul days and I was huge at tribal tracks but also produced progressive, tech, electro and pop dance records.”
What makes a great Richard Grey record?
The beat, the drum…the underground. Music man! Music coming from my soul.”
You’ve done a few cover versions yourself, thoughts on people doing cover versions…?
“I like putting my touch on history. But sure, enough’s enough – time for new sounds!”
You are a prolific producer, how do you keep yourself inspired?
“I live in Ibiza – what a better place is there to get inspired? In summer you go to Pacha and boom!! – in comes an idea. In winter you walk into the wood and boom!! – idea incoming! There’s almost too much music in my head lately! I feel very very, very inspired at the moment! The best music from me is coming up in the next months. Trust me.”
This depends on the gig rotation you have, I would say 10 productions more or less and very few remixes.
What do you think is the future for dance music?
“It will become the new mainstream, the new Pop. Thanks to David Guetta, even more underground records will be played on radio and TV on peak-time shows. Of that I am sure. Plus there are still so many big markets around world like India and China which are quite new to dance music coming through…”
Will everything go virtual and digital?
“I guess so, but I will not go further than playing CDs. I don’t like playing from computer programs as I don’t feel like a DJ when I do.”
What are your next projects?
” A record with one of the godfathers of house Todd Terry, we did a rework on his huge soul record featuring Jocelyn Brown. So watch out for Todd Terry vs Richard Grey – ‘Somethin Going On’. Also I have done a brand new record with Eric which will be released on Subliminal very soon – Richard Grey vs Erick Morillo “Say The Word”. Also coming a Subliminal Sessions mixed and compiled by Richard Grey. And by end of the year a bomb is coming – but schhhh!!!”
