|
 Hong Kong based DJ Ricky Stone beat Pete Tong and landed himself as number 48 DJ in the world at Ministry of Sound’s Top 100 DJ competition held in London on November 3rd 2005.
HKClubbing caught up with Ricky to talk about being a superstar DJ, partying and future plans.
Nilly Chaudhuri: How does it feel to be the number 48 DJ in the world?
Ricky Stone: I dunno really. I’m still taking it all in. It’s been crazy ever since…lots of offers and stuff in my e-mail for the last two weeks…sponsorship, endorsements and dates in strange places…things like that. I’m a bit shocked to be honest to have come top 50. When they told me I thought I’d be like 90 something. In the Ministry they had screens all over the place and they started off at 100. Then they got to 70 and we were like “Oh Dear!”. Then they got to 60 and me and Rich were like…”Bloody hell!” and then they got to 50 and we were like “We can’t be in it!”…The 49 was Pete Tong and we were like “This is unreal!” Then it was 48 and it came up and there was about 3000 people…I was like “Oh Shit!” and my mates were just looking at me…”I wanted to leave after that!”…I was quite shocked actually. But China…Asia I suppose is a big place and I have got a lot of fans out here!
NC:I just caught China there, before you said Asia what’s your general feel about the club scene in China over Hong Kong?
RS: It’s just really kicking it over there. I suppose it’s all quite new there so it’s fresh…but even small B cities that might only have 20 clubs have 7 full nights. There is a lot of sponsorship there from drinks people…Hong Kong is a lot more different…here’s more controlled and I suppose it’s just a lot smaller.
Sponsors here in Hong Kong don’t really like to get involved in the club scene, they don’t need to…In China they are all fighting for club nights…Chivas, Johnnie Walker, Hennesy are kind of throwing money about and they can afford to bring the top 100 DJ’s into China and you only pay like RMB 80 or sometimes nothing at all
I only play perhaps twice a year now in Hong Kong. I just like to live here. I’m not a big fan of R n B music at all and most of the clubs here are big on that sound..
That sound has just not taken off in China. I guess people don’t really relate to the lyrics. They are really into house there…which is good!
I think the best fun I’ve ever had in Hong Kong is probably 348 in Jordan. That’s where the fun is and usually after 348 hit Cyber on Tsim Sha Tsui.
NC: Did you manage to find time to DJ and collaborate with artists during the whole DJ award show?
RS: It was non-stop, we arrived at 6 am in London…got picked up and went straight into the studio by 9am and we stayed at the studio for two solid days, made three tracks and then on the Thursday went straight to London…Went to London had four meetings actually, then went to the Ministry at night and then to an after party and then went straight to Heathrow airport, off to Belfast…slept in the day, DJ-d at night, next morning flew back to Heathrow…Dj-d at ‘Wildchilds 6th Birthday Party’…went right through to six and flew straight back to Hong Kong. Died for a few days then played at Volar last Friday.
NC:With your collaborations with Dylan Rhymes are the tracks quite breaks oriented?
RS: No, not at all. The sound has changed a lot now. One is breaks and the other is kinda Electro funk clash filth wassit called
NC: Have you tried out the new tracks yet?
RS: Yeah at Volar. They went down very well. One of the tracks we’ve done is called “Shanghai Taxi”. Inside the taxis in Shanghai they have this computer-recorded thing…like a female animated vocal that says, “Welcome to take my taxi” in Putonghua. But in English it says, “Welcome to Take My Taxi, Please Fasten The Seat Belt and Don’t Forget Belongings”. I recorded on my MP3 player and took it to the UK and we’ve sampled it up into the track. I haven’t played that in Shanghai yet, but it’ll be good. I have given a few selct djs up there a copy and the feedbacks very strong It works really good in house music because of the rigidity of the sample.
NC: So what’s the plan right now? Albums, singles, compilations?
RS: Well I’ve just done those two singles recently. They will go to a different labels. One’s breaks that will go to Kingsize (now Adrift). The “Shanghai Taxi One” will go to either of two labels, “Junior ” or “Red Records”. Album I’m not so sure about right now, but hopefully get a mixed compilation…Pioneer want to do some stuff (name of CD) …for China that is.
I am just going to be focusing on tours right now. I’ll be off to tour the States Central and Latin America for about 3 months at the beg of 2006 which will also tie in the Miami Music Conference
NC:So what cities are you hitting?
RS: We are doing Canada first…Montreal and Vancouver in the middle of January and then a whole tour of the States. We’ll be there for the Miami Music Conference. We’ll be showcasing the tracks I did with Dylan Rhymes and generally fooling around for a week
NC: What genre would you put your music in?
RS: Electronic house music….I suppose…I don’t pigeonhole any one style. It depends where it is…In Japan I tend to play more techno stuff. In China more housey, electroy, breaks. In Hong Kong, they are really into breaks here..especially at Volar.
NC: You are based in Shanghai now?
RS: No not really, I’ve still got my flat here and an apartment there…We set up an office in Shangahi..Sort of in between. At the end of this year I’ll be out of Asia for six months to start the tour so we’ve just taken on one more staff to get the foundations set for when I leave.
NC: What brought you to Hong Kong?
RS: Alan James did from C Club. To cut a long story short, I came to Hong Kong in 2002 had a residency at C Club in Lan Kwai Fong, which was initially for I think 2 months and after 8 weeks they asked me to stay for another 2 months and then that became 6 months. In that period of time I met a guy from the Philippines called Jesse Gonzalez from DMC and near the end of that duration he asked me to tour the Philippines with him for two months, which became 6 months. So I’d been away from home for a year. In that time I’ve met people from Japan, Malaysia, India…everywhere the whole of Asia…. So I had then been away from home for about two years. Then I went back to the UK and came back again…this was for the DJ awards…I hadn’t been back since.
NC: Having heard your schedule and hectic ness of it all, how do you manage?
RS: I’ve toned down a lot these days. I don’t really drink much anymore and have stopped smoking, it’s the fruit juices and hitting the gym every day and getting plenty of sleep to get over the whole time zone changes and travel issues.
Interview By: Nilly Chaudhuri |
