Randall Mhas steadily been rising through the ranks on the White Isle ever since droping everything in America and moving out to Ibiza in order to kick start his career.
So far it has turned out to be a successful decision, as the American tech-house maestro enters his third season on the island with his own residency. Counting the likes of tINI and Bella Sarris as close friends, Randall M has been building a lot of momentum. Capadi Rebels have been promoting on the White Isle for a number of years and deliver probably our favourite boat party (it's a must-do).
This year, they're joining forces with Randall M to host a special residency as part of the VIVa Warriors parties on Sundays at Sankeys Ibiza. We stopped for a chat with Randall M and Capadi resident Kan.e to find out all.
Starting with you Randy, I hear you started life as a hip-hop DJ – What was your introduction to house music? About four years ago my friend Chad (Andrew) took me to Space in Miami. I’d met him at a few after parties and he was like ‘you need to hear this underground sound.’ I was down for it, went to Space and basically one night there changed me.
I heard techno and just immediately wanted to switch right there. I basically quit all my hip-hop gigs to go focus on my music. Loco Dice and tINI were playing – it was the first time I had really heard techno.
Did you take anything from hip-hop DJing that you now apply to house music? Yes, I think my technique in DJing. I do things differently because I was spinning for 7 years before I turned on to house music.
In terms of your productions, how did you end up with the style you’re at today? Right after the trip to Miami I just got on Soundcloud and started following tINI and Desolat and listened to these sets over and over, and we could tell that it was a different kind of sound. Those were our first inspirations, those deep and dubby sounds.
The first release I heard your music on was the first Karton release - How did this come about? I made these three tracks inspired by WMC a few years ago, and Karton wanted a track, so I let them pick one. It’s a really nice release, Fernando Costantini, Scott (Kemp) and Chad (Andrew).
After that, did you start getting into that crowd? Yeah, you start talking to people within that community and it leads to others. At that point you’re so curious and it’s so new, you’re just constantly searching for things and how things relate to each other. I think you’re constantly changing your sound and finding your sound, but in the beginning there's so many directions you could go.
You and Chad Andrew have had really close links throughout your careers – can you tell us about this? Yeah, it’s almost four years ago when I met him. I was still playing hip-hop and he was doing more of an electro tech-house sound. We just became friends and started producing together and DJing together.
You’ve got really close links to Bella Sarris and tINI – Have these relationships helped your career a lot? Dude, it’s everything to me yeah. Especially once you start travelling and living in foreign countries. You don’t speak the language so it’s definitely a help. Bella has been like a best friend and a sister. It’s just nice to share everything with someone, when it’s good and when it’s bad, it’s nice to have someone there. There's definitely a family kind of vibe there. The best is when we go to festivals or WMC or Ibiza for four months.
Can you tell me a bit about your first introduction to Ibiza? Two years ago was the first time I came in 2012. After Chad and I had ended up meeting tINI, she had been living here for the past three years and she said if you really want to get into this and get into the scene, you can’t really stay in America, Ibiza’s the best place to go.
We didn’t even visit or anything, just sold a bunch of our stuff and moved over. People think it’s overrated or whatever, but I still think as an aspiring DJ if you can come here in the summer, it’s by far better than anywhere else.
I suppose you meet all the right people as well. Yeah, exactly. And meeting them in the right mood too, they're just happy and here to enjoy themselves. There’s a good vibe between strangers here.
You’ve got another busy summer ahead in Ibiza with your residency with Sankeys and VIVa. Yeah, well I was there last year playing as a resident in the room [Spektrum] alongside Departure, but they decided to go their different ways, so Steve asked me if I still wanted to do the room and then they were going to get these guys [Capadi] to do the promotions. I don’t even think they knew we knew each other, did they?
How do you come to work together then? Kan.e: It all came together when someone we both knew introduced us and he played on the boat. Since then we have been working together, Randall came to Germany.
Randall M: Yeah, I did my first mini European tour and my first gig was with Kan.e in Bonn.
Kan.e: We’ve sort of just been connected from then. When he moved over to Ibiza this summer, we had the boat party and I thought his sound would the fit the party. We had guys like Chad [Andrew] and David [Gtronic] play on the boat already.
