DJ Hector Fonseca

Celebrated DJ Hector Fonseca, having been named Best International DJ/Producer by “Edge” and best DJ by “Out,” is above and beyond a world-renowned, globally famous DJ personality.  Admired for remixing the hits of artists such as Sia, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Beyoncé, Pet Shop Boys, Blondie and the list continues, Fonseca has enjoyed 15 official Billboard #1 dance remixes.

Aside from having a podcast with an audience of over two million, Fonesca has headlined the largest, most prestigious parties in the universe, including Matinee (Ibiza, NYC, Miami, LA, Las Vegas), World Pride (NYC), The White Party (Palm Springs, Miami), Alegria (NYC), The Week (Brazil), Rapido (Amsterdam), Beyond (London), G Village (Italy) and the Circuit Festival (Barcelona), just to mention a few.

Having returned from Beijing just the other day, Fonseca consented to a conversation with Get Out! mag in the midst of doing a new release, new music and a lot more.

I heard you were in Beijing.
Yeah, I just got back from Beijing. It was a lot of fun. I love Beijing because it’s kind of a new thing for them, and they get so excited.

What kind of party was it?
It was a gay party in China’s #1 gay club.

Is their music different there?
Not really. Every time you go toward the west, the more progressive you can get. I’m from New York, from the Bronx, and New York has had its own sound for a while now. I find, for example, in California, I can play more progressive, and in China even more so, but the core of my set, 70% of what I play, is my style, my label audio4play.

So New York is behind musically.
We kind of like established sounds … and we kind of stuck to that. The circuit sound came to New York in like 2000, and it kind of stuck.

You’ve done some of the biggest parties in the world. What’s your favorite?
Oh, there’s so many. I love doing Life Ball in Vienna, because it’s a charity. It’s like Europe’s biggest HIV charity. It’s over the top. It’s a traditional Viennese ball, and you have celebrities from all over the world going there and donating their time to raise money. They’ve been doing it for over 20 years for the hardest-hit areas like in Africa and Eastern Europe. I love doing that; the pageantry and the overall vibe is fun. As far as a party itself, the party in Brazil beats anything on this planet. Brazil and Ibiza are probably my two favorite parties that I’ve done.

What DJs do you like working with the best?
I love working with Tommy Love. We’ve done a lot of remixes together, official remixes for Lady Gaga, Rihanna. I do the tribal circuit mix with Tommy. He’s always fun. I love DJing with Theresa. She’s a blast. She’s my partner on the label. We’ve known each other for six years now. She’s just always fun to play with.

So when you do these remixes, what happens? Do you call Gaga and say, “I wanna do a remix of your song”?
A lot of people think that is the approach, but it’s actually the opposite. The label calls me, and they say, “We have a song…” They call my music manager and say, “We need remixes from Hector for the LGBT crowd,” because that’s what I focus on. That’s my specialty: translating a pop hit into a party anthem in the gay scene.

That’s why you’re my favorite DJ.
Thank you. The last couple of years I’ve come up a lot. When I started, the more underground stuff wasn’t necessarily on the radio, but the last five years I’ve gotten tons of remix requests from artists and their management, which is cool, because I’ll never forget what Peter Rauhofer taught me, which was: “To be successful in this industry, to have longevity, you have to have your front foot firmly planted on commercial and your back foot touching underground.” In other words, you have to have a strong commercial sense but bring the underground edge to it.

A lot of DJs don’t feel that way.
Yeah, I think there’s a movement toward underground music, and I think that’s a result of dance music becoming commercialized. A lot of music that would have only been in dance clubs is on the radio now. At the end of the day, the majority of people still enjoy commercial music. The key is to give it that underground edge. You can’t go fully commercial, and you can’t go fully underground. I think if you can give commercial music an underground edge, people always love that.

So take your remix of Sia for example. You do the remix—it’s amazing—then what do you do from there, ask them to perform it with you?
Sia in particular, for example, is more difficult to get into a club, because when she performs she doesn’t want to perform the remix. She wants to perform her original composition with a band.  I’ve gotten requests from a couple of them to perform. It really depends on the artist.

How long have you been DJing?
Now it’s been around 15 years. If you count the amount of times I’ve DJ’d in my bedroom, it’s like 17 years. Professionally it’s been about 15 years. My first gig was at The Limelight in 1999.

