Interview: Mauro Picotto on his new festival and DJ competition

Interview: Mauro Picotto on his new festival and DJ competition

21 April, 2011 | 7.21PM

• Written by: Ellie
• Filed under: Music News: alchemy festival, mauro picotto

His big break came 22 years ago when he won Best Italian DJ in the Walky Cup Competition in Italy. Since then he’s worked with Tiesto, had chart success with the tracks “Lizard (Gonna Get Ya)” and “I Feel Love” (under the pseudonym CRW), and he hosts his mighty Meganite parties in Ibiza and Miami. But now Mauro Picotto feels it’s time to give something back.

As well as planning Italy’s open-air underground music festival, Alchemy Festival, in his hometown of Cavour in June, he’s holding a DJ contest to discover the next up-and-coming performer, who will be flown to Italy to play alongside him at the festival.

We caught up with the techno DJ and producer to find out more…

Are you feeling any extra pressure at having the festival in your home town?

I’m very proud of my hometown so I’m going to do everything I can to make the festival a success. The thing I’m most concerned about is the weather, which I’m hoping is going to be good because in Italy if the weather is no good it can ruin a party. It should be good in June, but you can’t always be sure with festivals! It’ll be a good event anyway, but with sunny weather it’ll be great.

I’m really pleased with the support I’m getting in Italy – we had a meeting with the council last Friday and everybody gave us the OK. It was actually their idea to extend the festival from one to two days! The place is amazing, as it’s in the heart of the countryside with a fantastic view of the Alps, and my brother and sister will be there to support me, which will be nice.

I’m not really feeling any extra pressure, as it’s my job as a DJ and a producer. I’m more excited because I started my career by entering a DJing competition, so now I’m creating an X Factor-type thing to give something back. I’m very pleased as we’ve already had more than 400 records entered and we’re expecting around 1,000. We’re thinking of releasing a compilation with the best 20 or 30 tracks on it.

The Mayor of Cavour is closing the schools for the festival – it sounds like a bit of a party town!

In the summer the people in my hometown celebrate something different every weekend. For example, there were 10,000 people in Cavour yesterday for the meat weekend, where every type of meat is cooked on a grill in the street. In two weeks’ time it’ll be a celebration of flowers, and there’s also a party for the cultivation of apples.

But this sort of stuff is for the families, and Alchemy Festival will be the first time a clubbing crowd will be there.

Also, 2011 happens to be 150 years of Italy’s constitution, which I think played a part in the permission I was given to go ahead with my festival.

What’s the electronic music scene like in Italy?

It’s influenced mainly by Germany. The biggest club names in Italy at the moment are Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano and Loco Dice. But with Alchemy Festival and my Meganite parties in Ibiza and Miami, I’m always looking for new and fresh names, such as Adam Beyer, Yousef and Mark Broom.

What’s the best festival you’ve ever been to?

I’ve been to nearly every festival in the world. Festivals like Creamfields are always great, but because they’re on such a huge scale, there are people there who don’t know which DJs are playing or what’s going on, and there’s always a problem with the soundsystem. We’re going to make sure that ours is perfect. We’re hiring in a soundsystem from Rome which DJs like Marco Carola and Loco Dice say is amazing.  But we don’t want to compete with the huge festivals, because even though we’re expecting 4,000 to 5,000 people, ours is tiny and quite underground in comparison, and we want to attract the people who are really into their music.

What else have you got coming up in the next couple of months?

I recently released “Manipulator,” and my next single will be a remix of the 2001 “I Am What I Am,” which is a very housey – but not commercial – cool summer track that I’m doing a video for. I’ve also got the followup to my 2010 album, 2011, coming up. Club-wise, I’ve got a showcase at Proud 2 in London on 29th April and I’ll be playing at The Arches in Glasgow on 7th May.

What was the last record you listened to?

One of the records from the contest. It’s not easy trying to choose a winner! Out of all the entries, 600 may be rubbish, 100 will be all right, and there’ll be 20 good ones. Then I have to choose the best out of them.

And finally, who do you rate as an up-and-coming artist?

Alessio Mereu. His productions are unbelievable and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a finalist in my competition.

To enter Mauro’s DJ competition, submit your track via the FOEM forum.

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