WE INTERVIEW PACO OSUNA, COVER OF OUR LATEST ISSUE, CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF LIFE AND 30 YEARS OF HIS CAREER IN THE ELECTRONIC SCENE.
It’s always a pleasure to chat with Paco Osuna, as he is an artist who opens his heart in every answer, who holds nothing back, who doesn’t go with a pre-established and empty narrative. In this interview we talked about everything, the success of now here, his relationship with Ibiza, his 50th birthday and his 30 years of career, and of course we wanted to know his general vision of the current electronic scene. Never has so much been said in so little time, so take note of Paco’s wisdom and soak up his philosophy: live the present like there’s no tomorrow.
HI PACO! IT’S A PLEASURE TO HAVE YOU BACK WITH US AT FIESTA&BULLSHIT. JUST A YEAR AGO WE WERE TALKING TO YOU HERE ABOUT HOW YOUR 2023 SEASON WAS GOING…. ONE YEAR LATER WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THIS 2024? WHAT CHANGES HAVE YOU HAD DURING THESE 365 DAYS?
The feedback is more than positive, every event gets better and better. The connection with the audience keeps growing and it makes me proud every time I finish a session to hear the audience shouting my name and to see many people with the NOW HERE tattoo.
NOW HERE is not just a party I throw in Ibiza, it’s a movement that we try to export as a philosophy: live in the moment, here and now, because tomorrow you don’t know what’s going to happen or if it’s going to happen the way you have planned it. For me it’s very, very, very important to feel connected with the audience and to feel that what I’m doing is evolving, that it’s not static.
NOBODY LISTENS TO AN IDENTICAL SESSION OF YOURS EVERY TUESDAY. WHAT IF THEY WERE TO GO TO OTHER PLACES WHERE YOU PLAY?
No, they can listen to the tracks I play but never the same session. This is pure and simple mathematics: I play an average of 17 tracks per hour, every Tuesday I play about three and a half hours. Of those three and a half hours, out of 55 tracks I may repeat 10 from the previous week, maximum 15, but no more. It has to be like that, if I did the same selection of music and the same mixes every week or in every set outside the residency, it would be a replay, even if I did it really amazing or perfect mixes in the end it would be tiring to listen to the same thing over and over again. That’s why it’s very important to constantly renew the set.
WE WERE TALKING, BEFORE THIS INTERVIEW, ABOUT THE LACK OF TIME AND HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO COORDINATE GOING TO SOME CLUBS OR FESTIVALS. NOWADAYS SO MANY DJS PLAY THE SAME SESSION ALL SUMMER LONG SO SOMETIMES IT CAN GET BORING.
With all due respect to other DJs: they are not Paco Osuna. It’s what you grow up with as a person, with the values you grow up with. I hate monotony. I can’t do the same thing two or three times, because repeating it no longer satisfies me. As an artist, and that’s something that represents me, I have to feel that what I do excites me because if it doesn’t excite me… How am I going to transmit that emotion to people?
I have a formula: one day a week I listen to music (every week I get 1,300 to 1,600 tracks and from those I choose about 30 songs, if it’s a really good week, about 50 or 60), another day I prepare the set and that’s how I work. I’ve been doing it since I started DJing digitally, 15 or 16 years ago, and that’s my routine. On Fridays I download music, on Mondays I listen to it and on Tuesdays I get it ready for the set.
WE ARE BACK IN IBIZA IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEASON SO IT’S MANDATORY TO TALK ABOUT THE ISLAND AGAIN. BUT IN ORDER NOT TO FALL INTO THE CLICHÉS OF WETHER IT IS OR IT’S NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE, WHETHER IT’S COMMERCIAL –OR HOWEVER YOU WANT TO SAY IT… IN TERMS OF MUSIC: DOES AN ARTIST HAVE TO ADAPT TO THE MUSICAL CANONS OF THE ISLAND OR CAN SOMEONE MAKE THE SAME MUSICAL DISCOURSED THAT IS MADE IN PARIS, TULUM, ROME OR LONDON?
