Merely mentioning the name Ibiza will undoubtedly bring images, or memories for many of us, of parties, beaches and beautiful sunsets. Since its opening to international tourism in the 1950’s the island has grown to be one of the most attractive party destinations with a thriving music scene, seeing visitors the from around the world attend year in year out, and has inspired music scenes around the world such as the infamous acid house scene here in the UK. Despite its size Ibiza has made a huge impact in the world of electronic music, but maybe more uncommonly known, it has also made a huge impact in the world of radio. In 1902 Julio Cervera Bavaria made pioneering advancements in worldwide telegraphic radio transmissions, a feat that would change the world of human communication forever when he established regular transmission between Ibiza and Xàbia on the mainland. He was one of the very first in the world to achieve this. Since then, radio has been used to connect the residents of the island with each other, and the mainland, with stations such as Radio Diario, Radio Cope and Radio SER to name a select few. With the explosion of electronic music on the island it was only natural that stations would start popping up that championed the sound, and just like Bavaria before them, it was only a matter of time before the settlers of the white isle once again made innovations in communicating sounds across the airwaves.
Ibiza Sonica has always strived to do things differently whether it’s setting up live broadcasts from some of the biggest nightclubs, hotels and after parties on the island, to giving the best DJs and promoters a chance to share their sounds, Sonica is all about spreading the soundtrack of Ibiza as far as possible. The masterminds behind the station are Igor Marijuan, Miguel Valverde, and Andy Wilson. The trio was instrumental in the success of the well-known Ibiza Global Radio, and since then they have proved to be a formidable force in radio on the island. We got the chance to speak to the trio on the ideologies of Sonica, getting around advertisements, the problem with streaming and algorithms, and the impact of Covid in the latest edition of our Radio Love series.
Interview and words: Callum Martinez
Callum: First questions for Igor and Miguel. How did you two meet and what inspired you to start a radio station?
Igor: Actually, when we arrived in Ibiza in 2001, which is yeah, 20 years ago, I had come from working on the radio on mainland Spain. We were in Ibiza working on a project together, working with different theories, but working together, and I was looking for the radio stations in Ibiza. One of the things that made me pay attention in Ibiza was the local stations. The national radio stations were based on pop music, but they [Ibizan radio stations] had turntables and they would have techno shows, and electronic music shows. So, I was like; Wow, these guys in Ibiza, they do it completely different. That’s the reason why I started to pitch them, and then I got a job working for this radio station called Cadena 100.
With Miguel, had friends in common. That’s the reason why we started working on the radio. Miguel was working to sell advertisements which meant that I got more of the artist side, and Miguel had the more the commercial, client side. In the end we came together to create a product based on electronic music.
Then with the help of Joan Tur, the director of the national radio station where Andy started to collaborate also, we began to create a new formula which was Ibiza Global Radio. At some point there was a little misunderstanding between the partners of Ibiza Global Radio and us, and then we decided together, the three of us, to set up a new project which was Ibiza Sonica. In the beginning it was a cultural association with the tools to promote the music from Ibiza which was the radio. The association went down, the radio went up, and that was the way Sonica was born.
Callum: When you first started at the radio station there was a big emphasis on being non-commercial. Why was this factor important to you guys?
Igor: It was not a strategic decision at all. It was just done because of the way we understand the music and the way that the music industry should work, like more from nature, more from the heart, rather than make another typical, standard radio station based on formula. That’s the reason we decided to go completely against the formula and try to express the idea of the Ibiza freedom, where people are allowed to play wherever they want and wherever they feel, and to try to make a kind of soundtrack to the island of Ibiza at some point, which is not possible if you are following a standard formula of the records that have to be played. We tried to go with our instincts!
