Lucien Nicolet, AKA Luciano, is one of the biggest names in the music industry. In an exclusive interview ahead of the birth of his seventh child, he speaks to L&rsquo;OFFICIEL IBIZA&rsquo;s Maya Boyd about humble roots, barefoot parties and why family always comes first.

Maya Boyd: You&rsquo;re always referred to in the press as Swiss Chilean &ndash; can you expand a little about your childhood and where you were raised?
Luciano: My great, great grandfather on my mother&rsquo;s side of the family emigrated from Palestine to South America many years ago. He and each of his siblings went to a different country &ndash; one to Brazil, one to Colombia and so on. My great, great grandfather chose Chile and so three generations later my mother was born there. Just before the start of the Pinochet regime, when the country began to feel uneasy, she decided to leave Chile and move to Europe. An aunt of hers was living in Switzerland so she went there to study and work. Just as she was finishing her studies she met my father, a young man from a very remote Swiss village &ndash; a totally disparate background &ndash; and they fell in love and got married. My sister and I were born in a tiny mountain village like something out of Heidi.
MB: Chile is the country you&rsquo;re most associated with &ndash; when did you return there?
L: My mother was never particularly happy in Europe, and when her and my father divorced, she decided to go home. We went from an Alpine village life to inner city Santiago &ndash; you can&rsquo;t imagine a sharper contrast. We come from a very humble background and even though my mother was very hardworking we didn&rsquo;t have much money. The culture shock was huge. We lived in rough neighbourhoods in a vast city which was - and still is &ndash; dangerous. My sister and I had to learn to adapt, fast. We had to learn the codes of the street, the way to act, how to speak without getting singled out for being different. One shred of a Swiss accent and we&rsquo;d have been in trouble. But in other ways Santiago felt familiar &ndash; there were people speaking our mother&rsquo;s language, eating the same dishes she&rsquo;d always cooked us. With hindsight, having the opportunity to change and grow like that was the best thing that could ever happened to me.&nbsp;

Luciano

MB: You&rsquo;ve been making music since your early years. How did your love affair with production begin?
L: In Santiago we were lucky to get a great education because my mother taught at the private French school. The structure of school was hard for me &ndash; I was already a little <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/fashion/vivienne-westwood-sex-pistols-and-the-origins-of-punk-fashion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">punk</a> with piercings and pink hair and I hated being forced into uniform. Looking back, I think I carried a lot of anger about not having a father figure around. But it was a very good school and the friends I made there are still my best friends today. But of course, I ended up getting kicked out, and that&rsquo;s when my musical journey began. My mother bought me a guitar to give me some direction and I taught myself to play. No classes, no teachers, just learning melodies by myself. I met a local punk band who used a drum machine and that was revolutionary for me, because I could make all the sounds myself. I got totally hooked on making <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/music/15-minutes-with-sadeedo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">electronic music</a> and by 15 I was DJing with tapes.
MB: Ibiza has been a huge story in your life. How did you first arrive on the island?
L: There was a time in my life when Chile didn&rsquo;t feel so great &ndash; a neighbour had ratted me out and I&rsquo;d been arrested and put in jail briefly for possession of weed. It was only for very short time but the prison I was in was the worst in Santiago. The night I arrived another inmate was set on fire. I was quite traumatized when I got out and I needed a change of scene. I won a ticket to New York in a competition and from there I decided to go to Europe to meet up with Ricardo Villalobos, who I knew from the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/the-heritage-project-jaime-fiorito-shines-a-spotlight-on-ibiza-s-rich-musical-his" target="_blank" rel="noopener">music scene</a>. I went to Berlin and to Frankfurt and then on to Ibiza where Ricardo was living. It was 1997 and he was working in a tiny record shop upstairs in Plaza del Parque. We shared a bedroom in his apartment and spent all our time recording music. This was the era of main room New York house on one side of the island and a more progressive, trance sound on the other, with Sasha and Digweed. Then there was the Balearic scene, with Jos&eacute; de Divina, Jose Padilla and Alfredo. What Ricardo and I were playing was something that didn&rsquo;t exist yet &ndash; it was the beginning of the more organic, minimal sound and it felt very exciting. The first gig I ever played in <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/ibiza-and-formentera-history-ibiza-hippies-and-hashish-ibiza-s-bohemian-past" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ibiza</a> was that summer at Sa Trinxa.

