You can’t make lemonade without lemons… just like you can’t make a crowd dance without Riva Starr. As an artist who plunders the depths of dance music, Riva Starr has a sound and style that is infectiously jaunty. He’s sassy and fun – just like his beats – and loves to party. He’s most notably known for his smash and crash single I Was Drunk, a disclaimer which has now become his default line – he’s audacious, at one point in the interview detailing how he’d love the first 10 rows of his Summadayze appearance to be made up purely of girls in bikinis… a likely possibility in a city known for its fine fillies.
How would you describe your music? House music. It has influences from funk to electronic music. I listen to a lot of music. It’s just my take on dance music. It’s hard to describe I guess, but there is a lot of fun and I like to make music that has a lot of ideas in there.
What’s a worst ever festival experience that’s ever happened to yourself or someone you know? Once, and I don’t know why, I got booked for a trance festival. So if you can imagine everyone playing 150 BPM’s like cheesy, trancey, vocally stuff and then I was playing like 124 (BPM’s). Big time, everyone was just standing in front of the stage and no move, no-one. For one hour it looked like it was just going to be quiet. So I learnt how to play trance in 10 minutes.
Do you have a best ever festival experience? I’ve played at festivals with Underworld and done Glastonbury and played in Japan with the likes of Massive Attack, so it’s hard to pick just one.
Dream festival line-up? I like more than just one style so I would try and get the most interesting acts from different musical backgrounds and try and put them all together in a way that is fun. So it’d range from dub step to even rock and techno and tech house… whatever. I’d just bring it all together.
If Riva Starr were a transformer, what would you change into? I would change into a big mozzarella pizza and eat myself.
Riva Starr will appear at Summadayze on January 8. www.futureentertainment.com.au/summadayze
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