Andy: Also, because with playing electronic music we were having a lot of guest DJs, and the idea from the beginning would be to bring in guest DJs because as you know in Ibiza in the summertime all the best DJs in the world are passing through. So, giving Carl Cox, or Sven Vath a platform, to invite them on the radio to come play for an hour and then we have to stop every 10 minutes for an advert for a bloody pizzeria or a hairdressers or something, it would just completely spoil the energy. So, with Global Radio and then with Sonica, we wanted to give a soundtrack to the island, and that was the soundtrack of music with a lot of energy. With traditional radio advertising, let’s face it, it’s pretty rubbish. Even now it’s quite hard to make a 20 second commercial that you want to hear more than one time…
Igor: It killed the vibe and it’s too invasive.
Andy: Yeah, exactly it killed the vibe, and it was very much about providing this great soundtrack that people would just want to have on in their cars or in their apartments, or on their stereos, where wherever they were. So, we didn’t know because no one had done it, but we imagined, and we got good feedback from the clubs and promoters. Because we had a lot of contacts through our shows on Cadena 100, Igor’s and mine, we already had a lot of guest DJs and a lot of those DJs would be brought by the promoters.
We had relationships with these promoters, so it seemed something definitely worth trying out in that promoters or the clubs might take a whole hour and might pay us money to have and promote their event or their brands. Well, we didn’t really talk about brands very much 20 years ago but, promote their nights by paying for a whole hour instead of €30 for a 20 second advert or something, and it turns out it works. But only in the summer.
Igor: This is also part of the Miguel strategy when we started working on Cadena 100 because again, Cadena 100 was a radio station based on these 30 seconds ads, and the way that we were working together in that was like OK; we generate content, and we try to get monetised for this whole content. rather than, following the same formula as other radios, just try to be original. Try to be at some point like yeah, let’s change the rules.
Andy: It’s like If there’s 5 radio stations on your presets, and you’re listening to the radio and then some advert comes on and you know it’s going be like 3-4 minutes of adverts, I go to another radio station and see if there’s some music. So, we thought we could try and break with that, you know? I grew up listening to Radio One a lot when I was kid. You know the BBC, whatever you say about it, its great! You’ve got lots of different radio stations now with no adverts. We did it for the music, not for money.
We wanted to share the music and we thought we could find a way to be more about the music other than about the adverts, because in commercial radio the music is kind of the filler between the adverts for the bosses, but we wanted to have a station where it was just the music and give out information like a community. It was also talking to the DJ’s, talking to the promoters, to the people involved. It was wanting to build community around the island’s music scene.
So, between us we had a lot of friends, producers, and DJs based on the island so we we’re able to give them a platform. Not professional radio people, but people with a love and good energy who deserved a platform. That was especially with Sonica we did that.
Callum: That sort of ties into my next question. The Internet was quite a big part of Sonica’s success at the start, was there any differences that pushed you towards the Internet as opposed to the FM DAB plus side of things?
Igor: When Internet arrives to our world it was a completely new thing for us like for everyone else. We just made this step forward from being a local radio station to be an international radio station. In FM times It was more about how much coverage you have; it was how powerful is your transmitter? And right now, everyone’s as far as a click from you, so it’s like we just stepped out from our local mentality, local in Ibiza. And as you know, Ibiza it’s like a leader which is international. But it was a little bit like; okay guys, you’re not local anymore, the whole world is listening to you. And luckily us being based in Ibiza is a focus point for the people, especially for the people that has been spending some time Ibiza for vacations, or just traveling around and driving their car, listening to the to the music that we provide at Sonica, and then they get back home and keep with the spirit all year round.
For me, I think that the most important thing was not to be too focused in Ibiza but use the window of the Internet on the radio to keep the Ibiza vibe as long as possible for the people.
Miguel: We got into the internet world from the back door, especially with social media. When the social media arrived, it was another challenge because once again we had to feed another media that’s completely different. So, we started a Facebook page like a person. The pages didn’t exist yet, it was only the profiles. We reached the 5000 top in a week and we were like oh no, what’s going on here? So, we needed to react on time.
