Viegas - Entrevista

Part of the impressive mina collective, participant in the Rabbit Hole parties and, for some time now, member of Rádio Quântica, Viegas is a Barreiro-born artist and DJ who was a part of OUT.FEST 2019's closing night at the A4 space. Before the festival we had the chance to speak with him about his artistic path and his activity in the collectives he is a part of in an interview you can read below.

How and when did you discover techno and electronic club music?

In 2014 I spent a few months outside Portugal, in Barcelona, and my way of getting to know the city and its people was by going out at night. Burial’s River Dealer had recently been released at the time and that ep was also a gateway to electronic music for me, especially for the musical scene in the UK, but to other things as well.

What kind of clubs and nights out did you usually go to, after that formative period? Usually here in Barreiro and in Lisbon I suppose?

In Barreiro my nights out were usually in the streets…but in Lisbon I’d go to Lux, as well as some Rabbit Hole parties and Príncipe nights.

Before we talk about your collective, I wanted to ask you about the Rabbit Hole nights, as they were parties which despite being associated with dance music were very eclectic, I even saw a friend of mine who plays drone music perform at one. Do you feel as if that mix of different music genres influenced your way of being a DJ?

In a way yes. At Rabbit Hole there was a place for all kinds of artistic expression, everything could be a part of one of those nights. That eclecticism in programming might have influenced me, yeah. Growing up in the suburbs also had a large impact in my way of looking at electronic music and in my interests. I grew up listening to Kuduro and Kizomba well before Techno or House or any other style…so lately my work has been in figuring out how to mix the many reference points I have into something appropriate for the moment when I’m playing.

Moving on to mina, how did it come to be and how did you join it?

Mina started after Rabbit Hole and Rádio Quântica (another project that I joined a little while after I started working with Rabbit Hole) joined forces. At the time Lisbon lacked an electronic music night that provided a space for people to experiment with their identity and sexuality…where rules were…implied and based more on mutual respect than those rules usually associated with more institutionalized spaces. Pedro Marum, one of Rabbit Hole’s founders who also joined Rádio Quântica around the same time I did, had the idea to start these mina nights with Violet and Photonz, the founders of Rádio Quântica, and since I was working with both projects I was invited to help out.

Speaking of Rádio Quântica, do you still have the “Mercúrio” radio show?

Well I’ve since changed the name to rave3000, and lately I haven’t done the show as often, but yeah.

How different are the playlists you make for radio shows and the ones you play on the dance floor? What are the differences and similarities, and what do you try to bring to one and the other?

Maybe I’ll start with the similarities: it all comes from the same place, I have similar criteria for both and I try to be inclusive and always focus it away from the centre. I don’t have as many concerns with the show, if the music is danceable or how it’ll be received, so I think it’s a much more experimental space with much less expectation from listeners. I always try to share the slot with other people as well, so it changes depending on whom I invite. On the radio, to me, the most important thing is to give other people a chance to access the platform, and I’m sure that if Rádio Quântica didn’t exist things would have been much harder for me.

You’ve played outside Portugal several times, in Berlin for instance…

Yeah…this last year I had the chance to play in several European capitals, like London, Paris, Athens…

Those are quite different cities, and known for their night life…how do you think Lisbon compares to those places? Is there anything unique about the city in that sense?

I feel more comfortable in Lisbon, so I am freer to experiment with some things. Usually I play in contexts where audiences are used to hearing all sorts of music and where that diversity is celebrated. Maybe this convergence is more normal because we don’t have as big a variety of nights dedicated to specific genres. In London, for instance, I felt the same, but in the UK there’s a very rich and diverse history of electronic music. I’m not sure if it’s unique, but since it’s a smaller city it’s easier to meet people from different scenes.

You studied documentary cinema, correct?

I started out studying Advertising and Marketing at the Escola Superior de Comunicação Social, but I quickly realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do, so I went on a one year Documentary Cinema course and studied Photography at Ar.Co and at the Fine Arts faculty.

I know you photograph the mina and Rabbit Hole nights. Do you feel that some of your education influenced your work? Not just as a photographer, but as a DJ as well?

I think it was the other way around, it was clubbing that ended up influencing my work in photography. My interest in photography arose from going on nights out because I felt the urge to create a record of what was happening. Now, I don’t know, in the future I’d love to explore the visual component of my shows more, so maybe it will change and photography will start influencing my way of DJing.

Coming back to Barreiro – You were born and grew up there, and according to one of your posts you would hear the festival from your bedroom. Can you tell me about your OUT.FEST experiences, starting from that moment in your bedroom?

I was living close to Ferroviários at the time, and the festival happened there several times. So I remember being younger and being unable to classify the kind of music I was listening to, and that was always interesting to me. When I started going it was very important for me to understand that there were other musical languages and possibilities…to see people with very creative approaches to their instruments and a patient and receptive audience. To discover ambient and drone legends who I would likely never cross paths with otherwise, all of this in incredible places that go unnoticed during the rest of the year. The kind of music I hear at home when I’m not preparing a set is very much influenced by what I hear at OUT.FEST.

Do you have a mix specifically prepared for OUT.FEST? What can we expect in one of the festival’s closing performances?

I’ll try to stay close to recent releases. I want it to represent what I’ve been listening to and playing in my latest sets somehow, prioritizing more experimental music that might not work as well in other contexts. I want to go to many places…but we’ll see what happens!

Interview by: Tiago Franco