Ron: Britney Spears?
Robbie: Yes. I had this idea, especially now, I just heard Peter Rauhofer's new mix of Britney and Madonna, and it's phenomenal, he did a fantastic job. It's kind of like the thought that I had in my head that I wanted to do with her, and it came out really cool. I know she a real commercial pop star, but sometimes I like to take those pop stars and make them cool.
Ron: Give them a real underground edge.
Robbie: Yes. And I'd also like to remix Madonna again. For sure, I'd like to mix Madonna again.
Ron: On a personal level, you remixed one of my all-time favorite records that DJ Eric "We Are Love".
Robbie: That was good, I love that record too.
Ron: How did you approach that one?
Robbie: They called me and that's when all the music that I was doing was based on disco samples. I bought some disco records, and had to cut them up to hide them so you don't have to clear the samples, so basically that's what I did there. They already had the Hall and Oates samples and then the dub mix which is the one that actually blew up, that was a good one, that was a long time ago.
Ron: How do you approach a remix differently than an original track?
Robbie: It's different, it's very different. Making an original track, I have much more freedom to get very creative and do whatever I want, whatever I think rocks. When I do a remix, I want to do something that rocks and that works on the floor, but you have to have in mind the label and the A&R guy. When you do a remix for a major label, you're actually doing a remix for one guy. If he doesn't like it, you know, that's it. Even if you think it rocks and you play in the club and it's huge, you know, but what the hell, that's business.
Ron: It's the label's vision of the artist and what they want for the artist.
Robbie: Yes. I finish remixes, like I did a remix for Moloko which I was so happy with the remix. I was like wow, I love this, it's very musical, it's got like a Depeche Mode vibe. Then she (Moloko vocalist Roisin Murphy) hated it, she totally hated it, like to death. But her label loved it, her manager loved it and my manager loved it, everybody loved it except her. She didn't want to release it, and it took it like two months to convince her until they released it.
Ron: And then does she still hate the record?
Robbie: Probably, I don't know, I haven't spoken to her, but probably.
Ron: You said earlier that you play four to six hour sets when you DJ out, do you ever DJ in the big festivals where its like thirty-five DJs in six hours?
Robbie: Yes... I love playing there because it's a lot of people, but you only get one hour or two to play and there's always a mess with the DJ schedules. OK, he's supposed to end now and then the other DJs supposed to play an hour set, and the other DJ plays two extra songs so that means you're going to lose twenty minutes of your set. Then it depends who's playing after you, if Paul Oakenfold's playing after you and then you get all the egos and shit like that. That's the only problem with big festivals, but when they're really, really organized it's really, really good. The last festival I played was in Amsterdam this summer and there was fifty thousand people, and can you believe I did not play at all?
Ron: You didn't play?
Robbie: No, because my plane was delayed from Barcelona to Amsterdam, and I got there and in Amsterdam the festival has to end at eleven o'clock at night because it ran the whole day. But it had to end period, and I got there at ten forty-five. The DJ that was there did not want me to play, and I was like come on, I have one record, you have fifty thousand people here. The guy didn't let me play, so I said screw it. Because he started late, I was like damn, whatever man.
Ron: As a DJ you're always end up in those situations, you never know what's going to happen.
Robbie: I know.
Ron: Right now, when you played out last weekend, what was the biggest records for you?
Robbie: Last weekend I played Dublin in Ireland, the show was amazing. The biggest record there was my new track .
Ron: Which is?
Robbie: Vertigo, which is on my Wicked CD. This track's going to be huge, it's like my next Funkatron. It's very different and very original and I really feel it's going to be a huge one.
Ron: And it's going to be the highlight single off the Wicked CD?
Robbie: Yes. I especially put it there because the vinyl's coming out in November through Subliminal with Juicy. I've sent it to certain DJs and I know Roger Sanchez is playing it and Eric is playing it. I've sent it to some club and mixshow DJs in New York and got pretty awesome feedback. It's pretty different, it's pretty hard, like 132 BPM and it's got a tough beat, have you heard it?
Ron: No, I haven't heard it yet.
