Riley and Durrant return to Ibiza’s Privilege for what promises to be another sell out season in the world’s biggest club!
Following on from their sell out residency at Privilege last year the dynamic duo once again join the world famous Tiesto for another season at the islands biggest and best club. Every Monday throughout the season Riley and Durrant along with their hugely successful Electric playground will host Room 2 (LA VACA) at Privilege. The night will provide a session packed full of the best in eclectic futuristic House which will guarantee to keep you dancing till sunrise!
The residency will be kick starting on the 8th June and with 8000 people forecast weekly, this is the biggest night on the island and one not to be missed!
Riley and Durrant’s massive Leeds based creation The Electrik Playground will be taking centre stage with Riley and Durrant hosting the events supported by an array of talented and diverse DJ’s and producers such as Juan Kidd, Heavy Feet and Adam Sheridan.
The night has enjoyed huge success within the UK since launching in 2008, hosting huge names including Kate Lawler, Chris Lake, Hybrid, Paolo Mojo & Young Punkz. The Leeds based night has travelled around the country with residencies at infamous nights such as Back to Basics, Gate Crasher and Ministry of sound and now it returns to the Ibiza for its second summer in residency.
Throughout the season the hottest sets and interviews will be recorded and broadcast across Riley & Durrant’s Galaxy Network shows which reach over half a million people a week and are some of the most listened-to in the UK.
Weekly Electrik Sunset sessions at Savana; one of the hottest bars on the legendary sunset strip will provide the perfect place for a sunset session. Running throughout the 16 week residency, the party gives a fresh approach to the sound of the Ibiza pre party.
This will be the sixth season the boys have rocked the dance floor in Ibiza and promises to be equally as impressive, see you at Privilege!
As another summer seasons kicks off, we spoke to Andi Durrant and Nick Riley about the Electrik Playground, their radio shows and club sets, and what’s it’s like to be residents at the biggest club on planet earth…
Q. This is your second year as residents at Privilege, how did the residency come about and what was your highlight from last year’s sell out season?
Andi: Amazing! We always arrive at the club just before it opens at midnight and every time you walk in it takes your breath way.. even without 10,000 people in! It’s a ridiculous venue with a lot of history, and probable the only place in the world you can DJ from the middle of a swimming pool.
Nick: As for last years highlights, I don’t think there was just one as the whole summer was pretty spectacular. I suppose seeing both our name and the Electrik Playground branding in the worlds biggest club was pretty big for us.. There was one definite low point though and that was our car getting broken into outside Bar M. We got fully cleaned out – CDs, laptops, clothes, passports. Absolute nightmare!
Q. Are you and Tiesto good friends then? How did the joint residency come about?
Andi: When we first started making music and DJing together in 2003 we were doing much more a full-on trance sound. Tiesto was a big supporter of our early records and we had a few tracks on his Black Hole record label, and often warmed up for him when he played in the UK. Over the years we’ve found our inspiration from experimenting with a more eclectic house sound, but we’ve still remained in contact with Tiesto and his crew at Black Hole. Now we provide an alternative soundtrack in our Electrik Playground room and warm up for the big man with some deeper progressive and chunky house tracks.
Q. Explain for us where The Electrik Playground started and what clubbers can expect from the night?
Nick: We started Electrik Playground as a monthly party in our hometown of Leeds at the beginning of last year along with Adam Sheridan and Nick Ferguson. We wanted to create a night with a proper genreless music policy and get all our friends together for an “anything goes” party of house, breaks, techno, prog and the weird and wonderful side of electronica. We’d got frustrated with going to (and playing at) strictly house, or strictly trance clubs, and decided to try and make something that got rid of that old idea of genres.
Andi: Since we launched we’ve moved on from our monthly home to host events in Leeds, Sheffield, Edinburgh and a regular party at the Ministry of Sound in London.. and of course of weekly Ibiza gigs in the Music Box at Privilege.
