Rui Da Silva Interview

Words by Art Jefferson
Photography by Emy Lou, Will Worrell

To call producer and DJ Rui Da Silva a fixture in the world of house and dance music is an understatement. After all, this is a man who not only created the first dance label in the country of Portugal, as well as produce chart topping records, but his remix discography includes acts such as Jennifer Lopez, Nelly Furtado, and David Morales. Establishing himself as one of the most well rounded artists in the business, he continues to leave his mark as one of the most proficient producers, DJs, engineers, and writers today.

Born and raised in Lisbon, Rui Da Silva began his journey into music by learning to DJ as youth. He later went on to play bass guitar in a local band, however became unsatisfied with the band’s progress. When house music from the U.S. hit the shores of Europe, Da Silva became immediately captivated by the sound. That love ultimately motivated him to produce more house oriented music.

Set on pushing the sound of electronic music forward, Rui Da Silva established the first dance music label in Portugal, Kaos Records. This would help to establish and solidify a firm dance scene in the country. In 1993, Da Silva (under the name Doctor J) created the impacting group Underground of Lisbon with DJ Vibe. After releasing the record “Chapter One”, USL scored big with their second single “So Get Up”. Not only was the song a success in Europe, but the record also sparked a huge buzz in the U.S., eventually getting licensed to Tribal Records. The U.S. edition featured remixes by house legends Danny Tenaglia and Junior Vasquez. Underground Sound of Lisbon became the most important electronic and dance group in Portugual.

Although successful in Portugal, Rui Da Silva headed to London in 1999 to further explore the possibilities of music and his career. He went on to set up Kismet Records, where he began expanding his sound and brand of house. It was 2001 when Da Silva released the stellar hit single “Touch Me” featuring Cassandra Fox that catapulted him further into stardom. The record, which had become a hit on the radio, went on to reach No. 1 on the UK singles chart. This was also the first time that a Portuguese artist had achieved such an accomplishment in England. Rui Da Silva continued releasing a slew of records including “Feel The Love”, “The 4 Elements”, and “Pacman” b/w “Punks Run Wild”, just to name a few.

Always evolving as an artist, Rui Da Silva is set to drop his latest single “New Lover” featuring vocalist Penny F. The record features a remix by talented London producer Ular Grey. Pumping and aimed at the dance floor, the single is testament to Da Silva’s remarkable consistency.

Art Jefferson-You started one of the first house labels in Portugal. What were the general reactions from the people in Lisbon regarding the sound of house music? Was it predominantly a small underground scene or did the masses take to it straight away?

Rui Da Silva-In those days there was no dance scene in Portugal. These were really early days for EDM around the world and we had to create everything from scratch – from making the music to releasing the records, all the way to organising the parties and DJing. We became well known for organising raves in one off spaces like castles, convents, and open air places, it was then that our releases started to have much success around the clubs.

From 1993 we ran for a few years, a series of parties in Portugal called “A Week in Paradise Called Portugal” where we brought international talent to come and play at our parties, the international press took notice and soon the Portuguese dance scene was a sure destination for the international EDM crowd.

Some of the most memorable parties were the Santa Maria Da Feira with Danny Tenaglia in 1993 and the Convento de Coimbra in 1991.

The reactions those days were incredible as people embraced this new club culture. It started a small underground scene but in a space of a couple of years, it had grown to a good size industry with many success stories along the way.

Art Jefferson-Growing up, you also played in bands correct? However, you were actually DJing before playing in a band if my knowledge serves me. That’s interesting because normally it’s the opposite with people. What sort of stuff were you guys playing during that period?

Rui Da Silva-Well I started DJing as a young kid. I think was 12 at friends’ parties playing 7″ records and tapes…from there I progressed to playing bass in a garage band and when that wasn’t going anywhere i decided to sell the bass and the amp, and get a drum machine Roland TR909 and an Akai S950 sampler, and started to make electronic music instead. All those years I had only focused on production, and stopped DJing except for the odd gig here and there, but mainly playing alternative music and not dance floor stuff. It was only after many years later that I decided to start DJing again, this time professionally.

Art Jefferson-You had a ton of success back in Portugal in the 90s with Underground Sound of Lisbon. When you decided to move to London back around 98-99, did you feel like you had musically achieved everything that you wanted to in Lisbon?

Rui Da Silva-Yes that is correct, after 6 years of making music, running the label and organising parties there was not much left for me to achieve in Portugal, the success and recognition we were getting was mostly coming from outside Portugal, so I felt that my next step was to move somewhere else. So by 1998 I was ready and I moved to London to start all over again with a new record label and a new artist name.

