(Michelle Resendiz)
Recently David Guetta interviewed with In the Mix , and we are really intrigued with how busy one man can be. David’s new album ‘Nothing but the beat’ has been getting rave reviews everywhere and is currently available on iTunes.
Here’s a trivial question… is he really going to be working with Paris Hilton in the studio soon? There’s some buzz around the net that Paris is planning on being the most powerful woman in house music. Here’s the buzz according to NME.com
Paris Hilton is apparently in training to be “the most powerful female house music DJ of all time”.
The socialite has been shadowing new friends Deadmau5 and Afrojack and is planning to join Deadmau5 onstage in the near future. According to TMZ, Hilton is currently in Ibiza recording an album with David Guetta and is hoping to release the record by the end of this year.
Sources ‘close’ to Hilton have spilled the beans to the notorious gossip website, saying that she has been told by the “best in the biz” that she could become the “queen of house music” because “no woman has ever taken over in that arena… and she wants to become that person”.
However, Guetta‘s record label have since contacted NME.COM to deny that he has any plans to work with Hilton.
Paris Hilton has dabbled in the music industry before, releasing her debut dance-pop solo album ‘Paris’ in 2006. It became notorious when 500 copies of the album in UK stories were tampered with by Banksy and Danger Mouse, who altered the artwork to make Hilton appear topless on the cover and remixed the tracks.
Make sure you catch up with Guetta, and read this great interview!
“He seems to have the ability to go nonstop 24/7, 365 days a year. If he is not in the studio, then he’s on a plane, in a car, at a gig or doing promo. His schedule is ridiculous. He is on the entire time.”
That’s US booking agent Paul Morris who recently spoke to US chart publication Billboard about the floppy haired Frenchman that’s likely been lining his coffers thicker than ever in the last three years – David Guetta. That the grinning Guetta is once again in spotlight of a magazine like Billboard – a space traditionally reserved for the pop elite that Guetta’s found himself keeping company with lately – is a testament to Morris’ summation of his client’s unfathomable work ethic which has seen the French house hitmaker go from a formidable club-filler to mainstream mega-star and frequent punching bag around these parts. Say what we might (and already have) about his rise to commercial crossover ubiquity, Guetta’s clawed his way to the top on the strength of his unshakable drive and punishing schedule that does indeed keep him on at all times, like when he dutifully answers my phone call for inthemix’s first David Guetta interview in several years, despite being in recovery mode from his 1AM headline set at Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas back in June. Aided by Berocca or not, it’s almost on instinct that Guetta immediately clicks into the right gear, a ragged croak in his voice the only giveaway that perhaps he is capable of having an off day.
“It was really crazy,” the Frenchman enthuses from the confines of his LA hotel room where he’s in the middle of an alotted press ‘block’ that’s been shifted twice at the last minute. “This is a festival with 100,000 people watching me in the middle of the desert in Vegas. That’s just crazy! When I tour by myself doing my David Guetta shows I get probably about 10,000 people and that is also crazy for me because I come from the clubs where getting 500 people through the door was our goal. It’s really unbelievable.”
Flanked by illuminated stilt-walking robots and towering LED screens compelling the throng of ravers to make ‘noise’ and to get ‘ready’, Guetta’s set at EDC was fittingly bombastic and looked like the ideal setting for Guetta to admire his dominion of freshly converted dance fans. After all, the in-roads being made by DJs and producers into the booming American EDM market are indebted to Guetta’s trailblazing efforts of the last few years, even if prying open that door gave us Will.i.Am. and his electro-fied Black Eyed Peas in return.
For Guetta the expansion into US pop culture consciousness was an important step towards dance music’s longevity with the Frenchman willing to shoulder the responsibility of breaking through.
