Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.06.2019, Qupperneq 35

Music 35The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 10— 2019
First Blood:
Meet ROKKY
The new club kid on the block
Words: Rex Beckett Photo: Vigdís Erla Guttormsdóttir
Single & Concert
ROKKY’s “Deux” is out now. See
her play live at the Secret Solstice
Festival 2019.
Sometimes all it takes is the right
song. Quite suddenly last fall, new-
comer producer ROKKY dropped
a single that would single-hand-
edly put her on charts, in festival
lineups, and land in an Esprit com-
mercial. The song, “My Lips,” is a
thumping clubby electro-pop bang-
er that quickly caught the attention
of dance music blogs and lovers
alike. Having recently released her
second sensuous track, “Deux,”
she’s all set to take the stage at Se-
cret Solstice.
The mysterious yet buoyant
Berlin-based artist, who prefers
to simply be known by her alias,
was born in Oxford to Icelandic
parents, and raised in several cit-
ies around Europe, as well as Ice-
land. ROKKY started her current
project two years ago while living
in France as an au pair, dedicating
her down time to music. “I had
my recording stuff with me and
when I had time off I would always
just record,” she says. “I recorded
a lot of the songs that will be on
my first EP, which is coming out
later this year.”
Put something down
ROKKY was encouraged by her
friends in the dance-pop group
Sofi Tukker to send them her mu-
sic, which they threw
their support behind
and briefly negotiated
a possible record deal.
“That really gave me
the confidence that
people seemed to like
my music,” she says.
“I didn’t have that
confidence before. In
the end I didn’t sign,
but then I decided to
release my first song
independently. Then
I got the Esprit thing
and the ball started
rolling.”
Despite the time it took her to
gain confidence, music came to her
early from both her parents and she
developed the urge to produce very
young. “I just always wanted to re-
cord,” she says. “I would make songs
with my sister when I was seven or
something, and I’d be writing stu-
pid lyrics. I finally got a Mac when I
was 13 or 14 and it had Garage Band
so I was like, ‘This is amazing! Now
I can finally put something down!’”
Written on iPad
She started off teaching herself re-
cording using the built-in samples
in Garage Band and subsequent-
ly taught herself guitar—but she
was primarily hooked by electronic
music.
“I used to use my electric guitar
more to record and I’d just plug it
into my iPad,” she says, adding that
she wrote “My Lips” entirely on her
iPad. “Now I’m mostly just sitting
at the laptop. I don’t have any gear
so I’m just making all the stuff on
my laptop.”
ROKKY moved to Berlin six
years ago and started
absorbing first-hand
the music that in-
spires her the most. “I
love the music here,”
she says. “I love going
out. I don’t go out as
much but if I do, I go
out until 10 am. I do a
whole night. It’s never
just two hours. You’re
in or you’re out.”
Her music re-
flects this sort of all-
in vibrancy, highly
energetic and sensu-
al. “If I want a song to
sound better I just listen to some of
my house techno stuff,” she says.
“I would say that it’s just happy
dancing music. I’m just smiling
the whole time on the dance floor
and that’s what I want for my music
as well. Just have fun. Don’t think
about it too much.”
“I’m just
smiling the
whole time
on the dance
floor and
that’s what
I want for
my music as
well.”
ROKKY's gonna knock you out
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