Art Jefferson-You have mastered the art of bridging the underground with the mainstream. Few producers are able to be a fixture in both. How have you been able to walk that fine line between both worlds?

Rui Da Silva-My main focus is to always reach for quality in my releases, and you can find quality in both mainstream and in the underground. The main thing that distinguishes an underground release from a mainstream release is broadly speaking the fact that on a mainstream track, you have usually a song, and in an underground release you normally don’t have a song, but instead you have a vibe going…I love both the same way. I grew up listening to songs and in my late teens discovered club tracks and underground music. Over the years I have learnt to understand and respect that, you as an artist are able to do both as long as you are honest and have something to say with your music.

Art Jefferson-As someone who understands multiple aspects of the studio, from producing, songwriting, engineering, down to programming, would you say that learning these skill sets are critical in terms of understanding how to make great records?

Rui Da Silva-Yes, of course for you to make great records it is essential to understand all these aspects of the music making. It does not necessarily mean you have to be a master at all of them, but that you are able to understand them, and you also know when you should delegate one of these aspects to someone else that is able to deliver something much better than you would ever be able to.

Art Jefferson-You’re 2001 song “Touch Me” shot to No. 1 on the UK Chart. The word that I would use to describe it would be euphoric. The production was so full and rich with layers. When you and Cassandra Fox finished the recording of the song, could you already foresee the success of the record? What were your thoughts when it went No. 1?

Rui Da Silva-No we could not foresee the success of the record, but we also fell under the spell of the record…we could not get enough of it and kept listening to it over and over, and this was a spell that continued on to other people that were exposed to the song – they just wanted to listen to the record over and over again. We knew what we had was really special, but nobody could have predicted the gigantic success the record achieved.

Art Jefferson-What was it like working in the studio with Robert Owens for the song “Watching Over Me”?

Rui Da Silva-Working with such a legend as Robert Owens was just fantastic. The idea for “Watching Over Me” started with a discussion between me and the co-producer for this track Alex Morris. He suggested that to complement the first song we had written for Robert, “What Love Sees”, we would take a more soulful approach and work a riff from his Fender Rhodes. So from there we created the beat of “Watching Over Me”. As Robert arrived for the vocal session, we had a brainstorm meeting to discuss ideas for the concept of the song and what it should be about, and from there we went on to recording mode straight away, with Robert writing the lyrics as we continued developing the music. Robert is a very versatile singer and delivered the lyrics in many different ways so we could take the ones that we felt were the best for the emotions we wanted for the track.

Art Jefferson-I read an interview with you where you challenged the notion of talent, leaning to the idea that it truly takes hard work to make it. Would you say that a person has to work even harder these days to build a name in music than in the past, considering that technology has allowed so many people to produce tracks and quickly get them out there via the internet?

Rui Da Silva-Of course it really takes hard work to make it, most people are blind to this as they can only peak to a small window of that person’s hard work. They are only listening to a few minutes of the person’s work and not the countless hours that it took this person to achieve that level of quality in their work, so people perceive this as someone being talented. Also there seems to be a lot of confusion as a tremendous amount of people are credited for the work done by others…others that wish or have been forced to remain anonymous. These people are mistakenly being credited for other peoples work, for whatever commercial reasons that exist…this only helps to confuse a lot of people being perceived as being “talented” for things that they are not.

But for sure these days it’s even more important to work hard. In the past when access to the tools were left to a few privileged ones, these guys could be mediocre on their usage and get away with it, that is no longer possible. Also, in the past the access to information and knowledge was scarce and only available to a few lucky ones, that barrier has also been removed. So what is now left is just the individual. So with the access to the tools and knowledge having been democratised, what will really make you different from everyone else is your ability to master these, and that only comes from many hours of purposeful practise, being it mixing, writing, recording or what have you.

Art Jefferson-You have your forthcoming single “New Lover”, featuring Penny F landing in February 2014 on your label Kismet. Listening to the record as well as past releases from this year, it definitely seems like you’re still enjoying experimenting with different sounds and moods of house music. What do you have lined up for 2014?

Rui Da Silva-There is also one mix called Missing Beats remix (on “New Lover”).

I have always been on a quest to escape the “What You See Is All There Is” problem so in my productions I’m constantly challenging myself in exploring new sounds textures and styles of music. When the mind makes decisions, it deals primarily with known knowns and this limits your capacity to explore and evolve into new soundscapes and territories. It’s important to be aware of this so you can focus on breaking from this tendency.

For 2014 we have some excellent music lined up, some new artists like Penny F, and Easton Gunn are making their debut on Kismet records, and of course expect a mixture of underground music and some more mainstream releases, all of them always with the quality that you should expect from a Kismet release.