Igor: For us it has all been very organic, it was not based on any strategy from the team, we just make it go with the flow. Very Ibiza, a little bit too hippie style.
Andy: What Igor and Miguel said is totally true that with the Internet radio we didn’t have any kind of strategy for it and it just kind of evolved, but we soon realised that it gave us a lot of power and gave us a lot of reach. A key element of that was when we started doing live broadcasts from the clubs. Before we started doing that with global, but we took it to another level with Sonica, and it became one of our key things that we did during the summer season. It wasn’t just from clubs, but also from local businesses and from beach bars.
We went all around the island with our slogan, which we still have which is: we take Ibiza from the inside, to the outside. The Internet meant that people anywhere in the world could listen to the opening or closing of Space, or the incredible parties at Blue Marlin or somewhere, and that became the thing with it. It’s okay if you’re driving around on the island, and wow, you’re listening to some great thing that’s happening around the corner, but it’s even more amazing if you’re listening to it in the UK or Germany.
Coming from a commercial basis for us as a presenter, presenting a live broadcast or as a DJ playing, as an example, we used to do the live broadcast from lots of clubs and sometimes we’re doing them quite early so you have warm up DJ’s, and those warmup DJ’s can be really inspired thinking there’s thousands of people listening even though there might only be 100 people on the dance floor because it’s only 8:00 o’clock, but they know there’s thousands of people listening around the world. So yeah, it’s a great step and again it’s about a kind of community because we built up a community amongst the listeners and the DJ’s, collaborators and ourselves. And then with the Internet, we take that whole community, the Sonico’s, and take it global. It’s a big step, but it’s something that just happened organically.
Callum: It’s like when you mentioned about the events and streaming stuff. You have a lot of other business areas as well like the touring agency and the Sonica experience with the DJ lessons and things like that. It’s all a part of this community driven goal of expanding the Sonica family in all different areas of music.
Igor: That’s for sure. I mean it helped us a lot. Even for us to bring that possibility to the people we kind of became speakers for the island. There is a story going on that needs to be told. We were in these years when there was a lot of really bad communication about Ibiza, like really bad, the worst! I mean we are a small island but at the same time there’s quite different scenes going on. There are things with bad behaviour going on, but also there is a pure magic on the other side with beautiful people and smiling faces and just playing naturally, so we were a bit tired about how the island was communicating this message to the world, like a party Island but in a bad way and not in a good way.
I mean there is an amazing music industry here going on you know, serious people doing the right things. Here it’s about entertainment, dancing and having fun. It doesn’t need to be a bad thing at all. So, we felt responsible at some point to change this vibe of the people receiving Ibiza as a party island in a bad way. Like fathers being worried about their sons coming to the island, no! They’re going to live amazing moments. But it’s all about the education that you give to your kids. When they come to Ibiza, they have to have good behaviour because there is another scenario for that in Ibiza, much bigger than the other one but with less noise. So, our responsibility with the live broadcast was to tell the people that here, things are right and there well done, and it’s amazing.
Callum: You guys have quite a lot of selectors at the station. Obviously, music selection is really important part of Sonica’s identity? What sort of processes do you go through when you’re choosing your music? What are you trying to say as a radio station musically?
Igor: This has been changed over the last few years because even the music has been evolving all the time, so for the first part of the radio when it was born it was more kind of; I’m just trying to be focused on what the Ibiza feeling should be, but with some special sign. But right now, since Miguel has taken over with the direction of the radio it has opened the door to more selectors. Before it was only me, but then I have to work on other projects, and so Miguel has taken over opening the door for six more selectors to feed the channels.
Miguel: The style of Sonica has been focused on a specific sound all these years. Right now, the spectrum has been opened wider to invite more music selectors to the station. People that have been part of the Ibiza family since the beginning like Andy Wilson, Ernesto Altés, Karlos Sense, Secretario, Valentin Huedo and Igor Marijuan have been the main selectors, but also, we invite all the people like Rebaluz for example, for a specific channel like Sonicalm which is more based on chill out music.
