Ronika is a self made singer songwriter known for her DIY videos and disco inspired music. She’s definitely got her own style and that’s why she’s been chosen as one of the emerging artists for the new Bacardi Beginnings project.
To mark their 150th anniversary Bacardi are giving away £10,000 bursaries to established talents including Friendly Fires and Mylo to get their mentor on and make music with the new nominated acts. Bacardi invited WJ down to get the gossip about the project and meet the artists.
In the second of our series of interviews we got chatting to Ronika about working with Mylo, having a Mini-Me and what decade influences her most.
So Bacardi Beginnings, are you excited to be working with Mylo?
Yeah, really thrilled to be working with Mylo, I’m a big fan of his. I’ve been DJing his stuff out for years – so yeah I love Mylo and Im really excited that he’s chosen me to be his mentee.
What kind of things would you like to learn from him?
You know he’s been one of the biggest producers in the dance music world so I think he’s got a lot of stuff to pass on really. It will be great just to work with him make some music together see and how he does things in the studio as well as just everything else as well.
Your latest music video for Automatic is pretty retro it’s got a bit of 90′s got a bit of 80′s influences in there. Do you identify with a particular decade or era?
I think it would be a lie to say it isn’t quite 80′s inspired yeah! The “Automatic” video was kind of inspired and had flavours of 90s MTV, I wanted the knarly bright colours and then it has the VHS thing which is the theme in my videos – the 80s VHS. I do love all that aesthetic and i made that video myself, I make a lot of my own videos. Yeah, I’d say 80s is a big influence on my stuff, but hopefully not the same kind of 80s that’s been played out a lot hopefully. Hopefully there are some interesting 80s influences in there as well.
Your vocals have occasionally been compared to early Madonna and Gwen Stefani, you have quite a bold female style. Do you welcome that kind of comparison or would you prefer to just be known for being Ronika?
You know that’s a big honour and a big complement to be compared to those people. Both of them are influences on me and I make pop music you know and they’re two of the greatest females in pop music. So yeah it’s very flattering. Hopefully I’ve got my own style as well that’s a bit different…
You recently supported Little Boots and did a remix on one of her tracks “Headphones” – what do you think about remixes as a vehicle for getting your style out there but collaborating with other artists?
I think it’s really exciting because you get to take someone else’s creative endeavours and mess about with it and then put your own stamp on it. So I like doing remixes it’s nice to put your flavour on someone else’s track.
Is DJing a passion as well?
Yeah, I do love DJing I’ve been DJing for years. I think I started doing that you know, I was DJing before perhaps putting out my own stuff, that’s where I started out.
So your music fits into a lot of different genres you’ve got a bit of dance in there, a bit of pop, electro – what do you think about commercialised stuff, do you think you’ll ever go commercial or you’ll always stay more on the dance side?
I think it’s hard for me to go commercial because – you know there’s a certain sound which is very prevalent in todays pop music which I don’t especially like. So for me, I couldn’t make that kind of music so I just have to do what I do if it was ever to cross over obviously there’s a big pop vibe in it so you know I’m sure it could appeal to the masses on some level but I don’t think I could ever go down the David Guetta route unfortunately.
That’s probably for the best though…
Yeah (laughs)
What was it like to work with Herve?
Josh he’s awesome, he’s a lovely guy. I’ve been a fan of his music as well for a long time. He sent me some tracks for me to have a listen to and the one that we ended up doing together, which is called “How Can I Live Without You (Make It Right)” which is out now, that one had the 90s piano vibes to it. You know the 90s house piano and that one just instantly stood out to me because I love that sound. So yeah we did the track together and hopefully we’ll do some more stuff in the future.
I love the video, the Mini-Me! – Where was that filmed?
Oh do you? Oh the Mini-Me’s! It was a right strange little ego trip having a Mini-Me. It was filmed down in Hastings, we were dropped into a British seaside skate park and I thought that all the kids on the skate park were just going to ridicule me when I turned up and started dancing but they were alright! Yeah they were quite into it.
What’s next for Ronika?
Okay so I’m just working on having my album mixed, we’re mixing my album at the moment. So that’s quite a big thing for me you know getting all the music that I’ve been working on over the past couple of years – and more, together into one cohesive sounding thing. So that’s going to be done in a couple of months. Im pretty excited about that and then obviously hookups – working with Mylo I can’t wait to hookup with Mylo and a couple of other producers who I’m talking with I won’t mentioned names but people I’m also really inspired by but who I’m really looking forward to doing stuff with.
And what about gigs, where can we see Ronika?
Well I’m sort of temporarily in Barcelona for a couple of months so I’m off the gigs for a couple of months but I’m coming but I’m back for Splenda festival which is in Nottingham which is my hometown. So back in Notts for that, I can’t wait for that one and then doing some things in Europe in September.
End
For more on the launch of Bacardi Beginning’s check out this.
