Music Without Limits: Boys Noize

Since he burst into the international public consciousness with breakthrough debut album Oi Oi Oi back in 2007 Boys Noize aka Alex Ridha has enjoyed a meteoric rise through the industry. Now one of electronicas most credible artists, 3 albums and 100 releases in to his hugely successful eponymous imprint, all whilst maintaining a hectic touring schedule that sees him perform live and DJ around the globe we think he may be one of the hardest working men in electronic music. With that in mind we thought we’d catch up with the incredibly busy German ahead of his live performance at SW4 and the release of his new EP ‘Go Hard’ to look back on his illustrious career and have a glimpse at what the affable producer has up his sleeve for the future.

Firstly can I congratulate you on your label Boys Noize Records reaching a major mile stone on recently celebrating it’s 100th release. You pulled in some pretty heavy hitters for the remixes in seminal duos the Chemical Brothers and Justice, was it important for you to mark the occasion in style?

Thank you. Yes it was a special release as when I set up my label reaching 100 releases obviously seemed very far away so to make it this far was always going to be a great achievement. I feel very lucky that we were able to get the Chemical Brothers and Justice to complete remixes for the EP as to have both of them on there was epic. Their involvement came about as I undertook remixes for them in the past as part of a swap deal. The Justice one was 6 years ago! So I took my time in asking them to deliver it but it was worth waiting for.

You have taken a lot of remix work yourself over the years across a broad spectrum of genres, why do you think you’ve taken such an eclectic approach to music throughout your career? We had your remix of the Dave Clarke classic Wisdom To The Wise as our single of the week…

Thank you! I’ve always been a fan of Dave Clarke so when the opportunity came up it was great to remix his work, I’m happy you liked it. Well I think it reflects both me as a producer and me as a DJ, if you’ve followed my career or seen me DJ you’ll have seen that I don’t limit myself to a specific genre. From disco to house to techno to rap and lots of other styles.  I like working with all of these genres as it keeps what I’m doing fresh – music shouldn’t have limits! I love different sounds, like one day I might be working with a 909 on some super analogue track, then the next day it can be Dave Clarke and then a rap track the next! On my albums they have more of a theme within the album as each one had a concept behind it for that album but each LP is very different to the one before and after as they are different projects from different stages in my life.

Do you think this variety in your style has led to your cross genre appeal? At a Boys Noize gig you get such a cross pollination of different music fans…

Yeah definitely and I think that’s really cool. The cross pollination leads lots of people to discover you and your music which is really nice; when I remixed Depeche Mode it introduced me to a whole new audience. I just make what I feel in the moment, I’ve never had a style based on certain sounds or what other people are saying is cool. I just make music that I enjoy and hope others enjoy it too.  For me music shouldn’t be a business but that’s another conversation!