Why Etc!Etc! Is Taking Ownership Of His Genre's Cool Factor

It’s taken a few days to track down Guerrero for this interview since, when it was originally arranged, he was off-radar on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. But don’t imagine that Guerrero was languishing with wealthy retirees. He was playing Diplo’s inaugural Mad Decent Boat Party, entailing a bash on the shores of a private island. “It was one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had in my whole life,” Guerrero extols.

Guerrero, a self-proclaimed “DJ, producer, motivational speaker, coffee addict and cookie enthusiast”, is back home in the San Fernando Valley where he grew up – and is now raising a family. “I just bought a house out here.” Next, he’ll join Bro Safari’s US tour.

Guerrero has no official bio and so the only way to construct a narrative of his life and career is to extrapolate info from other (mostly blog) interviews – yet each reveals something apparently contradictory. He’s been a rock kid and a b-boy. How, then, did Guerrero end up creating EDM – let alone moombahton? The truth is that, even in his youth, Guerrero never fixated on any sole genre. “There’s a lotta phases that I went through,” he relates. “I did grow up listening to a lot of bands. I think it just came from my parents – but they were listening to Hispanic bands, so I started doing that. I listened to that stuff growing up and I got into bands very early – and then The Beatles were one of my first influences in elementary [school]. Then I did go through a hip hop phase. That was when Eminem got big and Cash Money Records – like Lil Wayne and stuff like that… But I still always listened to bands – I would always go to concerts. It wasn’t ‘til I think after high school when I started making my own music – mainly because I was in bands, [but] then they don’t work out after a while, so I just started producing my own beats and started making my own music, sending that over to, like, Diplo… That’s kinda when the moombahton thing took off – it was more dancehally stuff that I was making. And, then, yeah, here I am today!”

During his band phase Guerrero gravitated to “dirty electro” acts such as MSTRKRFT. He dug, too, those profligate club remixes of indie groups like MGMT – and the electronic rock band The Faint. “I jumped on that wagon,” he admits. Yet Guerrero settled on moombahton as his style of choice. Ironically, when initially exposed to moombahton, he wasn’t feeling it. But Guerrero came around, cutting 2011’s Alarma with Kid Cedek. Meanwhile, the DJ developed his trademark robot imagery – or “logo”. “I’ve always liked robots – it’s a thing since I was little,” he says. “I’ve always collected ‘em. I think liking Daft Punk made me like robots even more… It just stuck, ‘cause it’s kinda like a nostalgic thing – when you see robots, you think of when you were a kid, maybe. I know at least I do!” Guerrero ultimately intends to incorporate the robot into his live set-up, but he won’t be wearing a helmet – that would be “too cliché” (and “too weird”).

"It was one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had in my whole life."

In 2012 Guerrero issued a pivotal EP, the moombahtrap Bueller with Brillz and Diplo, through Mad Decent (on the tail of his Killafornia EP via AC Slater’s Party Like Us). He was also meant to release Bluh! on Teenage Riot – the label of MSTKRFT’s Jesse F Keeler. But, despite other DJs dropping it, the track never surfaced. “Something happened and it got delayed and eventually they had a problem putting the record out,” Guerrero says. Keeler was distracted by the reunion of his rock outfit Death From Above 1979. The Canadian sought to belatedly schedule Bluh! but, at that stage, Guerrero decided that it was “dated”. “I don’t wanna put something out where someone’s like, ‘Ah, what is this?’ Which I’m sure I’ve already done – but whatever!”

As with dubstep prior to it, moombahton has been rinsed, but the genre is constantly mutating – lately latching onto trap. If Guerrero is dismayed at moombahton’s co-option, he doesn’t say so. “When a genre gets popular, everyone starts making it, and the big players start making it – [but] then that’s cool, because it shows how big it’s getting. I think it has maintained its integrity. A lot of people started making it when it first became popular, just like trap or anything else – like everyone will start making it. But it’s up to me to keep it my style or keep making it different or keep it going the way that I think will keep it alive.”

Guerrero has new music coming. Recently, the DJ, who “trapped” Cedric Gervais’ remix of Lana Del Rey’s Summertime Sadness, has completed successive remixes – including one of MIA’s Partysquad-helmed Double Bubble Trouble from her year-old Matangi LP with former Shady Records (and Eminem) DJ Green Lantern that he dubs “a moombahton twerk-out”. “We have the same manager,” Guerrero divulges of his surprise collaborator. “My manager is always like, ‘Hey, you guys should work together’. So this remix came up and he was like, ‘Hey, Green Lantern is doing this remix for MIA – you guys should work on it together’. Then I shot [Green Lantern] a few ideas and he liked them.” Guerrero has just uploaded a bootleg mix of Big Sean’s I Don’t Fuck With You. And, pre-cruise, he tweaked Iggy Azalea’s MØ-featuring Beg For It (the lead single from the album repackage Reclassified) after being approached by her management (“not necessarily her”). “I ended up doing my own little style of it and, yeah, I was happy how it came out.” Guerrero is seemingly unaware of the endless debates about the Aussie femcee’s authenticity. “I love Iggy!” he exclaims. Previously Guerrero (unofficially) remixed the rapper’s Drop That Shit off the Ignorant Art mixtape. Nonetheless, he is anxious to disseminate more original tunes. “I just feel like I’ve gotta get a lot of material out.” Guerrero is looking to air some of that on Mad Decent. “I have an album’s worth of material that I’m pitching to them,” he says.

Guerrero first visited Australia earlier this year – and, while he felt “tired” following a two-week European run, the DJ was excited to check out our scene. “It was fun.” He DJed alongside local ally Spenda C in Sydney, for one. “The scene out there’s beautiful – I mean, everything’s beautiful out there. It just was how I imagined it, I guess.” He’s anticipating summer’s encore tour, again playing several dates nationally. “When they hit me up and they were like, ‘Hey, do you want to come back at the end of this year?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, of course!’ So I’m very stoked.” Before he jets off, Guerrero is aiming to post a fresh DJ mix on SoundCloud – the perfect Breakfest warm-up. “I haven’t done a mix in a long time – so maybe look out for that.” Still, Guerrero concedes that he’ll miss his kids – a daughter, aged four, and infant son – over Christmas. “When I’m gone, it sucks, it hurts – ‘cause I wanna be home with them.” He considered bringing his family to Oz but resolved that, given their ages, the travel would be too rough.

Guerrero’s offspring often wander into his domestic studio if he’s producing, but they’ve so far shown little interest in music. “They’re too busy doing other stuff, I think – they just like doing their own thing,” he laughs. “My daughter watches too much TV and my son plays with too many Toy Story toys, so they don’t care what I do.” Where are the robots?