It’s not that much of a stretch to imagine Gordo, the prolific producer and DJ, spending hours upon debauched hours at Berghain, the wild, no-fucks-given Berlin techno haven known for hard music and hard partying, housed in a cavernous power plant in East Berlin. It’s a bit harder to picture him there with Drake — yet a couple weeks back, Gordo somehow convinced the superstar (whose music Gordo has often produced) to hang out at the club beloved for excess, orgies, and unmatched sound systems.
A couple things to clear up, though: First of all, there were no special celebrity perks or security to get inside; they waited in line like everybody else and tried to make it through the notoriously strict door policy. “All I’m going to say is there was no extra or special service. There was nothing. We walked right to the front, no paying, nothing,” Gordo tells Rolling Stone on a recent call from Amsterdam.
Second, he had tweeted that they spent about three hours there (“Me & Drake went to berghain last night no security and listened to industrial techno for about 3 hours…. Probably top 5 most insane nights of my life”), but Gordo would like to state for the record that he stayed until the next morning, which is pretty much what you’re supposed to do when you get into Berghain. “I don’t know any fucking person on this planet that can get Drake into Berghain and make him stay for more than 20 minutes. The fact that I had him there for two to three hours, I deserve my kudos. On top of that, there’s people commenting, ‘Oh, just three hours?’ I stayed there until like 6 or 7 a.m., but you’re also talking to a guy who can DJ for 14 hours.”
Gordo won’t talk too much about what happened once they went inside, though he says they spent a while at the club’s Panorama Bar before fans began recognizing Drake. But even for Gordo, who has played wild sets at some of the biggest electronic festivals on the face of the planet, the entire thing was unlike any other club experience he’s ever had. “I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere in the world. It blew my mind. I’m also one of those DJs that have seen a lot of crazy things,” he says.
Aside from club nights, Gordo is in the middle of a bunch of stuff. He’s working on his own music after releasing his stellar, star-packed album Diamante from last year. The LP went double-platinum and had everyone from Leon Bridges to Fuerza Regida on it but still sounded uniquely like Gordo. “I know a lot of artists that have done this and do these records where they get a bunch of random people on it, but they’re just weird or experimental, but I felt like every single one of those records are tasteful,” he shares.
There’s no title or concrete idea for the new project, though he has been thinking about how it’s going to sound. “I want it to get back to the deep house roots and really deep-dive into it,” he says. “I have a couple of records that are ready to go, but there’s no rush. Everything is, everything is, I don’t like to rush things. Everything happens organically.”
But first, he has to finish work on Drake’s upcoming album Iceman, expected out later this year. “I’m gearing up for this next chapter of my life, which I my next project, and getting ready to get Drake’s album ready to go,” he explains. He doesn’t have details about when it’s coming: “All I know is make beats, send to him and wait to see what happens.”
For now, Gordo is focusing on touring, with massive sets coming up in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro. The Brazil date is actually part of a huge birthday celebration he’s cooking up. “We have a massive lineup, so that’s what I’m actually most excited about.” All of it, he hopes, will kick off an even bigger year.
