Canadian music producer and DJ, Felix Cartal first began his music career by playing the bass guitar for a local punk band called Dysfunctional. It wasn’t until after the band’s break-up in 2006, that Felix began to fully experiment with electronic dance music.
Cartal, who is often referred to as “Felix Cartel” after being mislabeled by one of his music promoters early on in his musical career, struggles with the typo to this day. The prevalent mispronunciation of his alias has prompted him to add “felix cartal not felix cartel” to his Instagram bio.
Regardless of how people refer to him, there’s undoubtedly only one Felix Cartal and his catalogue of catchy tunes like “Keep Up,” “New Scene,”and “Love Me” have placed him on our the radar in 2019. This is Take 5 with Felix Cartal!
New Music: “Love Me” Featuring Lights.
Dayanna Ramirez: I’m here with Felix Cartel [sic], how are you? I’m so excited that you’re here today.
Felix Cartal: I’m good, thanks for having me.
Dayanna Ramirez: Thanks for being here at the Nexus Lounge in Miami beach.
Felix Cartal: It’s very ‘loungey.’
Dayanna Ramirez: Do you feel very comfortable there?
Felix Cartal: I do.
Dayanna Ramirez: So, I’m going to ask you some really crazy questions, but also maybe some serious ones. So, let’s start with maybe with like a serious one. Do you want fun or serious?
Felix Cartal: I’m down for either.
Dayanna Ramirez: Okay. So, first you had something coming with Lights. Tell me more about it.
Felix Cartal: It’s a single that I did with Lights called Love Me, came out on Valentine’s Day.
Dayanna Ramirez: Oh, cute!
Felix Cartal: Yeah, Love Me, Valentine’s Day. I’m Canadian and she’s Canadian as well, and I’ve been a fan of hers for so long. I met her last year at a party and we just kind of connected and wrote this song together and now it’s finally out and it’s going really well.
Polka-EDM?
Dayanna Ramirez: That’s awesome! Alright, so we’ve ‘broken the ice’…now, we’re going to get into some other questions. So, you’re in a car with your favorite DJ. Who is picking the songs and who is this person?
Felix Cartal: Oh Man. Well, I feel like if I’m in the car with my favorite DJ, then he has to be picking the music. Isn’t that…
Dayanna Ramirez: Is that fair? Or you could like co-pilot.
Felix Cartal: I think I would probably pick Justice just because they’re… like kind of the guys that got me into a little bit of a dance music. And they had an essential mix that I always thought was amazing because it was really unpredictable. So that’s why I would let them pick the music because they’d throw in something weird that I wouldn’t expect and I would be like ‘respect guys, respect.’
Dayanna Ramirez: So on that note, is there a music style or something and kind of heard, that you would want to experiment with that you haven’t done yet?
Felix Cartal: Interesting. I grew up playing in bands and stuff, so I think I’d like to go back to doing it a little more like live music and live instruments with some of my songs. But I don’t know, sometimes when I think about genre mashups, there’s so many bad ones that I’m scared a little bit. Like, this is like, you know, like Polka-EDM and I’m like ‘No! that never never should have happened!’
Dayanna Ramirez: I feel like maybe you can make it work somehow…
Felix Cartal: You’re giving me way too much credit.
The Crazy Dutch Life
Dayanna Ramirez: Too much then. Okay, here’s a scenario and I want you to be perfectly honest with me. This is going to be a hard one. Okay? You’re a Superhero, but you can only choose one of three different abilities. One, you can predict when someone is about to fart. Two, you can tell when someone has had a new haircut. Three, you glow but not in the dark. What do you choose?
Felix Cartal: Those are all terrible. Is that the idea? Like they all really bad?
Dayanna Ramirez: Yes. They’re all really terrible superhero powers.
Felix Cartal: Probably the fart one just cause then I can avoid it. I can Just like, slowly exit the room.
Dayanna Ramirez: That’s probably a good idea. I would probably choose that as well.
Felix Cartal: Gross. A little gross and not a great super power, but if those are my options [laughs].
Dayanna Ramirez: So, let’s say you’re given the ability to trade places with one person from the industry […] for one day. Who do you pick? And what would you do? Would you go back to Justice?
Felix Cartal: No, I can’t do them again. That’s not fair. I kinda just want to be Tiesto for a day. Just cause’ I love him and he’s always been amazingly nice to me. But I feel like we’re very opposite people. So, I think if I’m going to be in someone else’s shoes I might as well go to the other end of the spectrum. Just experience that crazy Dutch EDM life [laughs].
Dayanna Ramirez: How crazy do you think it will get?
Felix Cartal: I don’t know. Probably, like if he has a bunch of gigs, it could be like multiple private jet flights in one day, that could be nice!
Dayanna Ramirez: That could be so terrible.
Felix Cartal: Yeah, sounds horrible.
Coke Slurpee
Dayanna Ramirez: Okay. Name one ridiculous thing that you would be able to add to your rider. Let me rephrase that, what would you add to your rider if you could? And it has to be ridiculous.
Felix Cartal: Has to be ridiculous? Well, I (already) have a ridiculous thing on my rider.
Dayanna Ramirez: Okay. What do you have?
Felix Cartal: I have like a Coke Slurpee from 7/11…
Dayanna Ramirez: Okay, that’s delicious.
Felix Cartal: Yeah, but it’s kind of been a hassle for people. I think I took it off actually like a few months ago, just because people would always bring it to the club and they were like trying to keep it half frozen. I was starting to feel like I was being an inconvenience and I really don’t want to be that.
Dayanna Ramirez: So, would you maybe remove that from your rider and I add something different?
Felix Cartal: I did the opposite of the question [laughs]. No, I actually saw this the other day on Twitter. Someone said it- it’s not ridiculous, but I just thought it was nice. Like, ask the club to make a donation to a charity of your choice.
Dayanna Ramirez: Oh, that’s really cool!
Felix Cartal: Which actually, it was a really great idea! Because there’s so much dumb [censored] people put on their riders, and I’m like, dude, do you really need the cheese platter? Like really?
Dayanna Ramirez: I mean, why can’t you have both though? A cheese platter and a donation?
Felix Cartal: No! I’m laying down the law that DJs should all remove their cheese platters, cause it’s getting out of hand! [laughs]
Dayanna Ramirez: It’s too much cheese guys! Too much cheese.
Felix Cartal: Yeah, no one’s eating that much cheese before they DJ.
Upcoming Shows
Dayanna Ramirez: Alright, so what’s next for you? Any upcoming collaborations? New music? Tours, etc.?
Felix Cartal: Yes. So, I’m starting a tour halfway through April with Frank Walker, he’s another Canadian DJ. Very talented young man. And yeah, we’re playing with a bunch of shows together. I think it’s about 14 dates, all across North America. And we have a song coming out as well, but the release date is to-be-determined.
Dayanna Ramirez: Oooh, You guys always keep me hanging with these releases.
Felix Cartal: I’m hanging too, I wish I knew [laughs].
Dayanna Ramirez: Well, thank you so much!
Felix Cartal: Thanks for having me.