Q. How does the music policy of The Electrik Playground compares with that of the main room hosted by Tiesto? How do you see them working together?
Nick: Hopefully the 2 will compliment each other just right.. when we warm up for Tiesto we play a chunky tech-house kind of set with a few cheeky elements of the melodic stuff thrown in to wet peoples appetite, then when Tiesto comes on we head next door to the Music Box and do much more of an diverse session – anything from Herve and Fake Blood to Steve Angello, The Prodigy and Ladyhawke.
Andi: We’ve got a great selection of hot new UK talent booked in to play as well, like Juan Kidd, Heavy Feet, Tim Weeks and Sharooz – alongside DJs from Russia and Spain.
Q. What’s your guaranteed floor filler for Ibiza 2009?
Andi: Dean Newton – “Amnesia” or Lake & Lys “Violins” Like us, they’re both a bit genre-less. We’ve played both of those tracks in nearly all of our sets recently, and they’ve gone off every time – from the London fashionistas at the Ministry of Sound to the ravers at Coloursfest in Scotland. Big tunes!
Q. Clubs in Ibiza vs. Clubs in UK?
Andi: The crowds tend to be more up for having a party in Ibiza. Obviously when you’re on holiday you let loose, but with Ibiza (maybe because of the history) you sort of feel it’s your duty to just let go and enjoy yourself. It’s a cliché, but there’s definitely something special about that island.
Nick: That said, the UK still has one of the best club scenes in the world. Despite some of our problems over the years, British people still tend to make the most noise and party harder than a lot of nations!
Q. The island is great for partying and chilling out alike, but where’s your favourite place to chill out on the Island?
Andi: I’ve spent a lot of time with my girlfriend and family in a little village called San Jose between Ibiza Town and San Antonio. It’s very traditional with some nice places to eat. It’s good to get away from all the madness and see some real Ibizan culture. I even took my mum and Dad!
Nick: When we’re not Djing we tend to take it easy – nice chilled bars, restaurants etc. One of our favourites is Bambuddha grove, its just like being in Goa – a complete getaway
Q. So bringing it back to you two, how do you see things progressing for you over the next few years?
Nick: We have lots of exciting things we are working on at the moment, one in particular is an exciting new studio project called Backyard Orchestra which is more of a live act with lots of real musicians and proper band. The Electrik Playground label is going from strength to strength with a wide range of Djs supporting our tracks, keep an eye out for forthcoming releases this summer form Gabriel Ben and Adam Sheridan. Its difficult to predict what the future holds, I would definitely hope we are still doing what we are doing for many years to come.
Andi: We’re also really commited to our radio shows on Galaxy in the UK. We’re lucky enough to be given free reign to do what we want on our programs, and over the last 3 years we’ve scored some nice Sony Awards for the studio mantelpiece.
Q. Where else can we find you hitting the decks this summer?
Nick: We had a great time at Coloursfest in June, we played on the outdoor stage in the sunshine and it went off big time! The Scottish really know how to have a good party. Other summer highlights include a tour of Asia which is without a doubt one of our favourite places to play and also our Electrik Playground residency at the Ministry of Sound in London.
Q. Away from DJ’ing you are both successful producers, what can we expect to see leaving your studio in the back end of 2009?
Nick: We have just finished a collaboration with Juan Kidd called “Da Bass” which will be coming out on CR2 very soon and I think we’ll do a couple more tracks together before the end of the year as well. We have been spending a lot of time remixing recently, our mix of Blue Pearl “Naked In The Rain” is coming out on Big Life in the coming weeks and our mix of “T-10 Seconds” by Rob Marmott is about to be released on Newstate. We are also just putting the finishing touches together on our 2nd Riley & Durrant producer loop pack forthcoming on Loopmasters.
Andi: Our main focus at the moment is the new Backyard Orchestra project.. which will be arriving on a big UK label by the end of the summer.
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