I’ve always said that Ibiza conquers you. You can’t conquer a place that has had its own culture and essence for many generations. You can’t do it. There are many DJs who have tried to change the essence of the island and have failed. You have to adapt to Ibiza. My great advantage is that I’ve been working on the island since 1999, I’ve been here for 25 years, and nobody has to tell me what to do. When I started working at Amnesia, it was a very hard but very enriching process. As an artist, it made me understand how to make a dance floor work.
Ibiza has a personality, an identity, and that can’t be changed. In these 25 years, I’ve experienced everything. As a resident of Amnesia, there were nights when I had to open the booth, open for the main DJ and then just be there as the person in charge of the booth. This opened my mind a lot and made me learn how to handle a dance floor in any situation. In Ibiza I feel like a fish in water because it’s what I grew up with as an artist, the island shaped me as a performer.
AND HOW DOES THIS AFFECT THE REST OF THE GIGS YOU DO OUTSIDE IBIZA, DOES IBIZA INFLUENCE PACO’S SESSIONS OUTSIDE THE ISLAND?
In musical terms it doesn’t affect me much because since I started the NOW HERE residency I decided to focus a 100% on the musical style that NOW HERE represents. If I am the biggest artist of the brand, its flagship, I can’t do one thing in Ibiza and something else outside the island because that would get the audience confused.
Since I started NOW HERE I decided to focus on one sound. It’s my brand, my identity and it’s the musical concept that I like the most and I don’t want to create confusion, that’s why for the last three years I’ve only dedicated myself to that kind of sound.
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IS PACO AT HIS BEST RIGHT NOW?
That’s a diffifficult question because everyone says “yes” and I honestly don’t think that this is the best moment of my career in terms of music production. I’ve had moments when I was producing when I was much more creative and had much more time to be in the studio. Before
I could spend a whole week in my studio and I had more time to experiment and try new things.
It is true that people may say I’m at my best. I am not really sure, but I do know that I am mentally at the most relaxed moment and that helps a lot. Life experience – I just turned 50 and I have been in the business for 30 years – helps me not to have so many insecurities. For example, before, when I had to play at a festival, I would prepare at least a month or two in advance. Next week I’ll be in Monegros and I haven’t prepared anything yet, but that’s because I’m sure of what I have to do.
MONEGROS IS THE HARDEST FESTIVAL IN OUR COUNTRY, NOT ONLY FOR BEING THERE BUT ALSO FOR THE STYLES OF MUSIC YOU LISTEN TO. YOU HAVE LIVED DIFFERENT TIMES/PARTIES/LABELS IN IBIZA, MUSIC ON, ENTER, NOW HERE… OUTSIDE IBIZA THERE WERE ALSO TIMES WHEN YOUR SETS WERE HIGHER IN TERMS OF BPMS AND OTHERS LESS. NOW THAT IN THE INDUSTRY IT HAS BECOME FASHIONABLE TO CARRY OUT MORE HARDCORE SOUNDS, HIGHER BPMS, ETC. HOW DO YOU SEE THIS NEW SCENE (IF WE MAY CALL IT NEW) “COMMERCIAL HARD TECHNO”?
You said it: “if we can call it new”, because it is a recycling of something that already existed in the 90s, which is rave, la máquina, hardcore. In fact, the main reason why I have stopped playing techno for a while is because the techno that people like today is not the techno that I like. I like techno that’s a bit lower BPM, a bit more intelligent, where it’s not just speed and a kick drum. A techno where it tells you a bit more of a story, where you can see a melody and you can ask for a groove or some vocals.
Although something that I have always been very clear about is that I don’t come here to give lessons to anyone. I am always the first one who wants to learn and if you look at NOW HERE I have a lot of new people, with new energy from whom I can learn things that perhaps people of my generation no longer transmit to me. Simply, if there is an audience that likes that music, those BPMs, let them enjoy it. I cannot, nor do I want to, judge something that I do not feel represented by and am not a part of.
