12 April,2015 08:00 AM IST | | Ananya Ghosh
Says Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo aka Bloody Beetroots, the masked Italian producer who calls his music a movement
Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo in action
He is trained in classical music and his favourite piece is Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. He has studied in an art school and calls Tanino Liberatore "our post-modern Michelangelo".
Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo in action
An avid photographer, works of Richard Avedon fascinate him. He loves films of Mathieu Kassovitz, Danny Boyle and Gaspar Noé. And prefers to call his own music "electronic chaos or digital confusion."
Meet Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo, aka Bloody Beetroots - the Italian multi-instrumentalist turned masked music producer and DJ born the same year as punk rock (1977, he has even got the year tattooed on his chest).
Excerpts from an interview:
Q. EDM has become a phenomenon. Is quantity taking over quality?
A. EDM is a term forged by the music industry to justify a financial operation of gigantic proportions. I have nothing against earning mere money from my job, but it'll never be the centre of what I do. If all of us can put music first, we will have less amount of crap. Music is not a tool to make money. Music must be protected in all its forms and expressions.
Q. Your sound is one of the most distinctive in the EDM scene. How would you describe its evolution?
A. I would love to say that I just love to produce electronic music of any kind but with a strong rock and roll influence. My sound is extremely attached to my way of life and I do not know any other way to express myself except with music. My sound evolves with the way my life changes. It is a mirror to my life. My main inspirational models refer often to the music of the '60s,'70s and the '80s.
Q. Tell us about your eponymous electro-house and dance-punk formation and your newest venture the CBCR DJ set.
A. The project started as a simple DJ set and evolved into a live band. The year 2014 represented the true form of The Bloody Beetroots. It took a little time to change skin and 2015 saw the birth of a new need to experiment under the pseudonym SBCR, a new creative workshop where I create fresh music content to evolve the BB project even more.
Q. You collaborated with Sir Paul McCartney on the single Out of Sight. It is a song by McCartney's band The Fireman. You gave it a whole new twist. How did it happen?
A. It is a story that repeats itself, destroy to create. Sir Paul has a great desire to try new things and liked my experiment and we decided to go ahead to make an original song out of the old one. Thus we re-recorded his vocals in his studio and finished the whole song in just one day. From him I have learned that music is able to challenge the impossible.
The Bloody Beetroots will be performing in the city this Friday as part of Smirnoff Experience. Tickets: www.meraevents.com