“Dance music was never that big in the US, you know? After the work that I’ve done with Black Eyed Peas and the records like Sexy Bitch with Akon and When Love Takes Over – those records really changed the sound of pop music in America at the same time that Lady Gaga was coming up too and changing the sound herself. I want our scene to be as big as rock, as hip-hop and pop so I’m very happy to see all these guys come through after me and start to build their own momentum over here,” he says, singling out the work of his recent Grammy-winning production partner Afrojack. “It’s made the whole scene really really strong and the underground here is still really healthy and all together it’s becoming this huge thing.”
Wonder as one might about the supposed confluence between Guetta and this US EDM underground that he speaks of, the French star emphatically says that the next crop of emerging underground producers is what’s keeping the dance bubble from bursting under its current weight of hype and expectation in the US.
“The thing is, while people like me are really crossing over, the underground scene is still really strong and interesting and productive,” Guetta says. “More so than what’s going on in the pop charts, this is where I take my inspiration from.
Depending on who you talk to, this sincerity in Guetta’s character – he dismissed his detractors with the infamous line “I am not trying to be credible, I am trying to be incredible” – can either be endearing or aggravating but when he’s in your ear excitedly talking about the ambitions and goals that he’ll no doubt reach it’s clear that he means what he says when he talks about recording songs on adrenalin at three in the morning or testing his newfound fans with a disc’s worth of “100% electronic” instrumental tracks that comes with his new artist album Nothing But The Beat. Similarly, Guetta is resolute in his belief that all the crowds, the contacts and the cash haven’t changed him; he’s just managed to change those things around him.
“I am in Ibiza every week for F**k Me I’m Famous and I do four hours of DJing in the club, playing records for people that have been following my career for the last 10 years,” he says, proudly beaming about his clubbing pedigree. With his star continuing its upwards trajectory, recent seasons of FMIF have seen visits from Guetta’s famous pals like Will.i.Am, Akon and new recruit Taio Cruz. “It’s about bringing them into my world and they come over and they’re really respectful of the dance music culture and the house fans are quite honoured that these big pop artists are interested in their scene. It’s cool.”
Guetta’s apparently democratic approach to his collaborations rears its head in Nothing But The Beat which comes our way on August 26th and is described by the man himself as his “best” album yet. With a list or contributors that reads like a teleprompter script for some MTV awards show (see Usher, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, Timbaland, Ludacris, Nicki Minaj and even a few crackers like Sia and Jessie J) Guetta insists that the album came out collaborations with people he admires as opposed to snaring the biggest radio blockbuster.
“There has been a lot of stuff that I haven’t wanted to do because for me to get excited about something I want to feel it. I want to be a fan, you know? I want to work with people that I admire and who see something in me that they admire, not just that they want to sell a lot,” Guetta confirms. “Yes, we make hits,” he pauses before exhaling a breathy wheeze of laughter. “That’s why they come back to work with me. But before being a producer I’m a DJ. I’ll always be a DJ first. That’s how I’ve spent most of life. So for me – as successful as I’ve been – producing is still a hobby. And because of that the way that I make music is I want to do it with people that I love – both as musicians and as people – so these guys, Will, Flo, Taio, we have fun together in the studio.”
When I quiz Guetta for his take on his surging stardom and what lessons that experience may’ve brought him in recent years there’s an unexpected silence in place of his hitherto rapid-fire responses. This time I’ve caught him off balance and taking audible breath to honestly consider his answer Guetta laughs, seemingly surprised at this moment of introspection.
“What I’ve learned…,” he begins before stopping again and revising his track. “I’ve been a part of some of the biggest pop awards shows and stuff that you see on TV like that and what I’ve learned is that, as much as I love making pop records, I am not from that world. I didn’t know it before because, you see, I’m very genuine about my music…it’s not about the lifestyle for me. It’s about the music. And a lot of those people who I was sitting there with, for them it’s about the lifestyle. I don’t want to be judgemental because I either like music or I don’t like it – it’s not about whether I think something is cool or will be cool. That’s why I like to think that I’m a DJ who sometimes makes some good pop records. That’s what I do.”
Source: IntheMix.com.au author Daverh