YOU ARE A CONNOISSEUR OF THE ISLAND AND ITS PARTY SCENE. WHAT CHANGES HAVE YOU SEEN SINCE YOU STARTED UNTIL NOW FOR A DJ WHO HAS HIS OWN PARTY? HAVE YOU HAD MANY PROPOSALS TO HAVE YOUR OWN PARTY?
Since Marco left Amnesia in 2017, I’ve always had offers to replace him. But no. First, because I didn’t feel it, and that’s something you have to feel. I didn’t feel it was the right time to do a residency. And second, obviously, in the particular case of Marco, he’s my best friend, he’s one of my idols and mentors, I could never in my life do anything against him. No matter how much money they offer me.
I’ll tell you something, NOW HERE was initially going to be held at Amnesia but Covid came and then Amnesia changed the rules of how we wanted to do things and I got the opportunity to do it at Hï Ibiza. It was the best thing that ever happened to me after my son and my wife. They are an incredible group of people, extremely professional, they look after everything down to the smallest detail and they make me feel that they love me.
In fact, I’ll tell you an anecdote, before Marco started Music On, he and I had a meeting with Space to do our party and their real intention was to use us to bring in certain DJs. At Hï Ibiza that never happened, they told me “we want you, we don’t care who you bring in” and for me that was a driving force and a great motivation.
FROM THE OUTSIDE YOU CAN SEE THAT LOVE AND PROFESSIONALISM.
Right now I’ve just come from having a paella at my house with the whole Hï Ibiza team. For me they are not my bosses, they are my family, they are the people I want to be with. They don’t worry about how I’m going to play, they worry about how I am, how my family is and how my son is.
Maybe other workers don’t have the same relationship, but with me they always show a familiarity that I really feel like that, like my family, like my people, and I will always fight and kill for my people. Always.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS INTERVIEW TO A 19 YEAR OLD WHO WANTS TO BE A DJ AND WHO THINKS AND DREAMS OF HAVING HIS OWN PARTY IN IBIZA AND YOU CAN ONLY GIVE HIM ONE PIECE OF ADVICE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
My advise would be to have patience and just do your job. Strive about making people dance, worry about the weekend and when it’s over, start thinking about the next one. That way, thinking like that and working hard, opportunities will come.
19TH OF SEPTEMBER YOU WILL TAKE FULL CONTROL OF HÏ IBIZA WITH NOW HERE AGAIN. WHAT ARE YOU PREPARING?
There will be two nights of tribute to my 30-year career. One of the nights I’m going to do it with my young people –the new generation– and the other night I’m going to do it with the people and legends who have been part of my career, my life and history here in Ibiza for these 25 years.
DURING THESE SEASONS WITH NEW PEOPLE. HAS THERE EVER BEEN SOMEONE THAT YOU DIDN’T LIKE AND YOU JUST THOUGHT “DON’T COME BACK”?
A few of them. It’s important to note that every artist that comes to NOW HERE to play I’ve seen before in person, I know what they do. But yes. It is easy to tell, those who were in the line-up and haven’t come back is because I didn’t like something.
A DJ has to go to the club to entertain the audience because a person pays a ticket to have fun and enjoy himself, not to understand or to be given a masterclass on music or the history of music.
I tell each and every one of those who play with me: “Don’t come thinking that you have to warm up for me. You have to come here to make people dance and have a good time. Don’t worry about me, I’ll know how to adapt to what you do”. For me it’s a philosophy that I’m never going to change.
PEOPLE ARE HAPPY, WEDNESDAY MORNINGS IS WHEN YOU SEE THE MOST INSTAGRAM STORIES OF PEOPLE LEAVING NOW HERE AND THAT’S THE BIGGEST SIGN THAT RIGHT NOW YOU’VE CONNECTED WITH THE AUDIENCE AND THE PEOPLE ON THE ISLAND.
You just said it: the people of the island. If I go to 10 restaurants in 8 they tell me “All the chef wants to take a photo with you”.
I feel that they are part of me and that I’m part of them, I feel identified and connected with them. I don’t know if you know but in my room I don’t have VIP, I don’t want it. I just want people to be dancing and enjoying themselves.