Wow. So all of a sudden DJs have become superstars. Why is that, do you think?
I think at some point…again, it goes with [the] commercial pop industry. I think at some point the commercial industry was looking for a new sound, something that would be infectious with people, and it automatically gravitated to dance music. You had some artists that were doing the crossover thing, and that caught fire. DJs featuring singers—well-known singers—that kind of started the hype. At the end of the day, if the economy is bad or if you’re going through some rough times, you can always escape in a club with dance music. You’re always going to have a good time. So I think it’s part of the popularity of that trend. With dance music you can escape. You’re part of the popularity of that trend. … You’re not sitting in a car listening to a ballad and crying your eyes out.

Did you have a DJ who inspired you growing up?
I think for me, growing up in New York, I would say Frankie Knuckles, Morales…Peter Rauhofer is possibly one of my biggest influences, because he was my mentor, and he was the first one to discover me. Junior Vasquez, he definitely put his stamp on New York.

What do you like most about DJing?
I have my label audio4play, so these days it‘s playing new stuff that we’re going to release on the label and seeing how the crowd reacts to it. But I think in general it’s nice to know that you’re helping people for a night. They’re having a great time and forgetting [their] problems. That’s the biggest thrill for me.

What do you think of David Guetta?
I think he did a lot for electronic music. I personally don’t play a lot of his stuff, but I think he had an impact on that part of the industry.

If we looked inside your heart right now, what would we find?
Love. I’m in love right now, and I think I’m more comfortable with myself and more at peace than I’ve ever been. At this point I’ve done a lot, and there’s a lot more that I want to do, and I feel like I’m in the right place to do those kinds of things. I have my album coming up. I’m out in California working on it. [I’ve been] in New York my whole life and pounding the pavement, paying my dues, and [now I’m] finally getting to where I can kind of relax and do what I love.

Rumor has it that you were a model for awhile.
I was, believe it or not. When I was at school I was scouted by an agent there, and that kind of brought me back to New York, but it really wasn’t for me. Men in the modeling industry don’t make nearly as much as the women—kind of just second-class citizens in the industry. I did it for two or three years, then I found my way back to music.

So you learned how to produce music?
Yes. I actually learned from Peter, and it was pretty amazing. It was when he had just won the Grammy. I did anything I could to be in that studio.

What makes you angry?
I don’t get too angry. To be honest I’m just in a good place, but I get upset sometimes to see people who are not willing to pay their dues. I think in the industry you really need to understand that it just doesn’t come that easily. You need to work for it, to earn it. That’s what I always tell people, DJs that are frustrated after a year or two. I just tell them that for years I struggled, for a good five or six years. I’d carry records, I’d give rides to DJs, I would do whatever I could to let the older generation know that I really wanted to do this.

So what’s coming up for you?
We have a ton of new music coming on the label audio4play. We have this song with Ricky Rebel called “Star.” Ricky is amazing.

I love Ricky.
He’s kind of got that androgynous Bowie thing, and he’s coming from our community, and I’m all about helping him get his artistry out there. He is an artist.

I just love him. I interviewed him twice.
Yeah, he’s great. He’s an individual. The song is doing really well. It’s in a lot of DJs’ top 10 [lists]. It’s making a lot of noise, and it’s doing well, so I definitely want to mention that. We have a song coming with Blondie, an original song. I’ll be on Blondie’s new album. It’s called “Mile High.” That’s coming up as well.

Where will you be heading after LA?
I have a bunch of stops coming up for Pride season. I think it’s like 15 stops for Pride. New York is not one of them. Then Matinee in Las Vegas.

Are you going to make it down to Fire Island this summer?
I don’t know, is that happening?

I don’t know.
I doubt it. I’m booked till August, and there’s no Fire Island on there.

So what else?
I just want people to check out audio4play. The whole point of starting this label was to get music from our scene out there more. It was to develop DJs and producers from our scene, to give them a platform. I think it’s really important that everyone support things like that, because we’re never going to get on the radio and be all over the place. The main message I’m pushing these days is support things from your scene.

hectorfonseca.com
Twitter: @hectorfonseca
djhectorfonseca.podomatic.com
Label: audio4play