Luciano - Portside Chinois

MB: You&rsquo;re one of the few DJs who has been associated with all of Ibiza&rsquo;s main clubs at one point or another. How did that happen?
<a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/the-best-images-from-ibiza-s-2023-summer-season" target="_blank" rel="noopener">L: DC-10</a> was the first club where I really found a home for my sound. I remember being there one Monday afternoon. I was barefoot and the sun was shining. Tanya Vulcano played a record I&rsquo;d been working on and I was introduced to <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/music/antonio-carbonaro-interview-circoloco">Antonio </a>[Carbonaro, founder of Circoloco] and Andrea [Pelino, co-owner of DC-10]. It was an immediate connection with those guys and they asked me to play a couple of weeks later. Ibiza had such a wild vibe in those days. It was so free. There were no cell phones, no internet. You never knew what was going to happen. You&rsquo;d be hanging out with pop singers and supermodels and movie actors and nobody cared. Nobody cared about the way you dressed; how much money you had. No-one gave a damn as long as you were having a good time. I think it was this freedom that attracted all of us. That&rsquo;s what really caught our attention. Of course, Cocoon at <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/15-minutes-with-joseph-capriati" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amnesia</a> became a home for me later on, then Pacha, La Plage, Ushua&iuml;a. I&rsquo;ve always liked to stay independent and not get too attached to one scene or another.
MB: You&rsquo;re known as the king of the afterparty. What is it about afterhours events that you love?
L: For me, it about celebration. It's about throwing a great party. I&rsquo;ve always said that clubs and parties are the new churches. I&rsquo;m not a religious person but I&rsquo;m spiritual and I have a great deal of faith. Young people don't go to church anymore, they go to parties instead. In Chile we had this really strong culture of the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/back-to-mine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">afterparty</a>, simply because music sounds better in the day. We are day animals. We&rsquo;re made to see colours. We&lsquo;re not made for the night. I&rsquo;ve always believed that music sounds better in the daytime. It makes people interact differently when you play a sexy melody or a great vocal as the sun beats down. In Ibiza, you combine that with magical colours of the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/the-scent-of-an-island-ibiza-s-natural-fragrances" target="_blank" rel="noopener">smell of island</a>, the trees, the pines, the rosemary. The beautiful blue of the ocean. All these things combined with great music are the perfect cocktail for me.
MB: You&rsquo;re about to become a father to your seventh child. How do you balance being&nbsp; a family man and an international performer?
L: My children are the greatest pride of my life. My eldest is 23 and my youngest is about to be born. My first priority when it comes to career is always my family. I come from nothing and now I have a beautiful life and I take care of my family, my mom, my sisters. I want to have the time to enjoy that, so I refuse probably 80 percent of work that comes my way. That way, when I do finish a gig, I&rsquo;m full of energy and positive thoughts. I don't want this to become like a job. I will produce music till I die, but there are incredible ways to do that. Last August I went on an expedition to the North Pole with the explorer Mike Horn. While everybody in Ibiza in midsummer was fighting about residencies and contracts, I was recording the sound of the disappearing ice. I&rsquo;ve always known what I wanted to do. Since I was 15, I never questioned it. I always say to my kids that I don't have a special talent. I'm just a guy who knew what he wanted to do from a very early age, and I never let anything distract me. I think anybody who practices and practices can become whatever they want to be. You just have to believe in yourself.&nbsp;&nbsp;

‘No-one gave a damn as long as you were having a good time’: An audience with Luciano.

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