We have other channels that focus more on bands, like more guitar and instrument bands, which is called Sonica Alternative by Ivan Serra. It’s opening the spectrum wider but trying to keep this with Sonica taste all of the time. So, it’s a pretty clear message if you are listening to Sonica what kind of music you will get. I mean we are more open to electronic music, so the process is basically on the music collection made by the music selectors of Ibiza Sonica, but also inviting the right guest to play the right music for the for the radio 24/7, and also for these specific channels.
As you know Ibiza Sonica is a multi-channel platform, it’s not only Ibiza Sonica, but all the other channels like Sonica Alternative, Sonicalm, Sonica Club, where is the after party? I mean, there’s a few. Also, we have corporate radio stations like Blue Marlin Ibiza radio on Bless your sound. Those stations are managed by us, are created by us, and basically, they are like a corporate radio station for a hotel like Bless Hotel which is managed by Andy Wilson, and Blue Marlin Radio using real music that goes into the Blue Marlin Ibiza Beach Club.
Andy: I think again it’s kind of an evolution in the story of Sonica that happened quite organically related to the Internet because, Sonica started out with the idea of being a soundtrack for the day in Ibiza. So, say you start your day at 7:00 o’clock in the morning, for example.
Igor: No, you start your day at that time Andy. I start later.
Andy: Yeah. This is how it started and then some of us have to get up, some of us are just coming in and going to bed or to the after party. We have pretty chilled out music during the day. Lounge music, Balearic vibes we’re talking, not like dance floor music, but then round about 6-7 o’clock people will be finishing from the beach in their cars, getting ready and thinking about going out. We would then start getting into the house music and continue throughout the night so, that by two in the morning it’s probably going to be pretty strong club music, but that was an FM thing. With the Internet we realised that its actually what’s going out around the world. It might be siesta time in Ibiza, but then it’s party time in in Thailand or something. With the Internet we were able to start these other channels where the timing was irrelevant because it’s going to be after party music 24 hours, or Sonicalm is going to be downtempo music for 24 hours, and we incorporated those into the programming of the main Sonica at the appropriate time of day. Now we can have these different genre-based forms, which we kind of started out with Blue Marlin Radio, having corporate channels and for the hotels.We’ve been doing channels for hotels for, I don’t know when precisely, but it must be 12 years ago or something. So, it was from doing these kinds of corporate channels, for want of a better word. We don’t think of Blue Marlin or some of our other clients as corporate, but through that we realized yes, we can do this more specifically for types of music because there’s so much great music out there, you know. And we love all these different genres, so to limit them would be a shame.
Callum: Do you think that radio still has the power to influence the scene as much as it used too? Because obviously back in the 90s or whatever, Radio was a real driving force whereas it seems to be more on demand forms of music and things like that now. Do you think it still has as much influence or power to change things?
Igor: I would like to say yes, but I truly believe no! I remember in the beginning we were having massive audiences worldwide and we just could just feel that part of the world was listening. And at this time, we were playing a lot of funk stuff and it was not getting popular the funk in Ibiza at all. But people were loving to listen to that, so I’m not sure if the music that we play has an influence on the industry.
I don’t feel that. I would love to say yes, but I don’t feel it for sure. If we play more of a specific genre, people are discovering this genre and this genre will get more fans and more followers but saying that it would change or effect the industry at some point, I’m not sure. Maybe, just maybe, we were responsible when the bpm’s were slower a little bit because it was a radio sound, and then you discovered that there were playing this radio sound everywhere.
But let’s remember those times of minimal music, minimal house in Ibiza. For me it wasn’t for us. It was nothing to do with Ibiza, the minimal is more for Berlin, but not for Ibiza in the sunlight. But it was minimal everywhere so I’m not sure if you agree with us or not.
