Felix Cartal Interview
Rain City Essential: First off I want to wish you a Happy Birthday, and thank you for taking the time to do this interview. How did the show go last night?
Felix Cartal: Lots of fun, first time in Nanaimo! And they treated me really well, so it was a great birthday.
Rain City Essential: Glad to hear, wish I could have made it out to have seen it. So having heard most of your songs, there is definitly a unique sound. How did you find your certain style or sound? Did anyone inspire you?
Felix Cartal: Yeah I think I sort of stumbled onto it a bit, took me a bit to figure out what worked for me, but Vitalic has always been a big inspiration musically. But I can't just credit one influence, I'm influenced by lots of different types of music. A bit of a cliche musician answer I know, but it's true.
Rain City Essential: Your fairly recent release of "The Joker" clearly shows this unique sound, and it absolutely blew me away, I havn't heard anything quite like it. I was wondering how you came up with that track. Was it something that you have been working on for quite sometime or was it kind of spur of the moment?
Felix Cartal: That one was total spur of the moment. I actually made a quick demo version of it before a gig I played here in Vancouver, I just wanted something that was an attention-grabber, a sort of 'what's going on' moment for my set. So I did that, tried it out that night and then finished it the next day.
Rain City Essential: Wow, thats pretty impressive, were you taken back by the response you got from it?
Felix Cartal: Yeah definitely, I actually wasn't going to release it and just keep it for myself haha. And sort of keep it like my 'secret weapon'.
Rain City Essential: Well I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I'm pretty hyped that you did release it. You have another recently released track, "Kung Lao's Theme" from Mortal Kombat Songs Inspired by the Warriors, I am curious, how did you get into producing a track for them?
Felix Cartal: Jesse from MSTRKRFT curated the whole record so he asked me to do one. Really cool project.
Rain City Essential: Alright, alright, so did you get to pick the character that you produced the song for?
Felix Cartal: Yeah I did, a couple of the guys were taken already, so I wanted to pick one of the more original characters from the game.
Rain City Essential: Was it a favourite character from your childhood kind of decision?
Felix Cartal: No definitely not, just felt like the right guy for me based on which characters were available.
Rain City Essential: Ahah fair enough, so kind of asking a more challenging question here. Did you ever expect that you would be where you are now, just a few years ago?
Felix Cartal: No, and I don't think I can expect where I'll be at in a few years from now.
Rain City Essential: Well I'm sure you have a very prominent future ahead of you, speaking of which, what does 2011 look like for you? Can we look forward to any collaborations with other producers or are you mainly focusing on producing and releasing tracks of your own?
Felix Cartal: A few collaborations actually. Keatch and myself did 4 tracks together and we're releasing them as 2 separate EP. So the first EP is called Solar and it comes out at the end of the month, and then the other EP will be out a month or so after that one. Also, I worked on a track with Style of Eye and it's finished and I'm very excited for it. No release date is set in stone for that one yet though, but I hope soon!
Rain City Essential: Awesome well I look forward to those. One final question, I have to ask. What is the one venue/event/festival that you want to play in your lifetime and why?
Felix Cartal: Coachella. Because I think it's the best North American festival.
Rain City Essential: Couldn't agree more it is defintily one of the best North American festivals, are you going down to see it next week?
Felix Cartal: No I have a gig in Toronto that weekend!
Rain City Essential: Ahh thats to bad, well I want to thank you again, Thursday was my 4th time seeing you, and as per usual it was a banger. I look forward to seeing you again soon.
Felix Cartal: Thanks man!
