Richard Earnshaw - Its a Soul thing Richard Earnshaw, the rising star of house music, has a musical past more diverse than most artists. Performing Chopin and Rachmaninov at the tender age of seven, he completed formal training with a music degree from the University of London. The freedom of expression he found in jazz, funk and soul beckoned to him to leave behind the manuscript and metronome and he became involved in computer production and musical experimentation. It is his early experiments here that led to him being noticed by the heads of Soulfuric, Brian Tappert and Mark Pomeroy. Since then Richard hasn’t looked back, continuing to explore and innovate house music as we know it. Resident Advisor chatted with him on the eve of his gig at Family with UK house legend Paul Farris. Who is Richard Earnshaw when he's not spinning records? I’m just chilling out! Writing music is a very therapeutic thing. I try to keep the whole process as enjoyable as it used to be when I was a nipper. Even with running the labels and stuff, you can’t lose sight of why we do what we do. We do it because we love it! Either that or I’m down the pub! What music do you like apart from House? Absolutely anything. I’ve always had the opinion that if it’s good, then it’s good. I guess having listened and studied to the extent that I have, you learn to appreciate so many types of music. It’s healthy. Illegal music downloads are threatening the future of the industry. How have Soulfuric and yourself been affected? Where do you stand on these sensitive issues? It’s just the way the world goes round. It’s survival of the fittest!! Music will always have a market place. The punters will always be there it’s just a question of how you get to them. Downloads have turned up and shaken everything up. Slowly but surely, all these people that chuck everybody else’s material around will pay the price eventually, until then, we have to concentrate on providing the very best we can to the people that are willing to pay. The people that hand out MP3’s don’t’ understand the hard work that goes into making a record, if they did, they probably wouldn’t be so careless with the music. The up-loaders will be dealt with accordingly in due course. I just hope these guys keep their mouths shut in my presence!!!!!!! ;0) Do you have a favourite gig of all time and if so, what made it so special? To date, my favourite gig was in Naples last year. Only because of the events surrounding it. I’d been out & about with Copyright the night before my flight. Got a filthy dose of food poisoning, so the travelling was most unpleasant. When I got there, I was met by a guy who looked like a lawyer and it turned out he was. As you can imagine, I started thinking things about the kind of gig it was going to be! It all changed when I got the venue and it was a castle up in the hills, the party was outside, the sound system was immense and the 1500 strong crowd was amazing. My food poisoning momentarily disappeared till I got back to the hotel!!! How do you find the constant travel that your job demands? Does the novelty ever wear off? In a way yes. It’s almost like when you first get your driver’s license, you drive all over the fucking place. And you’d drive your friends to the ends of the earth for the hell of it. When you first start travelling around, you get the same buzz, but after a while, you’re just going through the motions. I think that would change if I was sent everywhere in business class. What's next for the label and you personally? Plenty!! I’m just going to go with the flow. Each day has a different surprise in store so we’ll see what happens. But there will be plenty of music! What were your early musical influences? Does one in particular stand out? I have many influences but I don’t have one particular one. I like to listen to a lot of music in varying styles, so I guess I take a little from everything I listen to. Miles Davies, George Duke, Tower of Power, I could go on for ever……… What can Melbourne audiences expect from your upcoming Seven gig with Paul Farris? Plenty of mischief, plenty of music (new/old and cheeky!) and generally a bloody good time!!