You worked with AI voice elements on this record, right? What was that process like?
I use it more like a speech synthesizer, so there’s no intelligence there. It’s just me typing down things that pop in my head or some topic that I'm deeply invested in—some kind of idea or a theme. So it's not really AI. I get a lot of excitement from that—that it's coming from me, but it's not. And it's like some kind of paradox as well, maybe, but, it's definitely my own theater where I can just create characters and stories and themes however I feel and give it a life. It's still so fascinating to listen to someone else. Something that can get into your skin, but it's not a person. But if I would do it with a microphone myself, I wouldn't enjoy it as much. The voices in my head would be echoing back at me in the studio in real time.
Have you ever used your own vocals on a track?
Yeah. I’ve put microphones in my throat, screamed into them, processed my voice into things that don’t sound human anymore. It’s satisfying.
There’s something satisfying about that.
It's very satisfying just to put a microphone up your mouth and scream, it's great. Put a limiter on it and then see what comes out. Sometimes it sounds like a trumpet—I've done that many times.
I feel like there’s such an element of humor to your music. I saw that you've guessed on comedy shows before?
Everything funny is also tragic. Comedy and horror are two sides of the same thing—it’s just timing and delivery.
So, what's your relationship with humor and music? Because it's such a contested intersection.
Yeah, for sure, because it's so easy to not be understood. I have a lot of stupid jokes, and I say a lot of stupid shit and when I'm in the studio, but should it be shared with everyone is another thing. So when you want to share something, you want it to resonate with the people who are listening to it. I believe that everything that is funny is also tragic. Right? The theater logo.
The tragedy and the comedy.
Yeah, yeah. So I enjoy, also, to look at it in that way because I'm a funny guy but also very serious. I'm constantly doing something that I find funny and sad. Humor in music is tricky because it’s easy to be misunderstood or lame. I like using it as a trojan horse. You make something absurd or playful, but underneath, there’s something serious, something real.
You've made music under all these different aliases over the years. There's an element of comedy or play to their names, right?
Yeah, of course. If I released everything under my own name, it would really look like an AI was mass-producing tracks. The aliases help separate different ideas and sounds or genres, and they also make the label feel bigger than it actually is.
Yeah.
And different styles and different sounds. But the funny thing is, I think that is a little bit like the trick. People let their guard down when they’re laughing, and that’s when you can slip in something deeper.
When you work under these aliases, are you almost thinking about these things like you're playing a character?
It’s funny that you ask that. When I release under my own name, there’s more pressure I create and more expectations. But if I tell myself, Okay, now I’m going to be Refrigirator54, suddenly there’s more freedom. No rules, no restrictions. I intend to make a lot more music if I don't think about names or I don't think about releasing it. So I love to sometimes, just, I'm going to make a trance track. I want to make some melodies. Or, you know, like, oh, yeah, now I'm going to be Ricardo Villalobos.
It’s a psychological trick.
Absolutely. It’s like tricking yourself into making something without overthinking it. But the more calm and safe environment I create for myself, and not living in constant travel, I get better head space for me to immerse myself in myself.
So do you have any secret projects you're working on now? Do you have a secret happy hardcore project or something?
Yeah, I still have a bunch of music out there that I don't tell anyone—it's still a secret. I make so much music that some of it just needs to exist without me being attached to it. There’s something liberating about that, knowing that people might hear it and experience it and never trace it back to me and me never know about it.