Here’s a short interview from Solarstone. Rich arrives to Finland to play 19th of December in Helsinki and 20th in Tampere.
01. This isn’t your first time in Finland. What kind of memories do you have from your previous visits?
Last time I played for Gatecrasher in Helsinki – that was awesome – but also last time I was there I produced a wicked track in the studio with Orkidea – possibly the nicest guy in Trance! Really looking forward to seeing everyone again – I met some crazy Finns at an Irish bar too, you guys really know how to drink!
02. In your opinion, what is the current state of trance music? Do you miss the “good old days” or are the best times still ahead?
It’s a cyclical thing, the scene keeps morphing and changing in various ways, it’s great! I’m really stoked at the moment, the RSE (RainStarsEternal) album has done really well and the Electronic Architecture project is coming along really nicely, I think that it helps if you try and do something different – this is what keeps the scene healthy. For example, with RSE I tried to make an album that was an entire concept – visual and audio in terms of the packaging and tour visuals, not just another load of club tracks stuck on one disc. Same with Electronic Architecture – the concept for this is really fresh and exciting… but i’m not going to expand on that yet!
03. You’ve produced several worldwide hits and now a brand new artist album. If you should name one or two of your favourite own productions or remixes, what would they be?
Ooooh well, that’s a tricky one because my favourite track is usually the one i’m currently working on! But if I had to pick a favourite one or two i’d say ‘Late Summer Fields’ and ‘4ever’, which are two tracks that pretty much encapsulate the Solarstone sound.
04. Talking about your new album – when the record business is becoming more and more digital and people tend to buy individual tracks rather than whole albums, are artist albums losing their value or perhaps becoming more special?
I don’t think a truly great album would ever lose its value, but more and more labels are releasing rubbish albums digitally – this is the big problem with digital releases, there seems to be little quality control because labels perceive that there is less investment required i.e they don’t do any – which is wrong. It seems to be a case of ‘throw enough mud against the wall and hope some of it sticks’. For example, I received over 200 unique promo emails from labels in the space of 2 weeks recently – this is ridiculous – and i only just had enough good material for this weeks radio show – that’s only 20 tracks out of apprx 800 tracks and remixes. I’m sick of receiving rubbish promos from digital labels who have no sense of quality control. So an album is an extension of that unfortunatly. If you’re going to release an album of music it should be a thing of beauty, in every sense. I hate the whole ‘that’ll do’ attitude – both from labels and also producers. Tracks where the producer just uses a load of presets sounds from the same VSTs that everyone else uses. What happened to creating your own sounds? This is part of the joy of electronic production, messing with sounds, creating unique patches and effects, it is why I do what I do. There is so much laziness in the scene these days – but having said that, there are still many brilliant producers and brilliant tracks, you just have to wade through the myriad of dross to get to them.
05. You know DJ Orkidea personally. How and when did you get to know each other? What would you like to say about Orkidea as an artist?
I can’t actually remember how we met, but he is a true original and we share exactly the same love of ‘Real Trance’ – he is one of my favourite producers and I always have time for him, he’s a real ambassador for Finland – it’s about time he was made an Official ambassador for Finnish music really!