There is also this hype of not wanting phones in the session. I can assure you that if you play good music, there will be some people with their mobile phones, obviously, but the crowd will be connected to you. Things are much simpler, you play good music and people dance. You make good food, people eat.
THIS SUMMER WE’VE BEEN ABLE TO SEE YOU AT OTHER VENUES IN IBIZA, LIKE PLAYA SOLEIL CELEBRATING THE EURO CUP OR USHUAÏA CELEBRATING YOUR BIRTHDAY. WHAT’S IT LIKE PLAYING AT THIS ICONIC VENUE? DID YOU NOTICE MUCH DIFFERENCE IN THE VIBE OF THE CROWD FROM A NIGHT AT HÏ IBIZA?
We have to differentiate the three nights. When I played at Ushuaïa Ibiza, I played two sets, I’ll tell you an anecdote. We were putting together the line up for Ushuaïa and they told me “we need one more headliner to open”. I said no, but they told me that people would probably be waiting to come in by the time I came to play. I told them that if that was a problem I would open. I was there at 15:30h opening Ushuaïa.
For me it was amazing because I love doing openings, it allows me to play music that I don’t always play and build the vibe that I want to create for the DJs that come after – 80 or 90% of the sessions I have to play the Main Time, with a two-hour set where I have to crush it.
In Ushuaïa I did the closing, where, for my 50th birthday, I played some of the music that I really liked, the records that I’ve liked most of my life not as a DJ, but as a person. I wanted to do a set that was a little bit current but always with touches of the songs that have influenced me the most in my career.
Hï Ibiza is 100% Paco Osuna. When I play at NOW HERE it’s 100% what I like. I made it a bit minimal techno, tech house, a bit dark. For Playa Soleil I did a completely different set, a bit more musical, with more acoustic tracks where you don’t hear everything so digital.
They were three completely different sets that I enjoyed like crazy, but for me there’s nothing like Hï Ibiza, it’s home. Home is home.
GOING BACK TO THAT ONE DAY AT USHUAÏA. THAT SAME DAY WAS ALSO THE BIRTHDAY OF ANOTHER FRIEND OF THE BRAND AND A GOOD FRIEND OF YOURS, DJ OLIVER. WHAT IS THE FIRST MEMORY YOU HAVE OF OLIVER?
It was one day later (laughs), I was born on the 8th and he on the 9th. The first memory is that I wanted to break his head (laughs), that’s the truth. He was the resident DJ at the Terrace and I was the resident DJ in the Main Room and at first he was really annoying me. The few times I went to play at the Terraza he gave me a bit of a hard time, I don’t want to go into details because I don’t want to make him look bad in this interview (laughs).
He’s from Barcelona, we have common interests, he’s a Barça fan, just like me, and I love him very much. We have lived through many experiences over the past 25 years, good and bad, and today Oliver is one of those people that I consider part of my family. His daughter calls me “Uncle Paco”, he calls my son “my nephew Paquito”. He’s my family. But the first few times I had to be with him I wanted to kill him because he really pissed me off.
WITH A 25 YEARS LONG FRIENDSHIP LIKE THAT, IS IT DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN SUCH A PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP FOR SO MANY YEARS?
It’s difficult when you have a friendship that isn’t a true friendship. When you have friends who say they are your friends but then don’t rejoice in your successes, constantly competing with you… They are not your friends. You have friends when they enjoy your achievements and who are there for you in your difficult moments. I always say that I have many acquaintances and few friends. Oliver is one of my friends, he is there in my difficult moments. Marco Carola is my best friend because he has been in my most difficult moments. There was a time when we were not on good terms and, in a difficult moment of mine, at that time, he forgot everything and wanted to be by my side. I met Marco when I was 24 years old. I know his parents, sisters, nephews and nieces… I talk to his sisters every other week. I talk more with his family than with him (laughs). They’re real friends, not just a DJing buddies. They are family. When you have a relationship based on honesty, time doesn’t matter.
