Gary Richards is what you could call the Godfather of electronic music as we know it today. A music executive, concert promoter, label owner and much more, you may also know him by his stage name as a DJ and producer: Destructo.

Since its founding in 2007, Richards has also been CEO of HARD Events, a now-international music festival brand now expanding out to Australia for their first HARD Australia touring festival, kicking off from Perth on December 1st, travelling through Adelaide and Sydney, and then finishing up in Brisbane on the 4th.

Richards is no rookie in the music industry, as he has been DJing for over 20 years now, watching the EDM sub-community grow and expand into the cultural phenomenon it is today. A hugely influential figure in the world of electronic music, he regularly finds his way onto lists like Rolling Stone’s ’50 Most Important People in EDM’ and inthemix’s ’50 Most Powerful People in EDM’.

Talking to us, he recounts the early days when he worked for music industry titan Rick Rubin under American Recordings, signing electronic artists in the early days.When I worked at American [Recordings], I didn’t have much impact because we had a lot of great music but we had no way to get it out to the people. You know we had all this really cool stuff only no one would listen to it ‘cause the radio wouldn’t play it.”.

Yet all that was needed from the beginning when as Richards says business-wise, it was a dud”, was a little bit of focus and passion for the genre to suddenly shoot into the mainstream sphere. “In the beginning,” Richards says “I thought, ‘Why isn’t this the biggest thing in the world?’”. While talking to him, his ardent passion for electronic music was clear, and there was no wonder how he has reached the heights that he has throughout his years in the business and community.

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When Richards talks his personal beginnings he says, “When I was younger, I was kinda mad if other people would listen to the music we would listen to but as I got older, I realised I was just a selfish kid”. He continues to say how as the genre grew in popularity (“we were validated”) and, upon reaching his own success, he felt “glad to be making a living out of it”.

When asked to describe his career, Richards humbly replied, “It feels great! I mean I don’t really know how to describe it, it’s just what I do. It’s kinda like if I got up and went down to a store, it’s just my job”.

Though in the beginnings of his now globally expansive festivals company, HARD Events, it wasn’t all so easy honing the audience and drawing a crowd. The first HARD in 2008 event Richards says “we had a six figure loss” despite the massive line-up including alternative rock legends N.E.R.D and other hugely popular electronic DJs MSTRKRFT and A-Track.

Yet, in the last few years Richards says “Daft Punk was there in my catering, hanging out” and “Calvin [Harris], Skrillex and the Weeknd were punters”, which really goes to show how far HARD in itself has come in building a fanbase of its own and, in turn, popularising EDM even further than originally imagined.

As mentioned earlier HARD Australia is about to kick off, which is very exciting for all Australian electronic music fans grieving over the respective hiatus and death of Stereosonic and Future Music Festival in the past two years, the two festivals previously the only mainstream EDM festivals in Australia. Richards says this year for HARD Australia “the bill is stacked”, boasting artists Zeds Dead, Ghastly and of course Richards himself as Destructo onstage. On what he sees in the future of the company and the HARD community, Richards says the plan is to “keep on growing and we’ll see what happens”.

Looking into the future of EDM, Richards believes “It’s so widespread, I don’t see it slowing down. The [artists] that aren’t so good will go bye-bye,” Richards explains, “It’s like mother nature, It’ll kind do what it does”. It surely seems that from this point EDM is here to stay, absolutely, in part, due to the trailblazers at the forefront such as Richards himself.

On Richards’ Facebook page, there is an excellent photo of the man himself posed with rapper Eazy E standing next to him and Jerry Heller with his arm over Richard’s shoulder. “My dad works in the industry,” says Richards, “and he told me we were going down to see Eazy-E and Jerry Heller and I was like, ‘I’m there!’ We had dinner and all I remember is, I just met Eazy-E!

Deeply-rooted in the EDM scene and community and clearly zealous for his line of work within it, Richards will be down under at Perth’s very own HARD Australia this Thursday to draw in the energy and watch his magnificent creation unfold in new lands.

HARD Australia Dates

Thursday December 1 – Metro City, Perth
Friday December 2 – Adelaide Showgrounds, Adelaide
Saturday December 3 – Theatre of the Horse, Sydney
Sunday December 5 – Brisbane Showgrounds, Brisbane

Tickets and info

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