His World

Two hints. House music. And almost surely the biggest name in the business.

If you answered Erick Morillo, then you were right. And if you didn't, then the names Morillo and Subliminal probably mean nothing to you, which is fine — except if you consider yourself a house music lover, then you should hang your head in shame, because it doesn't get any bigger and better than this.

"Obviously I'm still travelling and touring the world — that side of things for me never stops. I'm also doing my twelfth season at Pacha in Ibiza on Wednesdays. I've also been doing a fair bit of work in the studio; a few new singles are coming out as well as a new album with my man, Harry Romero and that's going to be awesome.

“It will feature Dizzie Rascal, Mark Anthony, Craig David, Jessica from the Pussycat Dolls and so on. In the sense of collaborations and things, it's still good dance music; we do experiment a little bit here and there but it gives off great energy. The first single is with Busta Rhymes and it just keeps going from there.”

Growing up in Union City, just over the bridge from the Big Apple in New Jersey, he felt the passion for turntables in his early teens. He went on to study studio engineering, which would later prove helpful in his capacity as a producer. It was in 1997, with Harry Romero, that he started his record label, and then spent a year perfecting everything from its business model to the letterhead! Talk about pragmatic. And his collaboration discography reads like the who's who of Hollywood: P. Diddy, Enrique Iglesias, Basement Jaxx and even Macy Gray and Whitney Houston; nothing to be sneezed at, to be sure. Yet he doesn't want to take too much of the credit.

“I definitely think that the internet has made it a lot easier for people to become stars in the scene. Before it took ten years, now in a year or with one hit record you can become big. People who are big now you didn't hear about five minutes ago — the Afrojack's of this world — they're the biggest thing in America right now. So you can really crack it in the industry now.”

Erick Morillo plays Summafieldayze, at The Spit on the Gold Coast, January 2. summafieldayze.com