IN AN INTERVIEW YOU HAVE SAID THAT YOU ALWAYS LOOK AT TWO FACTORS WHEN SIGNING SOMEONE TO YOUR LABEL. THE FIRST IS UNDOUBTEDLY THE PERSON. FOR INSTANCE, I COULD BE IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND OF AN ARTIST BUT IF WHEN I MEET THEM IN PERSON THEY DON’T GIVE ME A GOOD FEELING I’D RATHER NOT INCLUDE THEM. DO YOU ALSO DO THIS FOR THE ARTISTS THAT SUPPORT YOU IN YOUR PARTY? WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU LOOK AT?
First, obviously, I look at the musical quality, but if the musical quality doesn’t match the personality, that is, if the person has certain egos or ways of approaching life that can create a problem for me with the rest of the group, I have to get rid of them. For me it’s very important to have a healthy group and I’m the first to set an example. I teach them that the first thing is the love of music, not the ego.
I always tell my wife, Melanie Ribbe, who is the person I spend the most time with: “We are like donkeys, we look ahead, neither left nor right, we go ahead, we go our own way and whatever happens around us is not our business”.
This is something I try to pass on to the guys, not to look at others but at what they are doing themselves. You know you are doing well, don’t look at what others are doing. It’s not important. Believe in yourselves because that’s the only way you will succeed one day. My father always told me: “Life is a long-distance race, not a sprint, like a marathon. It is better to take steps at a time than 3/4 steps at a time because if you fall the blow is bigger.”
YOU SAY THAT SUCCESS HAS COME TO YOU WITH 25/30 YEARS OF CAREER, NOW THAT YOU ARE 50 YEARS OLD, DO YOU SOMETIMES NOTICE THAT AGE MAKES YOU TIRED? WE SAW A FEW WEEKS AGO THAT IN THE SAME WEEKEND YOU WERE IN MADRID, THEN IBIZA AND AFTERWARDS, MADRID AGAIN.
Oh yes, I remember perfectly. On Friday, I can’t remember where it was, but on Saturday I was at elrow Town in Madrid, on Saturday night at the opening of Hï Ibiza and on Sunday afternoon I was playing at elrow again on the NOW HERE stage, and Sunday night at the elrow after party. That doesn’t kill me at all, long trips or weekend overseas are the ones that tire me out the most.
Obviously age is a handicap, I no longer have the same energy I had when I was 19 or 20, that’s for a fact. I do have the same passion. That hasn’t changed. I start playing and I forget everything, it doesn’t matter if I’m sick, at home, if I have one person or thousands of people in front of me.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SHARE YOUR LOVE AND PASSION FOR MUSIC WITH YOUR PARTNER, MELANIE?
It’s the most beautiful thing. Melanie is 60/65% of the moment I’m living right now, because she makes me feel good, she makes me feel calm. We both talk about the same thing, we are in the studio making music. The only thing I don’t do with her is share our promos (laughs). Her music is her music and my music is my music.
But we do have the same experiences, the same concerns, we like the same things, she’s my best friend, my partner, my wife because I’m married, and that peace of mind that she transmits to me and what she makes me feel day after day is what makes me who I am today. She has experienced all the success of NOW HERE with me and all the success that I am experiencing right now – although I don’t call it success, rather the peace ofmind – that allows me to develop the sets that I do today, is thanks to her because she is not only my wife, she is my best friend.
She really is, I share everything with her, absolutely everything.
LAST YEAR, YOU ENDED OUR INTERVIEW WITH A SENTENCE THAT SAID: “ENJOY THE MOMENT TO THE FULLEST AND ALWAYS BE YOU WITHOUT CHANGING YOUR PERSONALITY, WHATEVER YOUR STATUS AND POSITION IN LIFE”. ONE YEAR LATER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
That sentence represents everything. I would tell you to enjoy the moment because nobody can guarantee the future, that’s why NOW HERE is my motto. Perhaps my phrase would be: don’t think long term because plans for the distant future may not come true. And also something very important, always try to be a person with your own identity.
Pics: Alex Caballero