Andy: I agree with everything Igor said about Sonica’s influence. Sonica’s maybe more reactive to the music that is being made outside, rather than influencing, although a lot of our selectors make music as well as being DJ’s. But I think in terms of goods: is radio still relevant in the music scene because it still influences what people listen to? I say yes! Because I think there’s a sort of feedback loop between the people who make music and the people who play it on the radio. If you’re making music wherever it may be, in your home studio or in a forum, a major record label or whatever, you want it to be heard. Especially in this current pandemic era where there’s no live concerts. Radio is really the most direct way of getting music to people’s ears. And I think people like Pete Tong or Giles Peterson to use English examples do you have a lot of influence.
I think some of us in Sonica, what they have is a small influence because we have smaller audiences and listeners. But I think in radio it’s about good selectors, good DJs, whatever genre they’re operating in can be influential within that genre. So, I agree with what Igor says in that at Sonica we might have been playing beautiful deep house music when all the clubs were full of bloody ketamine minimal, but people still carried on listening to Sonica. They didn’t just say oh, that Sonica’s shit! People were like thank God for that, we can like relax a bit. We don’t have to take drugs to listen to this music!
We’ve been going to radio festivals and conferences occasionally over the years, and every time the topic panel discussion: is radio dead? No, it’s not dead. People might have turned more to the internet now there’s so many great radio stations that are only on the Internet, but it’s still radio. I think it’s still radio, but people value a good selector or queue right?
I have Spotify accounts and my children listen to it, my wife listens to it, and I’ll go on there and check out some releases and things on it, but I’d rather go and listen to some show from one of the NTS guys, or one of the Sonica channels, or and catch up with Giles Peterson show. If you know what you like, then there’s always a radio that will give you interesting music.
Igor: This is the feeling that we have Callum. Sonica is not playing the game with the radios, so when the people are choosing whether to listen to one radio or the other, I don’t think Sonica is in this group. It’s rather: shall I look for a playlist on Spotify or do I prefer the guys from Sonica to create the music for me? I think they choose Sonica because they know that there is a responsibility here of creating high quality music selections for the moment.
Andy: A DJ is always going be more interesting than an algorithm. We’re living in a time where corporate companies are trying to replace so many jobs. Whether it’s buying your **** in the supermarket or a DJ, so they’re not having my job. I’m not being replaced by an algorithm because, you know, I’ve spent 50 years listening to music and picking the good stuff, and that’s what us radio guys do. You can’t swap us for an algorithm.
Miguel: One final point regarding the future of Sonica is that like many businesses, the Covid pandemic has completely destroyed our business model in the sense that Sonica has always been about the listener, but we’ve had brands, clubs and promoters who’ve been able to finance our work. But that’s all fallen away now because as you know there’s no live broadcast from clubs, there’s no festivals to promote, there’s none of that happening anymore. So, there’s been a radical rethink of how we can keep going forward and a subscription model is the logical step. That’s not to say that Sonica is not going to disappear behind a paywall but were working on a new application which will use artificial intelligence and state of the art modeling that’ll help listeners have a bit more control over what they listen to and when. I’m not talking about algorithms for the actual music, but what shows or what time of day. So, it will be more on demand, more access to different channels, but with some subscription tiers involved. That’s really the only way to keep going under the current circumstances.
I think now that people are more used to paying for content it has to be like that, and I think people have to support the content creators. We still have running costs. You look at a lot of the successful stations like KCRW in the US or NTS in the UK that work with subscription models and it works for them, so that’s where we’re at going forward.
As an extra benefit, we have received 5 wonderful mixes from the main selectors of Ibiza Sonica to get you grooving and feeling good.
If you want to listen to Ibiza Sonica or any other of their amazing range of online radio shows then head over to their website.
You can also keep up to date with everything Ibiza Sonica is doing by liking their Facebook page.