Tell us a bit more about this year's residency at Sankeys. Randall M: They offered me Spektrum in Sankeys, which I first played two years ago. Last summer I was playing there every week. So this year basically it’s just me and my friends who are on the island. The residents will play as well guests who will come in once a week or once every other week – just people who we feel deserve to play, who we feel like are making good music or are good DJs.
People who we wanted to give a chance to play who might not have had the chance. It’s really tough because there are so many DJs here. I’ve been working with Ash [Kan.e] to book who we can and it’s going pretty good so far. Oh and the sound, man, they redid the whole room and the first sound check was amazing.
Then once we were properly into it with the lights and everything, it doesn’t feel like you’re in a side room anymore. It feels like you’re going into a different club, it’s a major change. The system is so crisp, it’s the ultimate pleasure to play on a system like that.
Kan.e: You don’t even need to turn it up to the limit, it sounds good already at 80 percent. Spektrum for me last year felt like if you wanted to chill out somewhere you could go there, but this year I think that some DJs would actually prefer to play that room.
It sounds really dope and it gives you that underground feeling I remember from Germany in these after party clubs. In terms of coming to VIVa it was funny because everything that has happened up until this moment has been the right fit. David Vincent is a genius – he brought the Rebels and the Warriors together and it just clicked from the first second.
It’s a great night to have alongside yours. Randall M: Yeah. Steve’s night kills it, so it’s great to be there and people can just wander through to the other room and check us out.
Kan.e: The idea for us though really is that we get our own followers coming for us.
Randall M: It’s our own sound so it’s really nice to have that freedom, instead of feeling like you have to play a different sound, you either feel forced or you just can’t do it. Some gigs I take, I feel like I’ll never take them again because I had to go in certain directions just to appease the crowd.
It’s like I have no hesitation to book people who are very serious about the sound, and I don’t have to worry about bringing anyone all the way over here to play on some bad sound system. I’m fully confident. Also, I’d say about 75 percent of the DJs who are playing as guests will either be playing Ibiza for the first time, and a lot of them it will be the first time they’ve ever been to Ibiza, so it’s going to be really special for them. I remember my first gig here, so it’s cool.
Kan.e: It’s cool to give something back to them. It’s always like this in Ibiza when you have to be big or you have to know someone big or be insincere. We hope to create something over a period of time for Ibiza, where people will come back, not just the tourists who are here for a week then go away, but the people who are on the island. I think with our knowledge of the island, we can create something very special.
Randall M: I feel like the music we’re playing is becoming more and more appealing to people. We’ve been seeing this whole shift where basically people start with the commercial, then someone puts them onto the techno and they’re into their techno for a while. Then they get into little sub-genres.
There was this girl who came down, into commercial music, but she came down and checked it out and stayed the whole night, telling my friend ‘Oh my god, I’m in love with this music!’ It was basically what happened to me at Space, everyone has some kind of moment.
You’re quite lucky in a way because so many artists spend years trying to have creative control and freedom with their own nights. Randall M: Yeah, I got lucky with it, it really happened naturally. I feel like in Ibiza, a lot of different things happen for different artists, special things. A lot of my friends who have come here too have kept coming back because there’s something about the island.
Kan.e: We can talk about luck though, but these guys spent 16 hours a day producing though and came out to the island with nothing. There’s a lot of work behind it as well.
Randall M: The reason we came together is because we’re all friends and we’re all cool people. Without those kinds of connections and if I hadn’t have known Steve personally, he would never have asked me to do this. People book people they want to hang out together. If it felt like business, I would quit. I think a lot of parties do feel like business, there’s no after party, there’s no back-to-back, it’s just business.
And also we’ve spoken a little about the boat party. Kan.e: I never really wanted to talk with the media about the boat party, but I felt it was about the right time! It’s going to stay how it is, Randy is going to come and play and it’s going to be a good mix of people. Good music every week – Tuesdays and Fridays and on Sundays obviously we have the pleasure of playing at a great club in a great room. We try to create something with good artists and good music, focus on the music. And what fits good music perfectly? The sound.
Buy tickets to Thank God We Are Rebels Boat Battle on Friday, June 27th here.