If you’ve ever been in a club and chanted “One! Two! Whoop! Whoop!” before going bonkers, you’re at least somewhat familiar with The Bloody Beetroots. Although “Warp” was released in 2009 (and still kills with crowds when played), the brains, heart, spirit and soul of The Bloody Beetroots, Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo, has come a long way since bringing insanity to the dance floors five years ago. The electro-punk-balls-to-the-wall madness Rifo contributes to music is a thunderous, rockin’ and rollin’ breath of fresh air in electronic music. He’s demanded enough respect from his peers that rock ‘n’ roll legends Peter Frampton, Tommy Lee and Sir Paul McCartney all worked with him on the group’s latest album “HIDE.”
The group has been touring the United States over recent months, including at Alabama’s Hangout Music Festival and New York’s Governor’s Ball. If you’re ever in a position to see The Bloody Beetroots Live show, do yourself a favor and buy the ticket to have your entire wardrobe blown off.
I got the chance to send a couple questions over to Sir Bob, which he so kindly and eloquently answered.
You’ve said your album “HIDE” was meant to merge the music of the present and the music of the past to create the music of the future. Why do you believe it’s important to maintain an understanding of the past in order to allow music to progress?
We’re all influenced by the past, whether you like it or not. It shapes who you are and what you listen to. I want to create music that influences the sounds of the producers and musicians in the years ahead of me, much like those who came before me.
I think there’s a gap between history and today. We’ve forgotten a lot of history, so my aim with The Bloody Beetroots project is to bring together the old generation of music that personally influenced me – musicians like Peter Frampton, Paul McCartney, Tommy Lee – and try to build a bridge with their music through mine to keep a new perspective on what I create. We need to remember history, those musicians created something substantial and important.
Throughout your career, you’ve made a point to keep the details of your identity secret, wearing a mask during performances and interviews. Why have you made such an emphasis on this? For artistic integrity? For the sake of privacy? A mixture of both? Or something else?
The mask is a cloak to hide any human image so that everyone can identify with the music and could potentially play my role as a musician.
Via: digi10ve.com
You were able to feature some legends of rock ‘n’ roll on “HIDE” (Paul McCartney, Tommy Lee and Peter Frampton). How was working with each of them? Did they share any interesting perspectives on dance music or music in general with you? Are there any other rock ‘n’ roll icons you would want to work with? Who?
Working with all the collaborators on “HIDE” was a pretty big accomplishment. It felt like I was opening the doors and feeling a huge draft of wind sweep me by, except it was with music.
With Paul, the collaboration actually came about because of a mutual friend who I was in the studio with. He asked me who I would want to collaborate with, I said Paul McCartney, and the rest is history.
The idea of working with Tommy Lee came from the desire to make new original music combining old school and new school sounds. Tommy Lee adds a strong history of rock and roll music, which is priceless. Like it or not, history is a universally recognized value. He has his own unique way of playing the drums and has definitely destroyed the original version of the song…and that’s the reason why we called it “RAW.” The song totally kicks you in the face and then comes at you with this disco section, which was the plan with the song from the beginning. It is an oxymoron by definition.
Working with Peter Frampton was a dream come true! I have a lot of respect for Peter and hold him in great esteem; our relationship is like uncle and nephew. He’s a wonderful musician and a wonderful person with a soul which is equally wonderful. One of the really interesting things that actually came out of our collaboration was the talkbox instrument, which has always been a passion and curiosity of mine. Peter uses it for his vocals and it’s amazing. I learned a lot of new things from his performance in the studio.
In terms of future collaborations, one of my dreams is working with Stevie Wonder. I’ve already worked with Sir Paul, so who knows? Maybe I’ll be able to sort out this collaboration as well.
Your live shows are absolutely electrifying, to say the least. Is there a significant difference in the control you have over the crowd while performing a DJ set as opposed to playing with the live band? If given a choice between the two, which way do you prefer to perform?
The LIVE and the DJ Set are both incredibly fun but for extremely different reasons. What really changes is the approach you have: whenever anyone is on a stage they are playing a role, it is up to them which role they choose to play. It definitely gives you more consciousness on what you’re doing, if you know what I mean.
I never left DJing though: I still love spinning records. But I’ve always been a musician, so I really wanted to bring the real essence of the Bloody Beetroots sound on stage, and that’s why I put together the live set.
The Bloody Beetroots have been a seen the entire dance music boom in North America over the past five to six years. Having grown up in Italy and now living in California, is there a significant difference between the cultures surrounding dance music in North America and Europe?
European people seem to be more conscious of the history of dance music itself. In the end, if you think about it, the whole rave culture thing was huge in Europe back in the ’90s.
American people, on the contrary, might be a little bit more naive, and maybe a little bit more concerned about the ‘entertainment’ side of the thing than the historic/ conceptual one, let’s say. Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing bad in it! What’s the point of making and enjoying music if you don’t have fun?
Via: discosalt.com
The music of The Bloody Beetroots has a distinct heavy metal, punk, rock ‘n’ roll influence to it. What rock ‘n’ roll music did you listen to growing up that influenced the music that you make today?
My influences come from a very wide palette, I love music in all of its form and I never even think to classify it.
However, in terms of rock music, punk has been an essential part of my musical growth. Sadly enough, nowadays it has completely lost its social impact: the social context that made it so important has been lost, and the genre itself changed drastically. We need to learn how to make people aware of the social and cultural importance of music again.
Featured photo courtesy of: ultramusic.com
