Today is with us the DJ and producer Davide Squillace who has achieved a lot in his career as resident of the famed Circoloco and part of the supergroup Better Lost Than Stupid with Matthias Tanzmann and Martin Buttrich.
He is also expanding on his production repertoire with releases on the likes of Cadenza, Kaoz Theory, No19, Moon Harbour and Hot Creations.
1.- IBR .- Davide we know that next September 17th will be your next release. Drive Good and it will be released by Rebellion label. Tell us a little bit about the process.
Davide Squillace.- I’ll tell you how it came to life. I was playing around with my modular system, had a good sequence running from the Metropolis and added a few more elements, and recorded probably 15/20 minutes live. The vibe was just right, I edited and chose a few parts and arranged an elementary 3 minutes arrangement.
Thought about Nolan, sent it to him, and he had a go adding a few more elements. Sounded even better now! While we were listening to it we thought a vocal would be a killer on it. Jaw was a perfect match for the type of vibe, so we sent it to him and in a matter of a day, he sent me something telling me (I quote him) “Either you love it or you hate it, there is no middle ground here”.
Guess what…
2.-IBR .- Drive Good is a creation of several artists, yours, Nolan's and Jaw's on vocals. Explain to us the difficulties and advantages that you have found doing it from a distance and without knowing each other personally.
Davide Squillace .- I extremely enjoy working with other people, it’s knowledge sharing time. It’s when you learn and when you teach, when two or more separate lives and stories come together to tell a new one. Although working remotely between us is not the best process for me, I like being in the same place and sharing the same energy, the potential becomes exponential.
3.-IBR.- Do you think that in the new track we can find or detect personality traits, musical tendencies or tastes of each one of you?
Davide Squillace.- Well when it gets down to the vocal part it becomes pretty clear, but I would say, at least for me, I like the concept of Bruce Lee ”Be Water”, which I interpreted as melt with your surroundings, musically, the work becomes a symbiotic exercise among the players. For instance if someone makes a drum pattern and the other adds a creative effect on it, the patter would keep it’s “roots” but maybe the intention or the trajectory will be altered becoming a collective work.
4.- IBR .-What was the most exciting and most frustrating moment of the process?
Davide Squillace.- I don’t think we really had a frustrating moment, but again not being in the same location could be a bit of a turn down for me. On the exciting side I guess it was when each of us received the other artist's material. Obviously when you receive the vocal part of the track on which you have been working on and it fits magically, it’s a pretty powerful feeling right there.
5.- IBR.- Nolan said : Davide and I haven’t actually met in person, but we’ve created a few monster tracks together. He sent a few projects to me when I was in Brighton and I ripped out the rawest sounds to start turning them into tracks. We decided Drive Good was ready for some top line vocals from Jaw, who took the track to a whole other level.”
Why did you choose Nolan and Jaw to make part of the project ?
Davide Squillace.- With Nolan we always talked about doing some music together, I had these elements running together on the modular, I did a 20 minutes session, selected and twisted some parts and sent it to him, he added and twisted more. Things came together, that we felt a vocal would raise the bar. We thought that Jaw could be a good fit, he has a chameleonic approach to songwriting.
6.-IBR .- As a resident of Circoloco Ibiza, how are you handling the fact that still this summer such an emblematic place not only of the island, but of the world is closed?
Davide Squillace.- Well, this question needs an entire shelf of books to be answered :-) Society is being changed in front and mostly behind our eyes. This is one of the results of this massive change, you work very hard for many years and in a blink of an eye the earth underneath your feet is completely gone. Now try to express that feeling in words.
7.-IBR .- In the last years your musical career has been unstoppable both in productions and tours. If you had to choose a club, a beach club, a city, what would it be and why ?
Davide Squillace.- Too hard of a question, so many clubs that I like, and every club has a specific culture attached to it depending on the part of the globe you are. I think the good secret is to blend and enjoy each place you go, where you are giving the time to tell your story.
8.- IBR.- When it comes to producing, what inspires you? Are you disciplined to create, that is to say, do you have a daily schedule to work in the studio or when you feel inspired you start creating?
Davide Squillace.- I’m not sure creation and discipline are really friends…hahah. Discipline comes in different forms, I mean if you set a goal and you achieve it, you have been using your discipline, this type of passion that becomes a career eats you alive, discipline is paramount. But if you are too disciplined you may become rigid.
9.- IBR.- After these hard moments of pandemic, do you think that your music has been affected or do you think that your creative vision has changed?
Davide Squillace.- Well the fact is that whenever I go to the studio after a weekend of shows you have a certain set of feeling still going on and about, and it’s like someone or something nudging you in one direction or another but mostly on a 4/4 club music, and having that element missing obviously leaves you a bit in a limbo, which is not always a bad place to be.
10.-IBR.- Tell us about new projects for the winter and if you already have things in mind for next summer in Ibiza?
David Squillace.- I've had quite an array of releases coming out since the beginning of the pandemic like Ovum, Sci-Tec, Saved, Rebellion, Bedrock, Moon Harbour and my This And That, and more projects to be released. As for next year, offers are coming in but no idea what it's going to happen, let’s keep it like this for now.
11.- IBR.- Which advice can you give to the new producers, djs ?
David Squillace.- The will to learn everyday is your best ally, ego is a powerful thing but only works if wisely used. Be aware of the narcissistic social media trap, one day they can turn it of
Thank you very much Davide for sharing with us and our readers your projects and advice.
We hope to see you in Ibiza soon.